Actually, he claimed that Poland would become the leader of a coalition of East European states, not a superpower by itself. A lot of the predictions he makes are starting to happen. China exhausted their turbo-drive and is trying to stop the housing bubble from bursting. Turkey is becoming powerful and is leaning towards the Islamic world rather than the EU. Russia is recreating its sphere of influence with Putin's "Eurasian Union." The EU can't act cohesively. Japan is remilitarizing. Gay marriage has won. Almost everything that he says is happening is.
How to get into history?
- Thread starter Mouthwash
- Start date
Actually, he claimed that Poland would become the leader of a coalition of East European states, not a superpower by itself. A lot of the predictions he makes are starting to happen. China exhausted their turbo-drive and is trying to stop the housing bubble from bursting. Turkey is becoming powerful and is leaning towards the Islamic world rather than the EU. Russia is recreating its sphere of influence with Putin's "Eurasian Union." The EU can't act cohesively. Japan is remilitarizing. Gay marriage has won. Almost everything that he says is happening is.
*Snort*
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Moderator Action: Infracted for trolling. Please keep the discussion civil - if you think someone's said something wrong, say why, don't just act dismissively.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
Thank you for the constructive criticism. Would you care to espouse your own geopolitical projections for the twenty-first century, or critique Dr. Friedman's? Perhaps you'd care to post more sardonic comments and whack off to your own Olympian intellectual prowess a bit more?
TheLastOne36
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Fun thought, but Poland is going to be staying very close to Germany in it's near future. Leading a coalition of Eastern European states? Belarus and Ukraine will fall/are under the Russian sphere, the Baltics want to be mini-Scandinavias and the Balkans suck anyway.
More on topic though, I feel like Mouthwash is conflating geopolitics(ie international relations) with contemporary history in general. Geopolitics falls under political science and involves very little history besides in application.
Are we still talking about The Years of Rice and Salt? I actually read the book.
The history aspect is absolutely ridiculous and suffers from the same problem a lot of other alt-history books seem to have, in that they merge the entire world into just a few single entities. The idea of a World War One not only breaking out in the timeline, but it being a three-way fight between China, "all of Islam", and an Indian-Native American-Japanese pro freedom confederation is just so dumb, its awful. Don't go into it expecting good history, or anything of the like.
That being said, the book is fantastic for the reason I think Dach's' was hitting on early, in that it's a very entertaining read. Kim Stanley Robinson knows how to tell some very interesting tales, and mess with the various settings he gives himself. Most of the book doesn't deal with the political history behind whatever weird crap he's coming up with, but rather stories about select people during each of these time periods. The overarching narrative about reincarnation in the book is also very well done, and helps weave the various stories he brings together.
Overall I recommend it, though not for the reasons you seemingly wanted to get into it for. It's a very good story book, nothing to do with any actual history or look at serious alternate history.
The history aspect is absolutely ridiculous and suffers from the same problem a lot of other alt-history books seem to have, in that they merge the entire world into just a few single entities. The idea of a World War One not only breaking out in the timeline, but it being a three-way fight between China, "all of Islam", and an Indian-Native American-Japanese pro freedom confederation is just so dumb, its awful. Don't go into it expecting good history, or anything of the like.
That being said, the book is fantastic for the reason I think Dach's' was hitting on early, in that it's a very entertaining read. Kim Stanley Robinson knows how to tell some very interesting tales, and mess with the various settings he gives himself. Most of the book doesn't deal with the political history behind whatever weird crap he's coming up with, but rather stories about select people during each of these time periods. The overarching narrative about reincarnation in the book is also very well done, and helps weave the various stories he brings together.
Overall I recommend it, though not for the reasons you seemingly wanted to get into it for. It's a very good story book, nothing to do with any actual history or look at serious alternate history.
Meh, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler is a better example than The Next Hundred Years. It does suffer from being written in the 1970s though. I happen to have Burchill et al.'s book at home. You'd have to be an idiot to introduce ourself to geopolitics by reading it - or a masochist - but it's a damn fine book. You could do far worse than to slowly work your way through it. That is how introductory courses into IR theory work, after all. 'Read this chapter in Burchill, this one in Bull, and come to the lecture by Cottle.'
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
How the hell did Mouthwash manage to ruin his own thread by the end of the second page?
(Also, seconding Joecoolyo on TYoRaS. The history is bollocks, but it's really just a device for creating interesting things to write about.)
(Also, seconding Joecoolyo on TYoRaS. The history is bollocks, but it's really just a device for creating interesting things to write about.)
Perserverance.
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