The Twilight of Sovereignty Walter B. Wriston Charles Scribner's Sons, New York (1992) Putting a revolution into historical context during the revolution is a pretty neat trick.  This book does it for the information revolution we have been living through these last couple decades. Book Review © Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC

Inspired by a recent conversation with a Middle Eastern bank CEO, I reread the profound thoughts of Walter Wriston, former CEO of Citicorp.  I know of no other book that so adequately describes the changes that are taking place throughout the world economically, technologically, and politically.  As befits a renowned global banker, one who was in the forefront of the transition from the staid old way of banking into the global financial community linked in real time, Wriston ranges widely over the world and through history to make his points.

Especially when one considers he penned these thoughts at the beginning of this decade, Wriston's analyses and predictions have been remarkably prescient.  Of course, there is no mention of the Internet, the World Wide Web, cybertraders, and other such commonplace terms in our media today.  Though he did not foresee all the details, he surely got the broad picture correct.

Wriston's central thesis is that information frees us, a force that cannot be stopped.  An ingot of iron is of a certain size: if divided, those who have it, only possess a piece of it.  Iron is a zero-sum game. Information is just the opposite: when given away, it multiplies.  Information is a positive-sum game.

The sovereignty Wriston refers to is the supreme power enjoyed by a state with respect to regulating the behavior of people and institutions within its borders.  Such a political idea depends on physical space and physical items that can be seen, touched, and weighed.  It's easy to count, track, and tax things.  Not so in the new economy where the driving force of information provides the value added to products and is often the product itself.  Information products have no intrinsic physical existence.  How does one count or value an idea?  How does one track it across a border?  Or tax it?

Information, shared widely by technology (computers, phone lines, videotapes, satellite transmissions on CNN), has been a major factor in the breaking up of old style regimes and freeing of the talents of their people.  Information has changed the dynamics of trade.  Information has transformed the nature of money.  No longer is money something that shines and can be weighed.  Today it is a series of bits on a computer somewhere, accessed by a magnetic strip on the back of a small piece of plastic.  One can argue there is more value in the information about a financial transaction than there is in the transaction itself!

No longer can people horde information and use it solely for their own purposes, be that good or evil.  Today the world is so networked that information flows instantaneously across the globe.  Within minutes anyone and everyone can know and then make decisions based on that information.  Think back to mid-1997 when the Asian economic turmoil erupted.  This was not a geographically isolated crisis, but one that was felt everywhere at once.

My only complaint about The Twilight of Sovereignty is that Wriston's writing doesn't sparkle.  Indeed, at times it really is pedestrian,  But his thoughts never are.  The persistent reader will see the context for the unrelenting change we all experience.

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