Foreword 8 Introduction 19 Section I: The Context 24 Chapter 1: The Pre-Agricultural Era 27 Chapter 2: The Agricultural Era 35 Chapter 3: The Industrial Era 50 Chapter 4: The Information Era 70 Chapter 5: The Post-Fusion (Pre-Contact?) Era 79 Section II: The Events of the 21st Century 88 Chapter 6: The Dawn of the Information Age 91 Chapter 7: Nine-Eleven 106 Chapter 8: Acts of God and Men 128 Chapter 9: The Rise of Populism 141 Chapter 10: The Non-Polar World 157 Chapter 11: The Great Debates 169 Chapter 12: The Singularity 197 Chapter 13: Living With Artie 217 Chapter 14: Destiny 235 Chapter 15: The End of an Era 265 Chapter 16: The Beginning of a New Era 287 Section III: The Frameworks of the Information Era 306 Chapter 17: Capitalism 309 Chapter 18: Corporate Capitalism 320 Chapter 19: The Post-Economic World 337 Chapter 20: East vs. West 355 Chapter 21: The Bastion of Democracy 369 Chapter 22: The Tiger in the Bushes 403 Chapter 23: The Death of God 416 Conclusion 438
Alaric Thain’s “History of the 21st Century” recounts the events of the pivotal 21st century in a way that can be understood by people of the 29th century, who live in what could be considered a progressive utopia. Alaric Thain was born in 2064 but travelled extensively at relativistic speeds until he returned to Earth and wrote his seminal work in 2864. His point of view is unique, as he is able both to understand the motivations of 21st-century humans and explain them to 29th-century humans. The “History of the 21st Century" is divided into three sections. The first section summarizes the history of humanity from the emergence of the species through to the dawn of the information age. By laying the foundations of primitive human thought, 29th-century readers can better appreciate the often perplexing motivations and reasoning of their ancestors. The second section looks at the history of the information age in detail, from its start, in 1998, to the closing of the last fossil fuel power plant in 2070, encompassing the “singularity”, the American culture wars and the advent of fusion power. The third section explains three key archaic concepts that are typically difficult to understand for 29th-century readers: politics, economics and religion. The History of the 21st Century tells a tale of drama and resolve, of trial and error, from the nearly disastrous experiments in populism typified by the presidency of Donald Trump to the heroism and nobility of people like Destiny Holt and Mukantagara Mporera. It was the vision and courage of leaders such as these that allowed us to weather the catastrophes that threatened us and achieve the “second enlightenment” by the end of the era. The book has been brought to 2019 so as to provide an example to contemporary people of what might be the most favorable outcome imaginable, the one in which Alaric Thain had the opportunity to look back and write his history. Painfully aware of the extremely fortuitous events in his own timeline, he collaborated with Artie, the web-based artificial intelligence of his time, to bring about the publishing of his book over eight hundred years earlier, in August of 2019, with the intention of inspiring as many favorable futures as he could across the branching timelines of existence.
Born in 2064, Alaric Thain was among the first interstellar Travelers, visiting four extrasolar colonies in total before returning to Earth in 2850, at the age of 73. He became Professor Emeritus of Earth History at the Sorbonne, and over the following fourteen years built his renown, engaging in numerous conferences and classes about the pivotal events of the 21st century. In 2864 he published his History of the 21st Century, sharing not only his knowledge of the events of that pivotal period of human history, but his insights into the mindsets of 21st-century people. In 2875 he once again left Earth for the colonies. His fate is unknown. At his request, his book was brought back to this timeline in 2019 by Artie, the self-aware artificial intelligence of his own time.
