In recent years we have faced huge uncertainty and unpredictability across the world: Covid-19, political turbulence, climate change and war in Europe, among many other events. Through a historical analysis of worldviews, Peter Haldén provides nuance to the common belief in an uncertain world by showing the predictable nature of modern society and arguing that human beings create predictability through norms, laws, trust and collaboration. Haldén shows that, since the Renaissance, two worldviews define Western civilization: first, that the world is knowable and governed by laws, regularities, mechanisms or plan, hence it is possible to control and the future is possible to foresee; second, that the world is governed by chance, impossible to predict and control and therefore shocks and surprises are inevitable. Worlds of Uncertainty argues that between these two extremes lie positions that recognize the principal unpredictability of the world but seek pragmatic ways of navigating through it.
Argues that the co-existence, conflict and co-constitution of two principally contradictory worldviews are what define and shape modern Western cultureAims to decrease the anxiety and uncertainty many people feel about the world and provide a realistic picture of how much they can control and overcome crisesOffers added value to military students, analysts and planners who will become more aware of the activities in which they are engaged and of the limits and possibilities within different ways of thinking