Pearl Buck’s chronicles of everyday life in China won her millions of readers and a Nobel Prize. They also won her the scorn of highbrow Western critics and the venom of China’s Communist leaders. Now her adopted land is rediscovering the work of this woman once denounced as a cultural enemy.
Dignified retirement is still a cherished part of theAmerican dream, but for some that dream is onlya fantasy. A rickety retirement system means moreU.S. workers have to stay on and on at the job.
Terrorist bombings, riots, and an uproar over satirical cartoons have inspired talk of a Europe under siege by Muslim immigrants. Will minarets rise in place of the continent’s steeples, or is this vision of invading Muslim hoards a mirage?
Why is one of Africa’s most successful democracies taking hold in an impoverished Muslim country half-covered in the sand of the Sahara desert? In Mali, the seeds of change are rooted in tradition.
The effort to think systematically about the future began little more than a half-century ago, and the results so far have not been impressive. Today’s futurists hope that more sophisticated methods will allow them to provide a better picture of what tomorrow may bring.
The celebrated American faith in the future was matched in the past by a willingness to sacrifice for a better tomorrow. Today, the faith endures but the commitment to sacrifice is in doubt.
Decades ago, many population statistics seemed to point toward global calamity. Today, the world’s population is indeed much larger—but it is also much healthier, better educated, and richer. Therein lies a lesson in the use and misuse of numbers.
The next 30 years may represent a watershed in human affairs.
Will better intelligence and technology allow the United States to anticipate future terrorist attacks? History does not offer much reason for optimism, but there are steps we can take now.