Unleashing the Second American Century:Four Forces for Economic Dominance

Our best days are, in fact, ahead of us. It explains four transformational forces that will provide the foundation for a new era featuring a much stronger economy, robust growth, and broad-based prosperity that will propel the United States to new heights.

When you consider challenges like

• political gridlock in Washington...
• the lingering effects of the financial crisis...
• and the decline of American manufacturing...

You’re tempted to ask, “Are our best days behind us?”

In this summary of Unleashing the Second American Century, Joel Kurtzman persuasively shows us why all the talk about America’s decline is not simply exaggerated; it’s dead wrong! Our best days are, in fact, ahead of us.

Kurtzman is a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, a member of the editorial board of MIT Sloan Management Review, and a senior fellow at the Wharton School’s SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management. Earlier in his career, Kurtzman was the editor-in-chief of Harvard Business Review, founding editor-in-chief of Strategy + Business magazine, and global “lead partner” for thought leadership and innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

As he explains in this summary, four transformational forces have been evolving and growing, under the radar:

• unrivaled manufacturing depth,
• soaring levels of creativity,
• massive new energy sources, and
• gigantic amounts of capital waiting to be invested.

When combined, these transformational forces will provide the foundation for a new era featuring a much stronger economy, robust growth, and broad-based prosperity that will propel the United States to new heights.