Preparing for the Twenty-First Century [antikvár]

FOREWORD AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS this book had its origins in a debate which took place between me and a large group of economists at the Brookings Institution in Washington in the spring of 1988, and which centered upon my newly published work The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. In the course of a lively evening, one critic—not known to me—declared that he couldn't understand why such a fuss was being made about Rise and Fall by everyone. It was, after all, a very traditional sort of book, focusing upon the nation-state as the central actor in world affairs. Why hadn't I used my time better, to write about much more important and interesting issues, those forces for global change like population growth, the impact of technology, environmental damage, and migration, which were iransnational in nature and threatened to affect the lives of us all, peasants as well as premiers? I left it to others that evening to weigh in with opinions about why Rise and Fall might be of some pertinence, especially in the American presidential campaign of 1988, but I found my critic's comment sufficiently arousing to begin initial readings in subjects (global warming, demography, robotics, biotech) that were then totally foreign to me. Before long, I was making clippings of newspaper and journal articles upon those subjects and filing them away. After a further while, I realized that I had the makings of a new book, very different from Rise