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The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us about Our Future
The Fifth Beginning What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell Us about Our Future Author:Robert L. Kelly ?I have seen yesterday. I know tomorrow.? This inscription in Tutankhamen?s tomb summarizes The Fifth Beginning. Here, archeologist Robert Kelly explains how the study of our cultural past can predict the future of humanity. — — In an eminently readable style, Kelly identifies four key pivot points in the six-million-year history of human develo... more »pment: the emergence of technology, culture, agriculture, and the state. In each example, the author examines the long-term processes that resulted in a definitive no-turning-back change for the organization of society. Kelly then looks ahead, giving us evidence for what he calls a fifth beginning, one that began about AD 1500. Some might call it ?globalization,? but the author places it in its larger context: a 5,000-year arms race, capitalism?s global reach, and the cultural effects of a worldwide communication network.
Kelly predicts the emergent phenomena of this fifth beginning will include the end of war as a viable way to resolve disputes, the end of capitalism as we know it, the widespread appearance of world citizenship, and forms of cooperation that end nation-states? near-sacred status. It?s the end of life, as we have known it. However, this book and the author are cautiously optimistic: it dwells not on the coming chaos, but on humanity?s great potential.