The former TV presenter David Icke, when he left the small screen to set up as a new age guru, developed a theory that the world is run by an elite group of giant alien lizards. The theory features in Jon Ronson’s very funny book [amazon_link id=”0330375458″ target=”_blank” ]Them: Adventures with Extremists[/amazon_link]. Since we read Them in my household, my husband has teased me about being a giant lizard every time I’ve been appointed to a public body or attended a fancy conference (he doesn’t mention it when I get an application rejected, nor every year when I don’t go to Davos).

[amazon_image id=”0330375458″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Them: Adventures with Extremists[/amazon_image]

The giant lizard theory came to mind after reading the chapters in Mark Mazower’s book [amazon_link id=”0141011939″ target=”_blank” ]Governing the World: The History of An Idea[/amazon_link] about the role of technocrats in shaping international governance in the early and mid-20th century.

The story has given me a new hero, the Belgian Paul Otlet, “the founder of modern information science and bibliographer extraordinary.” Otlet invented metadata, and created a Central Office of International Institutions to co-ordinate and share information among the growing number of new bodies, then congregating in Brussels. His aim was a ‘Universal Book’ in which all knowledge about knowledge would be recorded. I can’t believe I’ve never before heard of M. Otlet!

Of course his vision was one of the lesser casualties of World War I. The League of Nations subsequently also proved short-lived. But that era saw the creation of many of the technical agencies of international governance that survived the Depression and World War II and survive still. Mazower’s account of how this technical global elite came into being and the role it played in rebuilding trade and then globalisation is fascinating. Discussions of international governance tend to overlook the unglamorous end such as the ITU and the FAO and so on, but they turn out to be more resilient than the more political bodies.

So it isn’t the giant lizards but rather the statisticians and epidemiologists and engineers – all the geeks, in short –  who run the world. I don’t mind being called an internationalist geek.

[amazon_image id=”0141011939″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Governing the World: The History of an Idea[/amazon_image]