As social theorist Drucker pointed out, every few hundred years a sharp transformation occurs during which society rearranges itself in a variety of aspects--its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structure, its arts, its key institutions. At the end of the 20th century, we are living through precisely such a transformation. The tremendous shift from an industrial to a knowledge economy and society is generating profound new challenges even as it opens up unprecedented vistas of possibility. This "age of social transformation," to the knowledge era, Drucker wrote, "will not come to an end with the year 2000--it will not even have peaked by then." Global Trends 2005 is a look at this transition now shaking the foundations of human society. At once a vision of the future and a handbook for understanding daily events, this book will change the way you see the world--and your place in it.