The Next Decade

Back in February I wrote a review for The Next 100 Years. This was an interesting book where the author claimed to outline the world events for the next century, at a very high level. It was a very interesting read and I liked the book so I figured I would enjoy reading The Next Decade: What the World Will Look Like written by the same author published couple years later. This book covers the events that are probably going to unravel, according to the author, in the second decade of the twenty first century i.e from 2010-2020.

Just like the first book, the second one starts with the importance of United States in the world stage and how US became an unintended global empire. It’s been a month since I read this book so I don’t remember most of the facts and predictions but I remember liking the book a lot when it dealt with the history of nations and how they were forged. I particularly liked the history lesson regarding Israel-Palestine conflict. It was amazing how complex the situation is and how the problem is not going to be fixed any time soon. History of past and current regimes and conflicts were touched upon and it was really fascinating and gave me a partial understanding of why the world is the way it is right now.

I took all the predictions as more of a sci-fi account than anything. They were fun to read and imagine but I’m going to just take it with a huge grain of salt. The predictions are detailed - like China is going to collapse this decade or Russia emerging as a regional power and forming an alliance with Germany and posing a threat to US global power. It’s really hard to see how the events predicted by the author is going to unfold this decade since they are so detailed and tied with a time line that is so short. I personally believe no one can predict anything over any period of time - short or long.

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the The Next 100 Years and that’s probably because lot of themes were reused in this book from the other one and some outlandish predictions that I just found silly and unrealistic and probably made up just to excite the reader. Nonetheless given the history lessons that I discovered through this book I give this book 3 stars.