From the next century to the next decade

DURING my 2010 holiday in Turkey, I brought only one book to read George Friedman's The Next 100 Years (pic). Friedman is an American political scientist and founder of the private intelligence company Stratfor. I first came across him through browsing on the Internet and found his analysis of political events uniquely penetrating and bold. For someone to forecast the next century showed an audacity that few would dare to prognosticate, let alone pontificate.

Friedman rightly claims that he has no crystal ball, but his grasp of the grand order of history, the dictates of geography and imperatives of demography and culture all enable him to weave a framework for us to think about the future.