“Conventional analysis suffers from a profound failure of imagination. It imagines passing clouds to be permanent and is blind to powerful, long-term shifts taking place in full view of the world.” —George Friedman In his long-awaited and provocative new book, George Friedman turns his eye on the future—offering a lucid, highly readable forecast of the changes we can expect around the world during the twenty-first century. He explains where and why future wars will erupt (and how they will be fought), which nations will gain and lose economic and political power, and how new technologies and cultural trends will alter the way we live in the new century. The Next 100 Years draws on a fascinating exploration of history and geopolitical patterns dating back hundreds of years. Friedman shows that we are now, for the first time in half a millennium, at the dawn of a new era—with changes in store, including: • The U.S.-Jihadist war will conclude—replaced by a second full-blown cold war with Russia. • China will undergo a major extended internal crisis, and Mexico will emerge as an important world power. • A new global war will unfold toward the middle of the century between the United States and an unexpected coalition from Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and the Far East; but armies will be much smaller and wars will be less deadly. • Technology will focus on space—both for major military uses and for a dramatic new energy resource that will have radical environmental implications. • The United States will experience a Golden Age in the second half of the century. Written with the keen insight and thoughtful analysis that has made George Friedman a renowned expert in geopolitics and forecasting, The Next 100 Years presents a fascinating picture of what lies ahead. For continual, updated analysis and supplemental material, go to www.Stratfor.com

Foreign affairs journalist Kaplan lets readers experience up close the American military worldwide in the air, at sea, and on the ground: flying in a B-2 bomber, living on a nuclear submarine, and traveling with a Stryker brigade on missions around the world. Provided unprecedented access, Kaplan moves from destroyers off the coast of Indonesia to submarines in the central Pacific, from simulated Iraqi training grounds in Alaska to technology bases in Las Vegas. He goes deep into their highly technical and exotic worlds, and tells this story through the words and perspectives of the enlisted personnel and junior officers themselves--men and women who, as he writes, have "had their national identities as Americans engraved in sharp bas-relief." He not only conveys the vast scope of America's military commitments, but also shows us astonishing and vital operations as they unfold--from the point of view of the troops themselves.--From publisher description

The gripping and definitive in-the-room account of the revolution that has swept the news industry over the last decade and reshaped our world. The last decade has seen the News industry face unprecedented change. The sometimes-century old institutions which were once the bastions of truth have had their dominance eroded by vast innovations in viral technology and, as millennial appetites force the industry to choose between principles of objectivity and impartiality, the survivors must confront the horrifying cost of their success- sexual scandal, fake news, the election of President Trump and the shaking of democracy. Taking us behind the scenes at four media titans - BuzzFeed , VICE , The New York Times and The Washington Post - Abramson reveals the human drama behind this shift- one involving deal-making tycoons, thrusting reporters, hard-bitten editors, egomaniacs, bullshitters, provocateurs and bullies, with some surfing and others drowning in the breaking wave of change. 'A cracking, essential read... Abramson knows where most of the bodies are buried and is prepared to draw the reader a detailed map' Guardian

In this sly and thought-provoking essay, Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman suggests that it's possible to speak of a distinctive twenty-first century cinema, only a decade into the new millennium. The advent of a new digital technology has led to the displacement of the medium of film - and of the real, as digital image-making ends the necessity of having an actual world, let alone the need for a camera. The future history of motion pictures, Hoberman asserts, will be the history of animation. Meanwhile, the 2000 American presidential election and the trauma of 9/11 have reshaped the movies politically. The two events have combined to create a rupture in film history, perhaps presaging, as Susan Sontag forlornly predicted at the close of the century, the death of cinema, or at least cinephilia. This witty and allusive book, in the style of classic film theorist/critics like Andre Bazin and Siegfried Kracauer, expands on a much-discussed article by Hoberman from Artforum and includes considerations of global cinema's most important figures and films, from Lars von Trier and Zia Jiangke to WALL-E, Avatar, and Inception

"Edward Snowden chose three journalists to tell the stories in his Top Secret trove of NSA documents: Barton Gellman of The Washington Post, Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian and filmmaker Laura Poitras, all of whom would share the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Poitras went on to direct the Oscar-winning Citizenfour. Greenwald wrote an instant memoir and cast himself as a pugilist on Snowden's behalf. Gellman took his own path. Snowden and his documents were the beginning, not the end, of a story he had prepared his whole life to tell. More than 20 years as a top investigative journalist armed him with deep sources in national security and high technology. New sources reached out from government and industry, making contact on the same kinds of secret, anonymous channels that Snowden had used. Gellman's reporting unlocked new puzzles in the NSA archive. And as Snowden's revelations faded somewhat from the public consciousness, the machinations he exposed continue still, with many policies unaltered despite societal outrage. Dark Mirror is a true-life spy tale that touches us all, told with authority and an inside view of extraordinary events. Within it is a chilling personal account of the obstacles facing the author, beginning with Gellman's discovery of his own name in Snowden's NSA document trove. Google notifies him that a foreign government is trying to compromise his account. A trusted technical adviser finds anomalies on his laptop. Sophisticated impostors approach Gellman with counterfeit documents, attempting to divert or discredit his work. Throughout Dark Mirror, the author wages an escalating battle against unknown digital adversaries who force him to mimic their tradecraft in self-defense. With the vivid and insightful style that marked Gellman's bestselling Angler, Dark Mirror is an inside account of the surveillance-industrial revolution and its discontents, fighting back against state and corporate intrusions into our most private spheres. Along the way, and with the benefit of hindsight, it tells the full story of a government leak unrivaled in drama since All the President's Men"--

"Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone profound changes--economic cycles that veer from boom to bust--from which it has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, Paul Mason's Postcapitalism argues that we are on the brink of a change so big and so profound that this time capitalism itself, the immensely complex system within which entire societies function, will mutate into something wholly new. At the heart of this change is information technology, a revolution that is driven by capitalism but, with its tendency to push the value of much of what we make toward zero, has the potential to destroy an economy based on markets, wages, and private ownership. Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Vast numbers of people are changing how they behave and live, in ways contrary to the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism. And as the terrain changes, new paths open. In this bold and prophetic book, Mason shows how, from the ashes of the crisis, we have the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable economy. Although the dangers ahead are profound, he argues that there is cause for hope. This is the first time in human history in which, equipped with an understanding of what is happening around us, we can predict and shape the future"--

"The 1990s was a decade of extreme change. Shifts in culture, politics, and technology radically altered the way Americans did business, expressed themselves, and thought about their role in the world. At the center of it all was Bill Clinton, the charismatic and flawed baby boomer president, along with his polarizing but increasingly popular wife, Hillary. Although it was in many ways a Democratic Gilded Age, the 1990s was also a time of great anxiety. The Cold War was over. America was stable and prosperous. Yet Americans felt more unmoored and isolated. This was the era of glitz and grunge, when we relished living in the Republic of Everything even as we feared it might degenerate into the Republic of Nothing. Bill Clinton dominated this era, but his complex legacy has yet to be clearly defined. Historian Gil Troy examines Clinton's presidency alongside the decade's cultural changes. Taking the '90s year by year, Troy shows how the culture of the day shaped the Clintons even as the Clintons shaped it, offering answers to two enduring questions about Bill Clinton's legacy: How did such a talented politician leave Americans thinking he accomplished so little when he actually accomplished so much? And to what extent was Clinton responsible for the catastrophes of the following decade, specifically 9/11 and the collapse of the housing market? Even more relevant as we head toward the 2016 election, The Age of Clinton will appeal to readers on both sides of the aisle as it chronicles the wild, transformative decade and the president at its center"--

A best-selling work in France considers what the world will be like throughout the century to come, drawing on the precedents of nine distinct historical periods to predict such future scenarios as a democratic world government and an international community that is significantly impacted by nuclear technology.

But this is just part of the story, a little part of it. For I Sleep in Hitler's Room is also a book about modern anti-Semitism, about hate that refuses to disappear, about a disease that won't get cured and a curse that won't let go. All told in the clearest of style and most amazing of humor. But this is not fiction. From beginning to end "I Sleep in Hitler's Room" is a true tale, a tale about a country that created the Holocaust and a story about a continent that moves in the direction of creating another. The target group, as in the last round, is the same: the "Jews." Why is Europe, the cradle of our civilization, so obsessed with Jews? Read "I Sleep in Hitler's Room" to find the answer. "I Sleep in Hitler's Room" will make you think, make you worry, make you cry, and make you laugh out loud. It is a book you will never forget. Ever. Buy it today. And run to tell all your friends. Traveling across Germany and seeking out that elusive quality that is the German character, playwright and journalist Tuvia Tenenbom wonders whether he has identified it in any one of several striking social phenomena--the proclivity of Germans to join clubs and group activities; how their aptitude for visual design shapes their architecture and their daily life; how their daily life is suffused with soccer and beer, the omnipresent beverage for all occasions; how they proudly self-define themselves by their achievements in precision technology; and, what is most disturbing to this son of Holocaust survivors, how their crushing awareness of their dark history coexists with virulent anti-Semitism and a stubborn obsession with Israel. Tenenbom integrates deep seriousness with the most lighthearted comic touch in this critical but affectionate look at both left and right in contemporary German politics and society. Listen in on his meetings with leaders in German industry and media, including former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, as well as with scores of private citizens whose everyday conversation Tenenbom ponders even as he gently teases them.

The author examines in detail the issues most critical to the region's future. He describes oil as the current, most important export to the outside world from the Middle East but warns that technology will eventually make it obsolete, leaving those who depend solely on oil revenues with a bleak future. The three factors that could most help transform the Middle East, according to Lewis, are Turkey, Israel, and women. He also argues that there is enough in the traditional culture of Islam on the one hand and the modern experience of the Muslim peoples on the other to provide the basis for an advance toward freedom in the true sense of that word and to achieve the social, cultural, and scientific changes necessary to bring the Middle East into line with the developed countries of both West and East.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has entered its fourth decade, and the values and legacy of the Revolution it was founded upon continue to have profound and contradictory consequences for Iranian life. Despite the repressive power of the current regime the immense creativity of popular cultural practices, that negotiate and resist a repressive system, is a potent and dynamic force. This book draws on the expertise and experience of Iranian and international academics and activists to address diverse areas of social and cultural innovation that are driving change and progress. While religious conservatism remains the creed of the establishment, this volume uncovers an underground world of new technology, media and entertainment that speaks to women seeking a greater public role and a restless younger generation that organises and engages with global trends online.

From the romantic, highly detailed realism of his large-scale "Mountain" photographs to multimedia pieces that embrace abstract forms drawn from close observation of nature, Clifford Ross's work is unlike any other. In 2002, Ross invented his R1 camera, with which he has produced some of the highest resolution single shot photographs ever realized. In a Ross landscape, viewers can spot a bird in a tree on a mountain a mile away. Ross's longstanding desire to reconcile realism and abstraction in his art intensified when he took up photography in the mid-1990s. This book offers the first comprehensive survey of his work, from large-scale, highly detailed landscape photographs to his latest "invisible art" -- an augmented reality app for smartphones that reveals a hidden work within a work. Seen & Imagined accompanies a landmark exhibition at MASS MoCA. Featuring 139 images, most of them in color, including such major Ross series as "Mountains," "Mountain Redux," "Harmoniums," and "Digital Waves," it is the first fine-art book to offer readers an augmented reality 3D "pop up" experience (through a free downloadable app) using their smartphones. Texts by noted writers and critics David Anfam, Quentin Bajac, Arthur C. Danto, Jack Flam, Nicholas Negroponte, and Jock Reynolds, comment on Ross's work, placing it within the history of art and technology, alongside an interview by Orville Schell with the artist. -