Globalization could be the catalyst for pulling the world together spiritually as well as economically if we go about it the right way, says Gregory C. Dahl, author of One World, One People: How Globalization Is Shaping Our Future.

Dahl's book lays out the specifics of his plan, which is based on the core principles of the Baha'i Faith in which he was raised, and from serving as an economist for 27 years at the IMF (International Monetary Fund).

"Having a foot in both worlds" was of great value in writing One World, he says, because it put him in touch with "the idealistic and realistic, vision and pragmatism, the future and the present."

Dahl, who says his upbringing in the Baha'i Faith was "imbued with concepts of world peace and universal brotherhood," describes the Baha'i teachings on world governance. These teachings urge the nations of the world to come together voluntarily in a world federation based on high ideals: clearly defined codes of rights and obligations in regard to moral conduct, justice, equality, commerce and finance, safety and security, and safeguards against totalitarianism.

This future world system would rely more on crisis prevention than on crisis management, Dahl said in a recent interview while in Chicago as part of a national book tour. The new society also would require "replacing force with a more civilized system."

"Governments and leaders react to problems as they arise," Dahl says. "So they're powerless to shape events because they're not farsighted. The Universal House of Justice (the international Baha'i governing body) calls this nearsightedness a "paralysis of will."

To counteract this paralysis, Dahl says, "We need to have a vision; we need to transcend our present situation. As Baha'u'llah said, ‘Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead.'"

It's about time, says Dahl, who lives in Bulgaria.

"This age may one day be regarded as the most turbulent, dangerous, and promising of any period in human history," he writes in One World. "People throughout the world are experiencing an unprecedented and often disorienting pace of change affecting every aspect of their lives."

The fallout has been grim, Dahl says: an eroded environment, threats of nuclear war, cold war and terrorism, for starters.

"We've fallen short on responsibility," he says. "We're headed in the wrong direction."

The good news, Dahl says, is that mistakes are part of God's plan to move us toward an ever-advancing civilization wrought from alternating periods of progress and regression.

Despite our many blunders, Dahl says, "we've made progress in the last 150 years. And one of these days we'll get it right.