Andrew Schmookler, Parable of the Tribes, 1995.
Sometimes even the peace loving tribe must fight if it is to survive. But in the long run we much work to get beyond the power paradigm.
Robert Wright, NonZero: The Logic of Human Destiny, 2001
While evolution is gradually taking human civilization to higher order, cycles of war have been critical since the beginning of civilization as enablers of the shift to the next higher level or human cooperation, organization, and advancement.
William Strauss
Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, 2000; or
The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, 1998
All three with varying degrees of directness forecast that the generation now coming of age will be the next generation to be called upon to undertake a great cause, which historically has always included war. Specifically, Strauss has argued as far back as 1992 that this will happen in the first 20 years of the 21st Century, and will “be on a par with the Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II.” Hmmm.
The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?
by David Brin
David Brin’s groundbreaking work on the power of a society armed with information and access is extremely relevant as we go forward with the privacy/security debate in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the USA.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond
Life isn’t fair–here’s why: Since 1500, Europeans have, for better and worse, called the tune that the world has danced to. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond explains the reasons why things worked out that way. It is an elemental question, and Diamond is not nearly the first to ask it. However, he performs a singular service by relying on scientific fact rather than specious theories of European genetic superiority.