From the Publisher
Human history has always been shaped by the growth and migration of populations, by the opportunities and constraints provided by the environment, and by the rise of new technologies. Today, these forces are enmeshed in a state of unprecedented turbulence. World population has more than doubled in the past forty years to reach its current level of 5.5 billion, and it will exceed 8 billion and perhaps even 10 billion early in the next century. How will these vast numbers reshape the world's borders, strain an already fragile ecosystem, and remake politics? New technologies are even now replacing traditional work with radically new systems of production and communication, promising enormous changes in both industrial and traditional agricultural societies. Will potential developments in biotechnology render traditional food producers obsolete? What is the role of robotics in a world where millions of new jobs are needed each year to absorb the fast-growing population? And what will the roles of women be? How will the spread of AIDS affect the rapid growth of population in countries like India or those of central Africa? And how will all these complex, mutually dependent changes affect individual nations as they struggle with their own ethnic and economic pressures, including the inevitability of ever larger migrations from poorer to richer parts of the world as populations explode in less developed regions and decline in such areas as Japan, parts of North America, and the European continent? Given their historic behavior, how will Japan, the United States, and Europe - as well as the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America - be likely to respond to these unprecedented circumstances? What is the role of education in a two- or three-tier world? Professor Kennedy's classic The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers considered the forces within nations that led to their rise and fall. In Preparing for the Twenty-first Century Kennedy addresses a larger and uniquely
Publishers Weekly
Yale historian Kennedy assesses the population explosion, environmental degradation, the widening gap between rich and poor nations and other global problems of the 21st century in this nine-week PW bestseller. (Feb.)
Library Journal
In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus wrote his famous treatise Essay on Population in which he gloomily contemplated the future of the West as it fell beneath the crush of overpopulation. Technology and emigration saved 19th-century England from Malthus's dire warnings. Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers ( LJ 12/87), focuses his new book on a reexamination of the age-old question of whether humanity can still survive the chronic crisis of reproducing beyond its resources. Projecting a world population of nearly ten billion by the middle of the next century, Kennedy analyzes the political, social, environmental, and economic results of continued population growth. Although not entirely pessimistic about our chances of success, Kennedy presents an abundance of statistical and empirical information to get the reader's attention. A gifted historian and writer of Big History, Kennedy provides an important analysis of our future. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/92.-- Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ., Ames, Ia.
BookList
Yale diplomatic historian Kennedy produced a surprise bestseller in "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" (1987), his analysis of "global overreach" as a pattern in world history. That precedent and aggressive promotion will generate interest in this survey of millenial trends and consequences. Kennedy focuses on the power and probable impacts of six major interlocking factors: population growth; globalized communications and corporate and financial structures; biotechnology in agriculture; robotics and other forms of automation in manufacturing; environmental problems; and the "relocation of authority" from nation-states to "both larger (transnational) and smaller (regional, ethnic) units." He then analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of each region in confronting the changes we face. Kennedy thoughtfully synthesizes the work of scholars in dozens of fields in reaching the conclusion that preparation for the twenty-first century will require "nothing less than the reeducation of humankind," a thorough reevaluation of the position of women, and unusually far-sighted political leadership. Kennedy's trends are fairly familiar and most of his notions of "what works" conform to Western, liberal orthodoxy, but his crystal gazing is notable for its complexity of vision and its understanding of the past, which conditions his concerns about the future.
Kirkus Reviews
After reading this gloomy exercise in futurology, even the most cockeyed optimists will feel justified in hiding under their bedcovers as the turn of the century approaches. Kennedy (History/Yale Univ.) explores again, with wider and more contemporary applications, a principal theme of his controversial bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987): that we must factor nonmilitary elements into traditional equations of national security. Kennedy can be provocative and prescient: his notion of "global overreach" in that earlier book, for instance, was borne out by the collapse of the Soviet Union and by the severe strains on the American economy. This time, he attempts to show how transnational forces, beyond the control of individual countries, inevitably will create world instability. Behind this unrest is a Malthusian population explosion (the world had 2 billion inhabitants in 1925, compared with 5.3 billion in 1990) that will be exacerbated by environmental dangers, the new global economy, robotics, and biotechnology. Kennedy guesses who the winners and losers will be in this changed world (Japan, with its highly educated, cohesive population and technological orientation, will fare better than the US, with its aging, multiethnic populace). Even the industrialized North will not be immune from the mass migrations and deteriorating environment of the Third World. Kennedy is most insightful in pointing out overlooked factors underlying crises: the fast-growing, youthful, impatient masses behind the Intifada and the troubles of Northern Ireland, for example, or the loss of forests and topsoil fueling the Haitian migration to the US. He regards economic growth asa zero-sum game that will damage an environmentally fragile planet, however, and he offers few remedies to avert the catastrophes he sees looming. Brilliant and discerning on the inevitable pressures on the rich North from the developing world (e.g., from Somalia)—but only hard-core Cassandras will accept Kennedy's pessimism about nations' inability to mobilize the will or resources to change the planet.
(12025 ratings)
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