What challenges will humanity face? - as explored in The Human Odyssey

We humans have been on a long journey and it has now reached a crucial stage. For the first time in our history everything we do affects everyone and everything else. In fact, the next hundred years will bring more and more change: more opportunities for more people to live the good life - and more risk of catastrophic harm to the entire planet. The Human Odyssey takes a close look at the challenges we all inevitably face.

We face change on three levels. Firstly, urbanisation and digital connectivity have brought about a radical break with our past. Most of us now live in cities, and by the end of the century virtually all of us will do so. This means that - for the first time in human history - we are growing up cut off from nature and thrown together with people from all sorts of different cultural backgrounds in a sort of global bazaar.

Secondly, the world’s economic centre of gravity is shifting eastwards. The rise of Asia - and in particular, the rise of China - is changing the balance of power. America is no longer the world’s superpower and the West is no longer sure of what it stands for. America is embarked on a strategy of containment: and Europe doesn’t know whether to engage with China or to follow America’s lead. In fact, the main geopolitical question for the next century is whether conflict is unavoidable - or whether the world views of the two main superpowers, the one essentially libertarian and the other fundamentally Confucian, can be made to work together constructively for the common good?

Thirdly: urbanisation brings out the individual in us - whether those in authority like it or not. The question - the deepest question of all - is whether that means we are inevitably on a journey towards a self-centred individualism? Or can we hope to achieve a mature individuality - an individuality that learns from the wisdom of others, such that the interaction of the world’s great cultures can be mutually enriching and transforming - and so that people and planet can thrive together?

‘Stephen Green asks important questions about what happens to humanity in the next hundred years. His book is a bold enterprise given the scale and pace of change around the world.’

- Baroness Valerie Amos CH, Director, the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and former Leader of the House of Lords and United Nations Under-Secretary General

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