Preparing for the Twenty-First Century
Stars
4
Length
448 pages
Author
Paul Kennedy
Eras
Age of Global Civilization (1844-present)
Types
History
Synopsis
"Kennedy's groundbreaking book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers helped to reorder the current priorities of the United States. Now, he synthesizes extensive research on fields ranging from demography to robotics to draw a detailed, persuasive, and often sobering map of the very near future--a bold work that bridges the gap between history, prophecy, and policy." [Amazon] Table of Contents include: The Demographic Explosion; The Communications and Financial Revolution and the Rise of the Multinational Corporation; World Agriculturae and the Biotechnology Revolution; Robotics, Automation, and a New industrial Revolution; The Future of the Nation-State; India and China; and The Erstwhile USSR and Its Crumbled Empire.
"Thus, “the power of population” was answered, not so much by “the power in the earth” itself, but by the power of technology—the capacity of the human mind to find new ways of doing things, to invent new devices, to organize production in improved forms, to quicken the pace of moving goods and ideas from one place to another, to stimulate fresh approaches to old problems." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle, Location 257]
"In fact, the most important influence on a nation’s responsiveness to change probably is its social attitudes, religious beliefs, and culture." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle, Location 371]
"Granted that certain regions of the world (New Guinea, the Kalahari Desert) pose natural obstacles to development, it nonetheless seems fair to assume that most peoples of the world, if they so choose, can respond positively to the challenge of change. But the very phrase “if they so choose” implies an adoption of those features that explain Holland’s success in the seventeenth century and Japan’s success in the late twentieth: the existence of a market economy, at least to the extent that merchants and entrepreneurs are not discriminated against, deterred, and preyed upon; the absence of rigid, doctrinal orthodoxy; the freedom to inquire, to dispute, to experiment; a belief in the possibilities of improvement; a concern for the practical rather than the abstract; a rationalism that defies mandarin codes, religious dogma, and traditional folklore. A society dominated by fundamentalist mullahs or by conservative landowning barons is as unlikely to embrace change in the twentieth century as it was in the fifteenth." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle Edition, Location 382-94]
"Western critics who point to the region’s religious intolerance, technological backwardness, and a feudal cast of mind often forget that centuries before the Reformation, Islam led the world in mathematics, cartography, medicine, and many other aspects of science and industry, and contained libraries, universities, and observatories when Japan and America possessed none and Europe only a few." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle Edition., Location 3826]
"Thus, “the power of population” was answered, not so much by “the power in the earth” itself, but by the power of technology—the capacity of the human mind to find new ways of doing things, to invent new devices, to organize production in improved forms, to quicken the pace of moving goods and ideas from one place to another, to stimulate fresh approaches to old problems." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle, Location 257]
"In fact, the most important influence on a nation’s responsiveness to change probably is its social attitudes, religious beliefs, and culture." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle, Location 371]
"Granted that certain regions of the world (New Guinea, the Kalahari Desert) pose natural obstacles to development, it nonetheless seems fair to assume that most peoples of the world, if they so choose, can respond positively to the challenge of change. But the very phrase “if they so choose” implies an adoption of those features that explain Holland’s success in the seventeenth century and Japan’s success in the late twentieth: the existence of a market economy, at least to the extent that merchants and entrepreneurs are not discriminated against, deterred, and preyed upon; the absence of rigid, doctrinal orthodoxy; the freedom to inquire, to dispute, to experiment; a belief in the possibilities of improvement; a concern for the practical rather than the abstract; a rationalism that defies mandarin codes, religious dogma, and traditional folklore. A society dominated by fundamentalist mullahs or by conservative landowning barons is as unlikely to embrace change in the twentieth century as it was in the fifteenth." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle Edition, Location 382-94]
"Western critics who point to the region’s religious intolerance, technological backwardness, and a feudal cast of mind often forget that centuries before the Reformation, Islam led the world in mathematics, cartography, medicine, and many other aspects of science and industry, and contained libraries, universities, and observatories when Japan and America possessed none and Europe only a few." [Preparing for the Twenty-First Century, Kindle Edition., Location 3826]
RefTags
Kennedy: Preparing for 21st Century
Released
1994
Location
Global
Setting