As we stand on the brink of the new millennium, MIT economist and New York Times bestselling author Lester Thurow addresses the critical issue of wealth creation. The result is an essential road map for how individuals, companies, and nations can and must build wealth in a knowledge-based global economy. What skills are needed to succeed in this new economy? What new rules must apply to the creation and protection of new ideas? How can marketable wealth be rising at ever-faster rates while productivity growth is slowing? How can nations create a social system where the entrepreneurial spirit can flourish without creating income and wealth inequalities that threaten the system? Professor Thurow addresses these questions and, finally, turns his attention to the three major economic sectors of the world: America, East Asia, and Europe. He provides a trenchant analysis of each as a significant competitor in the coming decades, and predicts the likely outcome of the complex forces that are presently shaping global society.