Most of us who work as professional futurists never really stop gathering information - you never know when a provocative, potentially disruptive new development might appear.

Foresight turns out to be a critical adaptive strategy for times of great stress.

Neodymium is one of 17 'rare-earth metals,' and these elements have turned out to be critical to the rapidly-growing green technology industries.

When we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.

I don't think we should ever be at war. That's kind of naive, I suppose.

Death created the modern American union, not just by ensuring national survival, but by shaping enduring national structures and commitments. The work of death was Civil War America's most fundamental and most demanding undertaking.

I understand how every healthy child, every new road, puts a country on a better path, but instability and war will arise from time to time, and I'm not an expert on how you get out of those things.

I can't discuss the possibility of the U.S. involvement in Syria's civil war without also talking about Benghazi.