Book Review: The Next 100 Years

The Next 100 Years
8.6 of 10
Writer: George Friedman
Buy book (hardcover) from Amazon
Buy book (Kindle Edition) from Amazon




The future is a terrible thing. Blame it on the apocalyptic predictions written in the Book of Revelations, Nostradamus' Prophecies and the Mayan Calendar. It's impossible to gaze into tomorrow without any trepidations because these aforementioned cryptic writings have clouded it with the Rapture, cosmic bodies colliding with Earth, countless wars and other "End of the World" scenarios. Most of these predictions, however, are pessimistic and aren't backed with real data. Like I said, they're cryptic. Perhaps the only book I've read that predicts, or rather forecasts, the future using real data is The Next 100 Years.

The Next 100 Years is written by George Friedman who is the founder of Strategic Forecasting (StratFor), a private intelligence agency that deals with forecasting using data collected around the globe. They forecast various topics including economy, energy, politics, military and terrorism. Stratfor has been dubbed as "The Shadow CIA" and the intelligence they provide are being used by Fortune 500 companies and the U.S. Government. They've been instrumental in predicting the actions of al-Qaeda, after the 911 attacks, and the movements in Kosovo. So the material that can be found in this book is pretty much solid, if not reliable.

The book is a great read. It contains a lot of political and geopolitical insights, from the rise of Russia and their conflict with a US-backed Poland to the Turkey-Japan Coalition dominating Eurasia and their cold war against the United States. The most interesting part for me, however, are the technological advancements that were forecasted in this book. Especially the military technologies like unmanned hypersonic jets and missiles that can fly from California to Istanbul in under 30 minutes, armored infantrymen that can control a squad of robots and space based command centers that can monitor any movement on the ground.

I also like how this book was written. It didn't use vague details and, even though it riddled the future with wars, it doesn't have an ominous tone. It's forecasting based on real data. Just like predicting who's going to win a boxing match between Pacquiao and Hatton. You can come up with an idea of who might win based on their past performances. But you won't know who'll definitely win. Such is also the case with this book. For every forecast the author made he supports it with data like historical trends and current events. Although there are parts of the book that feels like it's science fiction due to the author stretching the data with his imagination.

The Next 100 Years is definitely one of the best books I've read this year. It's pretty refreshing, and also entertaining, to get a glimpse of the future using real data and not through a man's diary about his fevered dreams or a calendar of an ancient civilization. While the future still looks grim in this book, at least we're not going to meet our end with either Apophis or Nibiru hitting the Earth. Plus, we also get an idea of what technology will look like 40 to 60 years from now. So if you're looking for a good non-fiction book, and don't mind it being American-centric, grab this one. While I'm not sure if you'll buy its forecasting, I'm pretty sure you'll find it entertaining.

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The Next Three Books

After a week of waiting, I finally received my package of books (and CDs too) from Amazon. These three books (pictured above) are part of my reading program this Spring. I'll probably start my reading with The Next 100 Years because its synopsis is very interesting. Then I'll follow it by The Book of Dead Philosophers. As for Anthem, I've already read this book (twice). But since I bought a new copy, I think I'll read it again. Unfortunately, with Dawn of War II keeping me occupied, and Empire: Total War just around the bend, I don't know when I can start with these books.

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Steaming Snow

Finally, I've been granted a much needed time off from work for 4 straight days. On top of that, it's also the weekends, and coincided with pay day too. So I made plans on how to spend it and, so far, I couldn't complain. Yesterday, I had a haircut, pulled my comics, and ate at Portillo's (got myself a greasy Double Bacon Burger). Today, my plan was to get a copy of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, one of my most anticipated games of this year, and shop for some books and CDs. However, when I woke up this morning, I saw the snow whipping the living daylights out of the day.

Dawn of War II, available on Steam.

But the snow didn't really ruin my day because of online shopping. Yes, thank God for online shopping. I would've been left dejected if I got snowed in, on my 4-day pseudo vacation, without playing Dawn of War II. So, instead of whining about the bad weather, I opened my Steam account, purchased a digital copy of Dawn of War II, and waited for a little less than two hours for the download to finish. It's that simple and fast. Normally, I don't do digital purchases -for the reasons that I like to keep a hard copy of my games (the same goes for all my media). But I needed Dawn of War II, direly. Hence, my first digital purchase of a game.

As for the books and CDs, it was also easy. I just went to Amazon and got them. I already knew what music I wanted, which was Carving Desert Canyons by Scale the Summit. It took me awhile to decide which books to get. But, in the end, I went with The Book of Dead Philosophers and The Next 100 Years. I'll be reading both of these in the next two months. In addition, I also got the hardcover copy of Ayn Rand's Anthem. It is one of my favorite books but I had to donate my copy (a mass market paperback) to make some space for my new library of hardcover books and large paperbacks (see my post here).

Well, that's how I spent day two of my 4-day off. While I won't be able to read books or listen to some new music, at least I'll be able to play Dawn of War II for the next two days. As for the Steam purchase, it was actually a good experience and I might consider of buying my games, digitally, from them.

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Q1 Book List

It's been a couple days since I've updated this blog. It's not that I'm busy, or I ran out of ideas to post. In fact, this week had been a breeze at work, and a couple of ideas popped in my noggin as well. The only reason for me not posting is laziness. All I've been doing in the past couple days was sleep, watch movies and, most importantly, read.

I've read as much as time allowed me this week. But despite the hundred pages I've consumed, I'm still not finished with 2666. The book is just too damn long (900 pages). I'm three-fourths done with the book, however. So, I think, I'll be done with it by next week. Wow, only a couple months in 2009 and I already have two 900-page book under my belt. That's quite an accomplishment for a busy person (busy with work and other hobbies) like me.

Anyways, with 2666 almost finished, I'll only have one more book (The Forever War) before I completely run out of reading materials. So, while I was doing my budget plan for February, I started looking for some interesting books to read. Here are the list of books that seems interesting to me:

1. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Kinds of Death - The story is about a former teacher who became a part of a crime scene clean up crew. I don't know if this has been done before but the book's description has a lot of grit and grime to it.
   
2. The Next 100 Years - Here's an interesting book. Why? Because it forecasts the next 100 years using real data, not the Mayan Calendar or Nostradamus' The Prophecies.
   
3. Daemon - Because as a computer gamer and a tech enthusiast (well, a little bit of it), I think, I should read this book.
   
4. Columbine - My knowledge about what really happened in Columbine is next to nothing. That's why I'm getting this book, which is written by Dave Cullen, one of the leading journalist that covered the tragedy.
   
5. Appetite for Self-Destruction - I love music but I don't like the corporate recording industry. So reading about their fall, due to small upstarts like Napster, should be a lot of fun.
   
6. No Angel - I wanted to know the story of Jay Dobyns, an ATF undercover that infiltrated the Hell's Angels, ever since I saw his interview on CNN. So this book, with its real accounts on gang violence, is going to be chilling, yet interesting, read.

So these are the books that caught my eye. I won't be able to buy them though. Not until March, at least, because I'm still trying to recover from the damage that the Holidays inflicted on me. But I'll definitely try to read and finish all of these books by May.

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