Two hundred years ago the United States was a minor nation. Today it is the world's greatest economic and military power, and a major engine of worldwide prosperity. Several nations which were stronger than the U.S. in 1800 are today not nearly as strong as it is.

Moreover, some other nations have changed their relative places in the economic-political order ever even more dramatically than the United States.

What does the future hold for America and for the world? A great deal of the answer will be determined by the course of modernization. If we want to understand and better shape the future we must understand the modernization process. While I cannot claim to have contributed much of any fundamental nature to this understanding, I have worked to find and make use of the best information available on the subject, some of which I present here.

Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy -- Jan 2006 review of a major new book by Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel.

Democracy and Trust -- Jan 2005 piece written as op-ed article but never published. I would say something a bit different now, after reading the book by Inglehart and Welzel, but I still like it in its original form.