The Next 100 Years

A Forecast for the 21st Century

By: George Friedman

Narrated by: William Hughes

Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

George Friedman, founder of Stratfor, has become a leading expert in geopolitical forecasting, sought after for his thoughtful assessments of current trends and near-future events.

In The Next 100 Years, Friedman turns his eye on the future. Drawing on a profound understanding of history and geopolitical patterns dating back to the Roman Empire, he shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, experiencing the dawn of a new historical cycle.

©2009 George Friedman (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A unique combination of cold-eyed realism and boldly confident fortune-telling....Whether all of the visions in Friedman's crystal ball actually materialize, they certainly make for engrossing entertainment." ( Publishers Weekly)

Fanciful, but Interesting

Yes, predicting the next 100 years is an impossible task, but the author makes it worthwhile here. It will get you thinking about geo-politics and large interplay of forces. An ascendant Mexico, Poland, Turkey, and Japan? A second Russian cold war and collapse? Unfortunately, he ignores climate change, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, which have the possibility of radically changing every paradigm.

Entertaining, thought-provoking, but lopsided

t's an american-centric view of the world, with forecasts based on historical and geopolitical motivations. Very interesting perspectives, to be taken with a pinch of salt. Good book.

Pay attention to Friedman!

What made the experience of listening to The Next 100 Years the most enjoyable?

George Friedman doesn't pretend to know the future, he tracks the patterns and follows them on their most likely paths. His knowledge, and global perspective is insightful and he writes in a readable fashion, as if he is your favorite professor sitting across the table with a map and a pot of tea.

Very one sided

The future is bright, maybe..
America, America I believe you and somehow believe the author too. Lets see

Enlightening.

While creating fiction, explaining what he thinks will happen in the future, he articulately explained a lot of nonfictional geopolitical things from the present and recent past that I understand a lot better now for having listened to this. 9hrs well spent. Driving, cycling, cleaning the house, smoking on the porch and laying in bed. Well done. Ready now for the next Friedman title

Thought provoking

I like Friedman's approach to history. He avoids the common trap that typical forecasters seem to fall into lately- That just because a trend is headed in a certain direction means that we can safely project where it will take us as if nothing will come along to alter that trend. He offers some interesting notions of things that will alter current trends.
He takes his vignettes a little too far in terms of detail, but he does apply the appropriate caveats. Great material for discussion and debate.

Viva Mexico!!!!

I really enjoyed this book, well narrated and make you think twice in your actions.

The variables that he takes into consideration are in my opinion enough to make what I call "An educated guess of the Next 100 years"

Excellent example of geopolitical analysis, but technology is harder to predict

The book is great in it’s lead up to 2050, but he gets the tech timing wrong. SpaceX is probably 20 years ahead of his prediction, he missed fracking— the US is now self sufficient in energy. His extrapolated history gets somewhat absurd beyond 2050.

Almost prophetic.

So… people who reviewed this ten years ago were laughing. Even those who reviewed it in 2020… Are they laughing now? How stupid their comments read now, how badly did they age. Especially that extremely foolish post by a very narrow-minded collectivist about America retreating in to its internal interests during Trump 4 years. I hope he is enjoying our new senile poppet president, high inflation, economic stagnation and high gas prices. Today in 2022 this book reads more like a news feed rather than something that was written 13 years ago. The culture wars, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the population decline. As for predicting trends and events George Friedman did a very good job in 2009. Of course, as any prediction, it cannot be expected to be 100% definitive. But so far it comes very close to what is going on in the world today, 13 years later. This is a very thought-provoking book. I would (and did) recommend this to a friend.

Quite interesting and defying

Even if it was written some time ago, I consider that the ideas on this book are quite interesting and defying.

The Author strokes the nail on the head when he considers the human use of technology, and how Nations might use them.