Humanity Wins

Humanity Wins is a thoughtful and affirming examination of how we can adapt systematically, as individuals and as a society, to the staggering changes occurring in the world around us.

As global change accelerates, our political and social systems are barely keeping pace. Venerated institutions at every level, from the family to national governments, are struggling to operate under rules designed for a world that no longer exists.

Reinhard Mohn, the innovative entrepreneur who built Bertelsmann, Inc., into the fourth largest media company in the world, argues that the new world we are creating demands new rules, new strategies, and new systems. Just as business has undergone a radical transformation in the last twenty years, moving from centralized corporate hierarchies to decentralized dynamic organizations, so must society. Mohn shows how social institutions can adapt the best of what business leaders have learned -- and avoid repeating their mistakes.

Ultimately, Mohn, an elder statesman of the global economy, makes a moving case for a new, ethics-based, dynamic world order and provides concrete models for putting his ideas to work. We can adapt to the changes we have wrought, Mohn writes. This is how humanity will win.

Reinhard Mohn is the great-great-grandson of Carl Bertelsmann, the founder of the Bertelsmann publishing house. Over the course of forty years, Mohn built Bertelsmann into an international media conglomerate that includes book and music clubs, publishing houses, newspapers and magazines, printing plants, television and radio stations, and electronic commerce. He retired as managing board chairman in 1981 and as supervisory board chairman in 1991. Mr. Mohn was  chairman of the board of the Bertelsmann Foundation until 1998 and is currently a member of the board.