IT'S hard to tell who is supposed to read this book. Its subject is the frenetic, globalised world economy, but it has no particular axe to grind, so it's not aimed at pro- or anti-capitalists. It isn't a work of reportage: although the author has visited a few cities, he doesn't give us the colour and detail offered by other recent books about the might of China's middle classes or the plight of Bolivia's peasant farmers. Specialists will find it lightweight, skating across the surface, with the role of money, credit and currency markets covered in nine pages.

The author's aim is to "freeze" the global economy "just long enough to get a really good look at it". Each chapter picks a headline from one day and uses that particular story . . . the announcement of a deal or the statement of a politician . . . to illustrate a wider theme. In between are emails to the author from someone working in that area, for example a Wall Street analyst or a rising manager in a Chinese manufacturing company.

It's a good idea that makes for a worthy but unexpectedly dull read. Perhaps the book is overly ambitious and it's no longer possible for a single volume to offer a snapshot of the global economy in all its complexity. Skipping from investment by multinationals in developing countries, to the money supply, to the vulnerability of hi-tech markets, to fraud. . .

well, the pitfall of superficiality will be obvious.

The emails are another problem. Although they certainly vary the tone, none of their authors were hired for their writing talent. Worse, the contributors are all business executives, and their tasks on the specified day are mundane: it's hard to make meetings sound exciting. Nor do any of them own up to a night on the town after a hard day on the PowerPoint frontline. The most risque is the American executive who confesses to squeezing in a free half hour out of his 24 in Slovakia walking around central Bratislava, hunting out a present for his wife.

Perhaps the most striking thing in these accounts is how much time all these globalised managers spend in airports writing emails on their BlackBerries.

On reflection, they are the people who really need to lift their eyes from the screen and gaze at the wide economic horizon. My advice to them is to put the BlackBerry away and read this book instead.