The must read history of the 21st Century. You will be surprised to hear that optimism is an innate quality of civilization and that better times must be ahead of us. This will happen because the human race is a product of evolution, and evolution is characterized by its ability to forge ahead. This book will show you why the 21st Century will be the best that civilization has ever seen.

Technology will continue to unleash progress in a way never seen before and computers leading the bio and nano technologies could very well create a world of abundance for all.

To create this world of abundance for all the inhabitants of the earth there will be a need to recognize that people are not only citizens, but they are also and foremost consumers. If the world ever thinks like this, the poor will be rich and the rich even richer.

Humberto Contreras presents a view of the 21st century that encompasses an understanding of how civilization has been evolving for more than 50,000 years. He considers that it is an open experiment that has produced not only technological progress, but also social progress. Humberto likens this process to the evolution of life and promotes the idea that human quality of life has improved continuously and it has been accelerating since the renaissance, and maybe even before that time, and now is growing exponentially.

Dr. Contreras used his experiences in designing scenarios to quantify risk, especially when studying nuclear waste disposal where the timeframe was up to 10,000 years into the future. He used this expertise to write his 244-page book about what is likely to happen in the years from 2010 to 2100. What distinguishes Dr. Contreras’s book is that he presents the future from an optimistic viewpoint, which is fitting with his ideas of civilization always forging ahead improving quality of life. This is decidedly different from the plethora of books and articles that show an apocalyptic future. In his book, Dr. Contreras defends and shows how civilization has improved continuously and even in the 20th century, with all its wars, catastrophes and failed dreams, quality of life improved dramatically. He proposes that the 21st century is going to be the best that civilization has ever seen.

In this book Dr. Contreras explains that scientific and technological progress may possibly bring the end of scarcity; which could very well happen before the end of this 21st century. However, Dr. Contreras cautions that the present capitalistic trend of short term profit and greed cannot be continued because making or keeping people poor is against consumerism; keeping people poor means that there are less consumers thereby making everybody poorer.