Ingenuity Gap
Encyclopedia
The Ingenuity Gap is a non-fiction book by Canadian
academic Thomas Homer-Dixon
. It was written over the course of eight years from 1992 to 2000 when it was published by Knopf
. The book argues that the nature of problems faced by our society are becoming more complex and that our ability to implement solutions is not keeping pace. Homer-Dixon focuses upon complexities
, unexpected non-linear results, and emergent properties
. He takes an inter-disciplinary approach connecting political science with sociology, economics, history, and ecology.
After Robert D. Kaplan
referenced Homer-Dixon's work in the 1994 The Atlantic Monthly
article, "The Coming Anarchy", Homer-Dixon was offered a book deal. He spent the next half decade preparing until it was finally published in 2000 in North America and the United Kingdom. While it spent three weeks at #1 on a Canadian best-seller list, it did not sell many copies in the United States. Critics were pleased with Homer-Dixon's scholarship, straightforward presentation, and the book's breadth but some found the writing to have a self-indulgent quality. Homer-Dixon was awarded the Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
in 2001 and the book went on to be translated into French and Spanish.
's Peace and Conflict Studies program at the time of publication. While the book took eight years to write, Homer-Dixon had been developing the ideas behind it for most of his career. As a youth, an interest in current events was fostered by his parents and led him to study causes of human violence at university. He graduated from Carleton University
with a Bachelor of Arts and, in 1989, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
with a doctorate in Political science
. He accepted the director position at the Peace and Conflict Studies program in 1990. Homer-Dixon and his theories were featured in an article written by Robert D. Kaplan
, in the February 1994 edition of The Atlantic Monthly
, entitled "The Coming Anarchy". The article made him into an emerging academic celebrity and resulted in several book deal offers. By 1997 Homer-Dixon, working out of his home office, had accumulated more than 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) of paper and was overwhelmed by the project, stating, "I'm living the problem I'm describing." In 1999, Homer-Dixon and Princeton University Press
published Environment, Scarcity, and Violence containing Homer-Dixon's research on resource scarcity leading to violence. For The Ingenuity Gap, he re-organized the framework along three strands, thematic, geographical, and metaphoric, and structured it like a travelogue from which he could launch examples.
and non-linear results. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis is used to illustrate a system in which professed experts had confidence in but internal and external factors compounded upon each other to create a sudden, unexpected drop. The delusion of control, or the assumption that experts were in control, led to overconfidence in an economic system that was not well understood. Homer-Dixon finds that the experts are just as susceptible to groupthink
as non-experts and that they have boundless capacity for hindsight rationalization of unexpected movements.
As older problems are solved, more complexities are being introduced, like adding additional parts to an engine. Interaction of these new parts, or niches, create emergent properties
, like time-saving office devices (e.g. email, mobile computers, etc.) make communication more efficient but also expand the network of contacts and increase the amount of time spent on such duties. Homer-Dixon relates this to complexity theory explaining that as new niches are filled there is a synergistic burst of simplicity. However, this can also lead to less control or freedom as emergent properties are created, like a new government program leading to a sprawling bureaucracy. Information theory
is touched upon relating the amount of information required to describe a system and the degree of that system's complexity. Chaos theory
is used to describe how small changes can lead to widely varying results and path dependence
.
Homer-Dixon explains how his theory was influenced by endogenous or new growth theory
in which ideas are a factor of production independent of labour and capital. He distinguishes his stance from Neo-Malthusianism which seeks to manage systems by controlling demand and from economic optimism which believe free markets can provide timely solutions to any problem. Several problems in advancing basic science are identified: human cognitive limits, intrinsic complexity of field, limits of scientific institutions, and social and cultural values regarding science.
in North America and by Jonathan Cape
in the United Kingdom. An excerpt was published in the October issue of Report on Business Magazine
. In the Canadian market, the book spent seven weeks on the Maclean's
nonfiction best sellers' list, including three weeks at the #1 spot. It did not sell well in the United States. Homer-Dixon was awarded the 2001 Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
for the book. The trade paperback was released a year after the hardcover edition. It was translated into French and published in 2002 by Éditions du Boréal. A Spanish version was published by Espasa in 2003. Homer-Dixon went on to write a similar book, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization
, in which he elaborates upon the idea that societies are becoming less able to cope with problems, like global warming or population imbalances, as complexities compound each other and the readily available resources, like fossil fuels, are rapidly consumed.
The book's scholarship was very well-received by critics. The research behind the book was called impressive for its breadth, and its presentation was said to be straightforward and thought-provoking. Critics called Homer-Dixon's writing clear, accessible, and engaging. In his review in the Quill & Quire
, Mark Shainblum
wrote "[d]espite the book's serious import and prodigious endnotes, The Ingenuity Gap is a surprisingly engaging and even exciting read. Homer-Dixon spins parables masterfully, using comprehensible examples to represent the almost incomprehensible complexity of our social system." The Library Journal
highly recommended it for academic and general public libraries. Several critics were disappointed by the lack of recommendations to address the problems he raises. The reviewers for Books in Canada, The Canadian Geographer, and the National Post
found Homer-Dixon's writing self-indulgent because it overly details his travels and experiences, and because of his overly authoritative tone that compliments people that agree with him and shows little consideration of differing perspectives.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
academic Thomas Homer-Dixon
Thomas Homer-Dixon
Thomas Homer-Dixon holds the Centre for International Governance Innovation Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ontario, and is a Professor in the Centre for Environment and Business in the Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo...
. It was written over the course of eight years from 1992 to 2000 when it was published by Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
. The book argues that the nature of problems faced by our society are becoming more complex and that our ability to implement solutions is not keeping pace. Homer-Dixon focuses upon complexities
Complex systems
Complex systems present problems in mathematical modelling.The equations from which complex system models are developed generally derive from statistical physics, information theory and non-linear dynamics, and represent organized but unpredictable behaviors of systems of nature that are considered...
, unexpected non-linear results, and emergent properties
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
. He takes an inter-disciplinary approach connecting political science with sociology, economics, history, and ecology.
After Robert D. Kaplan
Robert D. Kaplan
Robert David Kaplan is an American journalist, currently a National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly...
referenced Homer-Dixon's work in the 1994 The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
article, "The Coming Anarchy", Homer-Dixon was offered a book deal. He spent the next half decade preparing until it was finally published in 2000 in North America and the United Kingdom. While it spent three weeks at #1 on a Canadian best-seller list, it did not sell many copies in the United States. Critics were pleased with Homer-Dixon's scholarship, straightforward presentation, and the book's breadth but some found the writing to have a self-indulgent quality. Homer-Dixon was awarded the Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
This is a list of recipients of the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.-1930s:*1936: T. B. Robertson, collected newspaper articles*1937: Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of the West*1938: John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic...
in 2001 and the book went on to be translated into French and Spanish.
Background
Author Thomas Homer-Dixon was a 44-year-old academic and director at the University of TorontoUniversity of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
's Peace and Conflict Studies program at the time of publication. While the book took eight years to write, Homer-Dixon had been developing the ideas behind it for most of his career. As a youth, an interest in current events was fostered by his parents and led him to study causes of human violence at university. He graduated from Carleton University
Carleton University
Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The enabling legislation is The Carleton University Act, 1952, S.O. 1952. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines. Carleton has...
with a Bachelor of Arts and, in 1989, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
with a doctorate in Political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
. He accepted the director position at the Peace and Conflict Studies program in 1990. Homer-Dixon and his theories were featured in an article written by Robert D. Kaplan
Robert D. Kaplan
Robert David Kaplan is an American journalist, currently a National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly...
, in the February 1994 edition of The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, entitled "The Coming Anarchy". The article made him into an emerging academic celebrity and resulted in several book deal offers. By 1997 Homer-Dixon, working out of his home office, had accumulated more than 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) of paper and was overwhelmed by the project, stating, "I'm living the problem I'm describing." In 1999, Homer-Dixon and Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press
-Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...
published Environment, Scarcity, and Violence containing Homer-Dixon's research on resource scarcity leading to violence. For The Ingenuity Gap, he re-organized the framework along three strands, thematic, geographical, and metaphoric, and structured it like a travelogue from which he could launch examples.
Content
Homer-Dixon begins by presenting his personal and academic background that led to the drafting of this book. He establishes that the nature of problems are becoming overly burdensome, including providing resources for exponentially growing populations, managing international environmental impacts, and creating a secure global economic market. Modern problems often contain numerous factors that interact to create hidden complexitiesComplex systems
Complex systems present problems in mathematical modelling.The equations from which complex system models are developed generally derive from statistical physics, information theory and non-linear dynamics, and represent organized but unpredictable behaviors of systems of nature that are considered...
and non-linear results. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis is used to illustrate a system in which professed experts had confidence in but internal and external factors compounded upon each other to create a sudden, unexpected drop. The delusion of control, or the assumption that experts were in control, led to overconfidence in an economic system that was not well understood. Homer-Dixon finds that the experts are just as susceptible to groupthink
Groupthink
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without...
as non-experts and that they have boundless capacity for hindsight rationalization of unexpected movements.
As older problems are solved, more complexities are being introduced, like adding additional parts to an engine. Interaction of these new parts, or niches, create emergent properties
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
, like time-saving office devices (e.g. email, mobile computers, etc.) make communication more efficient but also expand the network of contacts and increase the amount of time spent on such duties. Homer-Dixon relates this to complexity theory explaining that as new niches are filled there is a synergistic burst of simplicity. However, this can also lead to less control or freedom as emergent properties are created, like a new government program leading to a sprawling bureaucracy. Information theory
Information theory
Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics and electrical engineering involving the quantification of information. Information theory was developed by Claude E. Shannon to find fundamental limits on signal processing operations such as compressing data and on reliably storing and...
is touched upon relating the amount of information required to describe a system and the degree of that system's complexity. Chaos theory
Chaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
is used to describe how small changes can lead to widely varying results and path dependence
Path dependence
Path dependence explains how the set of decisions one faces for any given circumstance is limited by the decisions one has made in the past, even though past circumstances may no longer be relevant....
.
Homer-Dixon explains how his theory was influenced by endogenous or new growth theory
Endogenous growth theory
Endogenous growth theory holds that economic growth is primarily the result of endogenous and not external force. In Endogenous growth theory investment in human capital, innovation and knowledge are significant contributors to economic growth. The theory also focus on positive externalities and...
in which ideas are a factor of production independent of labour and capital. He distinguishes his stance from Neo-Malthusianism which seeks to manage systems by controlling demand and from economic optimism which believe free markets can provide timely solutions to any problem. Several problems in advancing basic science are identified: human cognitive limits, intrinsic complexity of field, limits of scientific institutions, and social and cultural values regarding science.
Style
The Ingenuity Gap is a popular science book. Homer-Dixon takes an inter-disciplinary approach connecting political science with sociology, economics, history, biology, and ecology. The narrative is structured as a travelogue as the author travels to meet experts and construct his theory. His observations along the way illustrate the concepts he is explaining and supplement interviews and research. Collecting pieces of his theory from each of his interviews and destinations appears as a recurring metaphor. He includes anecdotes and social commentary.Publication and reception
The book was published in September 2000 as a hardcover, and Homer-Dixon shortly after began a 10-city tour across Canada with stops in Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Hamilton, London, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Victoria, amongst several other smaller venues. Promotional events were also held in the United States and England. It was published by KnopfAlfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
in North America and by Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
in the United Kingdom. An excerpt was published in the October issue of Report on Business Magazine
Report on Business
Report on Business, commonly referred to as simply ROB, is the financial section of The Globe and Mail, a large Toronto-based Canadian newspaper. It is the most lengthy completion of economic news in Canada, and is considered an integral part of the newspaper...
. In the Canadian market, the book spent seven weeks on the Maclean's
Maclean's
Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
nonfiction best sellers' list, including three weeks at the #1 spot. It did not sell well in the United States. Homer-Dixon was awarded the 2001 Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
This is a list of recipients of the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.-1930s:*1936: T. B. Robertson, collected newspaper articles*1937: Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of the West*1938: John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic...
for the book. The trade paperback was released a year after the hardcover edition. It was translated into French and published in 2002 by Éditions du Boréal. A Spanish version was published by Espasa in 2003. Homer-Dixon went on to write a similar book, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization
The Upside of Down
The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization is a non-fiction book published in 2006 by Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor at the University of Toronto....
, in which he elaborates upon the idea that societies are becoming less able to cope with problems, like global warming or population imbalances, as complexities compound each other and the readily available resources, like fossil fuels, are rapidly consumed.
The book's scholarship was very well-received by critics. The research behind the book was called impressive for its breadth, and its presentation was said to be straightforward and thought-provoking. Critics called Homer-Dixon's writing clear, accessible, and engaging. In his review in the Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire, a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry, was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, but its publisher claims a readership of 25,000...
, Mark Shainblum
Mark Shainblum
Mark Shainblum is a Canadian writer who lives in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Though he has worked as a journalist and editor, Shainblum is best known as a science fiction and comic book writer....
wrote "[d]espite the book's serious import and prodigious endnotes, The Ingenuity Gap is a surprisingly engaging and even exciting read. Homer-Dixon spins parables masterfully, using comprehensible examples to represent the almost incomprehensible complexity of our social system." The Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
highly recommended it for academic and general public libraries. Several critics were disappointed by the lack of recommendations to address the problems he raises. The reviewers for Books in Canada, The Canadian Geographer, and the National Post
National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
found Homer-Dixon's writing self-indulgent because it overly details his travels and experiences, and because of his overly authoritative tone that compliments people that agree with him and shows little consideration of differing perspectives.
External links
- Official Site
- "The Coming Anarchy" By Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly February 1994