Charles Kenny

America Shouldn’t Copy China’s Belt and Road Initiative

A co-authored Foreign Affairs piece with Scott Morris. The US should leave infrastructure to the World Bank and 'compete' bilaterally with China on human rather than physical capital.

Biden’s Foreign Aid Is Funding the Washington Bubble

With Scott Morris in Foreign Policy. Only 3.9 percent of US foreign assistance is actually executed by recipient country governments. Take out Jordan and that's less than one percent.  Pathetic and diplomatically counter-productive.

Contact Trace

Three years ago I wrote a 'novel'. Even got as far as getting an agent, and by golly my timing was good.  It was a story about a new infectious disease spreading worldwide and the bungling US response.  But in the end what the process demonstrated is that I should probably stick to non-fiction.  If you can't sell umbrellas when the skies are fast-darkening, maybe it says something about your umbrellas.  One editor's response from January 2020: "I thought the story had a certain resonance that might appeal to readers worried about real-world pandemics, but I didn’t always feel the plot had a fresh enough hook." That was kind: there are parts that I already cringe at having written. Still, I find it of minor personal historical interest, --not least that there were things I though were stretching plausibility in fiction that turned out to happen in real life a few months later.  Here it is.

5 Reasons to Be Optimistic About 2022

For Foreign Policy. More equitable vaccination, new vaccines, more sustainable power, India will be the world's largest country, renewed economic growth and some hope for tigers.

A Dark Pandemic Year Could Still Portend a Brighter Future

Maybe... for Foreign Affairs.

Your World, Better

Your World, Better: Global Progress and What You Can Do About It is a book written for the smart and engaged middle school student.  It looks at how America and the World has changed since the reader's parents and grandparents were young: what has happened to health and wealth, homes, school and work, rights and democracy, war and the environment, happiness and depression.   It talks about the things that have gotten better, the sometimes-intensifying challenges that remain, and what readers can do about them. 

Your World Better is optimistic, but it doesn’t shy away from the considerable problems we face: from inequality through discrimination and depression to climate change and infectious threats.  It is meant to encourage kids to help make the world better themselves: tip them from a sense of powerlessness toward action, not into complacency.

The pdf of Your World Better is available to download here for free.  Or you can buy a kindle version for 99 cents or a hard copy for $8.10 on Amazon (or six pounds on UK Amazon here).  Any author royalties from those sales will be donated to UNICEF (so far, a bit more than $800 has been donated, thanks!). I talk about the book to Marian Tupy for the Human Progress podcast and to two (fantastic) middle schoolers for NPR.  Then I did a Slack chat with five middle schoolers for Slate. A CGD discussion about the book and talking to children about progress is here. And here's a fifteen minute video about the book (or try it on Youtube).  I am happy for the *text* (not pictures) to be copied or redistributed in any medium, and/or remixed or transformed for any purpose, with attribution.

"Everyone, no matter how old, or how young, should read this. I’m sending to grandkids and their parents." --Nancy Birdsall

"Great read for middle school kids who want to understand how the world is getting better -- and can become even more so!" --Parag Khanna

"How can you pass up a free book?! And one that is so relevant for today? If you know a middle school student or teacher, pass this along! Incredibly fresh and honest." --Karen Schulte 

"Kids are taught that everything's getting worse and we're all doomed--factually incorrect, and a message that leads to cynicism & fatalism, not constructive action. An antidote: Charles Kenny's new Your World, Better..." --Steven Pinker

 

The U.S. has always been — and always will be — a nation of nations

On the fact we're a nation of immigrants worried about immigration.  In the Dallas Morning News.

A Manifesto for Globalization

A CGD note in part based on this.

You Do Not Need to Worry About the Bubonic Plague Squirrel in Colorado

For Slate. Title says it all.

The World Health Organization isn’t perfect, but it needs more money and power, not less

In Technology Review.