Global business columnist Rana Foroohar gave her insights on the political and economic landscape during the first event of the Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs’ spring lecture series on Feb. 6. Lampert Institute Director Illan Nam said Foroohar has covered and written about, over several decades, big structural developments in the economy and their effects upon our national politics, security, and society.
Nam referenced Foroohar’s latest book, Homecoming, where she identifies the effects that globalization has had upon inequality, economic structure, and political polarization and makes a compelling argument that we are moving away from the period of unchastened globalization — captured by Tom Friedman's book, The World is Flat — and entering a period of greater localization, which inspired the title of Foroohar’s lecture.
“I think we are as a society beginning to reconsider the whole nature of growth. GDP growth for its own sake is something that is really no longer enough,” Foroohar said, noting that there is a bipartisan understanding that the world is moving to a different future. “We need a deeper, richer, more communal kind of growth.”
Foroohar is a global business columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times and a global economic analyst at CNN. Sought after for her astute analysis, Foroohar speaks to the changes occurring in business, politics, economics, and foreign affairs. Her weekly column is a real-time commentary on emerging markets, the effects of globalization, and the disruption of big tech. She also pens the FT’s Swamp Notes alongside Ed Luce, discussing the intersection of money and power in U.S. politics.
“I hope her insights about how the global economy is changing help students better understand the important debates about industrial policy and national security,” Nam said.
Upcoming Lampert Institute lectures:
David Brooks, Best-selling author and New York Times op-ed columnist
4:30–6:00 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 20, Golden Auditorium, Little Hall
“The Revival of Superpower Conflict: Cyberwarfare, AI, and Security”
David Sanger, New York Times White House and national security correspondent
4:30–6:00 p.m., Tuesday, March 26, Persson Hall Auditorium
“How to End the War in Ukraine: A New Framework”
Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution director of research and foreign policy and 2023–24 Lampert Institute non-resident scholar
4:30–6:00 p.m., Tuesday, April 9, Lathrop Hall 207
The Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs, named after Edgar Lampert ’62, was first established in 2008 as the Institute of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and renamed the Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs in 2014. The Institute's mission is to teach students to apply the fundamental tools of a liberal arts education — identifying substantive questions and reading and writing with clarity, balance, and public purpose — to the most significant policy issues of the day, during their time at Colgate and beyond.