21st century

The21st centuryis the currentcenturyof theAnno Dominiera, in accordance with theGregorian calendar.It began on January 1, 2001 and will end on December 31, 2100. It is the first century of the3rd millennium.It is distinct from the century known as the2000s,which began on January 1, 2000 and will end on December 31, 2099.

The twenty-first century will be the American century... The twenty-first century has begun with an American success. ~George Friedman

The twenty-first century will be a period in which a range of new institutions, moral systems, and practices will begin their first tentative emergence. The first half of the twenty-first century will be marked by intense social conflict. ~George Friedman

Quotes

• The 21st century humans are poised to be the heroes for all time because we're armed with a superpower of knowing that we have to change our attitude about the world that keeps us alive, that we can't just continue mining and, you know, taking and taking. We have to be aware of the consequences.
  • Sylvia EarleInterviewwith NPR (2021)

• The twenty-first century will be the American century... [T]he twenty-first century truly began onSeptember 11, 2001,ten years later, whenplanesslammed into theWorld Trade Centerandthe Pentagon...Al Qaedahas failed in its goals. TheUnited Stateshas succeeded, not so much in winning the war as in preventing theIslamistsfrom winning, and, from a geopolitical perspective, that is good enough...The twenty-first century has begun with an American successthat on the surface looks like not only a deafeat but a deep political and moral embarrassment.
  • George Friedman,The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century(2009), p. 18, Doubleday

• [D]isequilibrium will dominate the twenty-first century, as will efforts to contain theUnited States.It will be a dangerous century, particularly for the rest of the world.
  • George Friedman,The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century(2009), p. 47, Doubleday

• Old institutions have shattered, but new ones have not yet emerged. The twenty-first century will be a period in which a range of new institutions, moral systems, and practices will begin their first tentative emergence. The first half of the twenty-first century will be marked by intense social conflict globally. All of this frames the international struggles of the twenty-first century.
  • George Friedman,The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century(2009), p. 64, Doubleday

• When I was growing up in the 1950s, the twenty-first century was an idea associated withscience fiction,not a reality in which I would live. Practical people focus on the next moment and leave the centuries to dreamers. But the truth is that the twenty-first century has turned out to be a very practical concern to me. I will spent a good deal of my life in it.
  • George Friedman,The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century(2009), p. 254, Doubleday
• Dear friends, Let’s be clear:humanactivities are at the root of our descent towards chaos. But that means human action can help solve it. Making peace withnatureis the defining task of the 21st century. It must be the top, top priority for everyone, everywhere.
  • António Guterres,"The State of the Planet," (2 December 2020), as quoted inVital Speeches of the Day,87(2), pp. 40–44.

• The international system of the twenty-first century will be marked by a seeming contradiction: on the one hand, fragmentation; on the other, growingglobalization.On the level of the relations among states, the new order will be more like theEuropeanstate system of the eighteenth andnineteenth centuriesthan the rigid patterns of theCold War.It will contain at least six major powers—theUnited States,Europe,China,Japan,Russia,and probablyIndia—as well as a multiplicity of medium-sized and smaller countries. At the same time, international relations have become truly global for the first time.Communicationsare instantaneous; theworld economyoperates on all continents simultaneously. A whole set of issues has surfaced that can only be dealt with on a worldwide basis, such asnuclear proliferation,theenvironment,thepopulation explosion,and economic interdependence. For America, reconciling differing values and very different historical experiences among countries of comparable significance will be a novel experience and a major departure from either the isolation ofthe last centuryor thede factohegemony of the Cold War, in ways which this book seeks to illuminate. Equally, the other major players are facing difficulties in adjusting to the emerging world order.
  • Henry Kissinger,Diplomacy(1994)

• Hopelessnessis becoming the hallmark of the 21st century.
  • Farid A. Malik,It is about sharing and caring(January 23, 2020),Daily Times.

• If I could just take a moment, I had an assignment the other day. Someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that is going to opened inLos Angelesa hundred years from now, on our Tricentennial. It sounded like an easy assignment. They suggested I write about the problems and issues of the day. And I set out to do so, riding down the coast in anautomobile,looking at the blue Pacific out on one side and the Santa Ynez Mountains on the other, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was going to be that beautiful a hundred years from now as it was on that summer day. And then as I tried to write-let your own minds turn to that task. You're going to write for people a hundred years from now who know all about us, we know nothing about them. We don't know what kind of world they'll be living in. And suddenly I thought to myself, "If I write of the problems, they'll be the domestic problems of whichthe Presidentspoke here tonight; the challenges confronting us, the erosion offreedomtaken place underDemocraticrule in this country, the invasion of private rights, the controls and restrictions on the vitality ofthe great free economy that we enjoy."These are the challenges that we must meet and then again there is that challenge of which he spoke that we live in a world in which the great powers have aimed and poised at each other horrible missiles of destruction,nuclear weaponsthat can in a matter of minutes arrive at each other's country and destroy virtually the civilized world we live in. And suddenly it dawned on me; those who would read this letter a hundred years from now will know whether those missiles were fired. They will know whether we met our challenge. Whether they will have the freedom that we have known up until now will depend on what we do here. Will they look back with appreciation and say, "Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom? Who kept us now a hundred years later free? Who kept our world fromnuclear destruction?"And if we fail they probably won't get to read the letter at all because it spoke of individual freedom and they won't be allowed to talk of that or read of it. This is our challenge and this is why we're here in this hall tonight.
  • Ronald Reagan,Remarks at the Republican National Convention,19 August 1976

• Du Bois,inThe Souls of Black Folk,argued that the theme of thetwentieth centurywas the color line. In my view, the theme of the twenty-first century isimmigration.Everything rotates around it:climate change,Covid-19,populismfromTrumpto other “aspirational”dictators,global finance,etc.
  • Ilan StavansInterview(2021)

• We are witnessing the rise of what I call "a fragmented globality." World histories and local histories are at once becoming both increasingly intertwined and increasingly contradictory. The twenty-first century is likely to be marked by the speed and brutality of these contradictions.
  • Michel-Rolph Trouillot,Theorizing a Global Perspective(1996)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on21st centuryon Wikipedia