History Future Now is a website dedicated to looking at current events from a historical perspective and then using that vantage point to look to the future. For the most recent articles, click on Latest Articles to find out more.

Most current events are just noise and will have very limited impact on our lives in the future. Some events, however, are significant and will have an impact for centuries to come.  History Future Now is split into four overlapping themes of Natural Resources, the Global Balance of Power, Jobs & the Economy and Society.

In Part 1: Natural Resources, we focus on the issue of resource depletion and climate change. Many of the key natural resources that humans depend on are declining, largely due to more people wanting more things. The world’s population jumped from 2 billion people in 1930 to over 8.1 billion in 2024, and the world’s middle class population tripled from 1.2 billion in 2000 to over 4 billion in 2020. One of the main observations is that while humans know that these problems are severe, we are unable as a species to deal with them effectively. This is partly due to wishful thinking – things will get better and science will solve all our resource issues – and religious and political dogma which states that there is no problem because God would not allow bad things to happen to us or that a desire to conserve the environment is a left wing conspiracy. Click here to find out more.

In Part 2: Global Balance of Power we turn our attention to the shifting balance of power in the World. For nearly half a millennium the West has dominated most of the planet. We look at the causes of the rise of the West and how it has allowed itself to relinquish its power. A great deal of attention is devoted to changes in Europe’s demographics and the threat from North Africa before shifting attention to the spectacular rise of China since 2000 and its implications on the entire World. Click here to find out more.

In Part 3: Jobs and the Economy we start by looking at the impact of trade policies on employment over the past 150 years and look forward to a jobless World dominated by robotics and artificial intelligence. What will be the impact on society? We also look at the impact of some of the great economic thinkers from Smith and Ricardo to Marx and Engels to Keynes and Hayek on economic policies today. Click here to find out more.

In Part 4: Society we look at changes in society over the years with a special emphasis on the impact of mass surveillance of Western governments on its own citizens. We also look at the impact of immigration on Western societies and what history can teach us about what might happen in the future. Finally we look at changes in family dynamics and how that will impact on the way we live, including changes in sexual orientation and how this could result in childless societies. Click here to find out more.

Finally, in Bibliography, you can find a bibliography of some of the books that helped inspire the ideas behind History Future Now. Click on the links to find out more.

Recent articles