(FORTUNE Magazine) – Back in August, FORTUNE hosted a conference in Aspen, Colo., with the immodest aim of illuminating the problems of the world. Called Brainstorm 2001, it wasn't an ordinary business event. We gathered a diverse group of people who shared one characteristic--they were among the smartest individuals we knew. They included not only the luminaries you see on our cover, but also genomics researcher Leroy Hood, novelist Rick Moody, Flextronics CEO Michael Marks, Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, movie producer David Brown, architect Hani Rashid, Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, actor Edward James Olmos, and Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. Our discussions ran the gamut from wealth to war, education to environment, investing and management to design, longevity, and the risks of terrorism. We figured that if these people were so smart, they could help us better understand not only each of these challenging subjects, but, more important, the connections among them. Our aim, ultimately, was to produce a special issue of the magazine based on our discussions. We were ready to go to press with that issue on Sept. 11. Needless to say, our plans changed.

If there was one subject that dominated the conference, it was globalization. And after Sept. 11, it is now more obvious than ever that isolation is impossible, and that the new future of the United States, and of the world as a whole, will be defined by global relationships, for better or for worse. Hence the subject of the completely revised issue you hold in your hands.

We kick off the stories that follow with a surprising piece from Jerry Useem, who unveils the ways in which some of the FORTUNE 500, and some countries, are beginning to seriously grapple with a few key issues of the WTO protesters. Recent Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank, then exposes the hypocrisy of the developed nations that cheer most loudly for globalization. Immigration is where globalization acquires a human face, and John Simons looks at it through the eyes of Juan Hernandez, a Mexican government official prodding the U.S. toward a closer relationship with its neighbor south of the border.

Next we consider a traditional American company--Tricon, owner of KFC and other fast-food restaurants--tackling a traditional American problem, i.e., building an American brand abroad. Brian O'Keefe looks at which brand-building strategies still apply in today's more fragile global economy, and which ones have to be adapted to more sensitively address local concerns. Janet Guyon asks two simple questions: Is globalization synonymous with Americanization, and, if so, how do foreign business leaders feel about that? Dotting the package you'll find interviews with executives and activists from Kenya, Finland, Brazil, India, and elsewhere, offering a sense of how America and its war against terrorism are viewed from abroad. Finally, our cover subjects offer their personal reactions to Sept. 11.

This special issue of FORTUNE extends online, and we urge you to log on to fortune.com/newfuture, a great source of new ideas and creative thinking. That's where you'll find the full remarks from the conference of former President Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright; Rick Moody's dazzling conference diary; and transcripts of some of the most fascinating panels, including one led by Sun Microsystems' Bill Joy on the possibility that our life span could reach 1,000 years. You'll also find links to the organizations or companies of the conference participants, and a lot more.

We looked at the Aspen conference as the start of a big conversation, a dialogue about the shape of the new future. This issue is an invitation to join in the discussion. Read on, enjoy, argue, and add your views: You can e-mail us at newfuture@fortune.com, and we'll post some of the responses online. We look forward to hearing from you.