What will planet Earth be like in 20 years? In 2050? In the year 2100? Prescient and convincing, in the tradition of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, this book is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future. Never has the world offered more promise to future generations, nor been more fraught with dangers. In this powerful and sometimes terrifying work, Attali analyses the past and pinpoints nine distinct periods of human history, each with its world center of power and prestige, and predicts what the tenth will bring by the end of this century. Attali foresees the disappearance of individual countries and the dominance of a world government, with democracy prevailing. However, the ultimate, burning question he asks is: Will we leave our children and grandchildren a world that is not only viable but better? Or will we bequeath to them a planet that will be a living hell? Either way, he warns, the time to act is now.

About the Author

Jacques Attali is an economist, historian, cultural critic, author and one of the world's most eminent and well respected political thinkers. For many years a French presidential adviser for finance and economics, he co-founded and served as the first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He lives in Paris, France.

Reviews

Attali (Millennium), cofounder and first president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, offers his predictions for the 21st century in this clunky futurist fantasy. Positing that "history flows in a single, stubborn, and very particular direction" toward "man's progressive liberation," the author projects that course with surprising results. He predicts that the mercantile order that prevails today will exhaust itself within a generation or so and be replaced by a unified and stateless global market-a "super-empire" controlled by an innovative class of selfish "hypernomads." This "super-empire" will lead to extreme imbalances of wealth and poverty that will cause its collapse by 2050-perhaps accompanied by a round of planetary warfare. Humanity will emerge chastened from the wreckage and erect a utopia of "hyperdemocracy" led by a class of "transhumans" -a new breed of altruistic "citizens of the world." Attali's utopia relies on illusory historical laws, and his thesis proves more entertaining than plausible. (Mar.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.