Preparing for the Twenty-First Century by Paul Kennedy

Preparing for the Twenty-First Century Reviews

• 
  Howard

  
  REREAD
  
  Kennedy's book was published in 1993 and I read it sometime in that decade, but I never reviewed it. However, since he was predicting what the world would be like in 2025 I thought this year would be a good time to reread it and see how well he did in his prognostications.
  
  As one would expect he was right about some things, but wrong about others. That happens even when people are predicting what is going to happen in a year, or a month, or even a week. So it is no surprise that it would happen to someone looking over thirty years ahead.
  
  If I was going to give it a rating I should have done that when I first read it and not now that I know what he missed the boat on. Therefore, I'm not going to give it a rating.
  
  It is an informative book, but one of its shortcomings is the final chapter, "Preparing For The Twenty-First Century." Given the title of the book I thought the other chapters were building up to that chapter in which he would tell the reader what must be done to prepare for that (this) century, but found that chapter to be disappointing.
  
  Here are the topic headings in that final chapter:
  
  THE PROBLEM RESTATED
  Why? The problem was sufficiently covered in detail in the Prologue and we now have six more pages repeating (restating) the problem.
  
  THE DIFFICULTIES OF REFORM
  He knew reform would be difficult, but he had no idea just how difficult it would be, but we know.
  
  THE ROLE OF EDUCATION AND THE POSITION OF WOMEN
  This is a more meaningful section than the first two, but unfortunately nearly all of it is about education rather than the position of women, which has become much more influential during the current century.
  
  THE ISSUE OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
  Well, yes. That has always been, and will always be, an issue.
  
  In conclusion, most of the book is dedicated to the subject of economics. I must confess that I made a "C" in Econ I and was lucky to get that. My degrees are in history and so are Kennedy's, but he writes like an economist, and that I will rate. I give him a "C."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Murilo Silva

  An excellent book from 1993, which provides a more or less framework of issues that Paul Kennedy predicted, based on heavy data, to be worrisome in the 21st century. He was correct. Biotech, aging/growing population, environmental damage, automation and industrialization, globalization and big corporations, financialization of the economy. All of these topics are heavily debated and poses a real challenge in our modern days.
  
  It is incredible how much accuracy he had from such a long distance (he aims at trends up until 2025, more or less) but a great perspective nevertheless. It was one of the most interesting and complete books I’ve ever read.
  
  The only reason I took away one star in my rating is that Kennedy is not able to place some personal input along with the reasonably neutral and data-oriented trends for the future of the world (especially when talking about Europe and the US). And although I agreed with most of his personal input, it just felt too much like a rant for me. Anyways, besides that vacillation, it is after all an incredibly well researched and open-minded view of the current century.
  
  I certainly recommend to everyone so that they can get a brief (although super interesting) history of certain regions, how they were in the 1990s, and the prediction then of how they would turn out to be today. It is shockingly precise.
• 
  Robert

  Paul Kennedy covered a lot of ground here projecting into the 21st Century and it's not fair to hold against him the fact that 9/11 and its fallout impacted heavily on a number of his projections. He got enough things right to make it an interesting over the shoulder backwards glance at where we might have gone - sort of an alternate future book by 2016.
• 
  Joseph

  آخرین دهه هزاره دوم دهه جالبی بود. دولت‌های کشورهای صنعتی برای ورود به هزاره سوم شوراهای سیاست‌گذاری تشکیل می‌دادند، در گوشه و کنار دانشگاه‌ها یکی تئوری پایان تاریخ می‌داد و دیگری صحبت از برخورد تمدن‌ها می‌کرد. همه منتظر بودند ببینند نخستین دهه هزاره سوم چگونه خواهد بود. در میان همه بحث و جدل‌های سیاسی و دولتی اما، این کتاب به وسیله پل کندی تاریخ‌نگار شهیر بریطانیایی به چاپ رسید و بر اساس معیار رشد تکنولوژیک و نرخ رشد جمعیت به ارائه طرحی کلی از شمایل جهان، کشورها، مناطق مختلف و روابط تا سال ۲۰۲۵ پرداخت. نویسنده بر اساس معیارهایی مانند " سنت و نوع منحصر به فرد آموزش ژاپنی و شیوه‌های خاص سازماندهی اقتصادی " به درستی خیزش ژاپن را پیش‌بینی کرد و به طرزی وسواس‌آمیز یک فصل از کتاب را به مشکلات و چالش‌های زیست‌محیطی اختصاص داد. اهمیت این کتاب اما از منظر تاریخِ تاریخ‌پژوهی در درکی است که از تصور انسان‌ها، دولت‌ها و سیاست‌گذاران نسبت به وضعیت قرن ۲۱ در آخرین دهه قرن ۲۰ به مخاطب می‌دهد. ضمناً قلم شیوای عباس مخبر مانند باقی ترجمه‌ها، در این جا هم به کمک جذاب‌تر شدن کتاب آمده است.
• 
  سالم عبدالله

  الكتاب من جزئين وقد قرأت الجزء الأول بنهاية عام 2018 واستكملت الجزء الثاني بشهر يناير للسنة 2019
  والكتاب رغم قدم صدوره ولكنه يتضمن تحليلات رائعة مرحبا تنبؤات اثبتت صدق المؤلف وقدرته العلمية
• 
  Frank Thun

  Global "mega trend" literature
• 
  Vikas Lather

  succinct but not engaging
• 
  Hubert

  A bit dated but still good and succinct social science writing.