The World Who Wants It? [Paperback]

Ben Nicholson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2004

War, Peace and Parades: The New American Century from New York to Jerusalem.

What if, instead of a towering memorial on the site of Ground Zero, U.S. leaders decided to melt down all the gold in Fort Knox and pour it into the WTC footprints? How would the world change if America pioneered the ethical distribution of oil? If the FDA developed a pill that produced a three-hour orgasm?

For Ben Nicholson, such plans are not only useful for U.S. stability, but absolutely essential for world peace. The World Who Wants It? envisages an America full of credit card cemeteries, a tax on workers for taking vacations that are too short and an annual "Are You With Us or Against Us?" parade.

Standing apart from the current literature about the state of the word, nicholson's book proposes an action plan that radically advances American values, ultimately leading to a strategy for turning Jerusalem into a cradle of religious harmony. With a glance at America's present, Nicholson peers into its future to aim a satirical swipe at U.S. foreign and domestic policy.

Nicholson draws inspiration from politics, architecture and philosophy to demonstrate how the American dream can extend beyond its borders t become a vision for global peace.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Nicholson offers a biting satiric vision which overturns political hierarchies and gleefully violates American consumer habits. -- Dr Peg Birmingham, De Paul University

Nicholson sees America with astonishing, jaundiced clarity...Buy it, read it and weep! -- Michael Sorkin

From the Publisher

The World Who Wants It? proposes a concrete plan, albeit satirical, for establishing world peace. Set in the near present, the $100 billion that has been pledged by the United States to address the world's wrongs is used to advocate consumptive constraint and to seek new American values, thus lessening the fury of the Third World against America's apparent wastage, misuse of resources, vice and militaristic bombast. In this vision of a new world order, international policy largely focuses on the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem so as to accomodate all the hopes and aspirations of the three Abrahamic faiths - Christianity, Islam, Judaism.

The starting point for Ben Nicholson's restructuring of the world is the destruction of the World Trade Center, which purported, given its name, to suggest that the building was the center of world trade. When the towers were destroyed they took along with them a myriad of links and responsibilities that course throughout the globe, touching every aspect of life. It is ultimately immaterial what the shape and size of the rebuilt World Trade Center will be, unless the whole world is simultaneously rethought and restructured along with the reconstruction. What, then, would the new world order be?

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Black Dog Publishing (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1904772021
• ISBN-13: 978-1904772026
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,689,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something Very Different, June 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The World Who Wants It? (Paperback)

This book takes a fresh and zany look at the world's all-to-familiar, intractable problems. The author goes after these problems by proposing detailed solutions that range from the clever to the bizarre. Though none of these solutions is practical, many are insightful and thought provoking, while others are just deliciously sarcastic. The author leads the reader down a serpentine, quasilogical path, that is a delight to follow. I thought the book was thoroughly enjoyable.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Whole Truth, June 15, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The World Who Wants It? (Paperback)

It takes a keen and courageous observer to lay bare the hypocracy of the sole world superpower, and to do so with enough irony and humor to keep a twinkle in a reader's eye. Ben Nicholson is such a writer, and this book gives hope that not everyone is being made subservient to a conservative agenda. In fact, the importance of this book is that it really takes no specific political stance, because really it is outlining a broad critique of quite fundamental American stupidities - not reserved to either Republicans or Democrats.

This book is important because its extreme suppositions and speculations are only implausible within a momentary context - America shows again and again it's ability to go beyond, (for good and for evil), everything we can imagine at this present moment.

But mostly, this is just a good read, building momentum and constructing linkages and scenarios that would make Raymond Roussel proud - had he ever written a political novel.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Force of Imagination, November 6, 2004

By 

Donald Sherefkin (Vermont) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The World Who Wants It? (Paperback)

The 9/11 commission blamed the terrorist attacks on our "Failure of Imagination." The kind of imagination that they were referring to was one which could anticipate horrific acts against Americans.

The dismal results of our recent election indicate that we have successfully learned to imagine the worst, and expect leaders who will exploit that fear in the most cynical possible ways.

Ben Nicholson has no failure of imagination. But his imagination is positive, constructive and frequently brilliant. His training as an architect allows him to evaluate a broad array of International issues, and to generate creative and usually unexpected insights into ways of re-imagining solutions.

If you despair over America's response to the world since 9/11, this book will serve as a useful antidote, showing what is possible with a healthy imagination.