From the Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P Huntington, 1996.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Huntington
Extracted from Table 4.3. 'Pop' refers to world population total in Billions rounded to one decimal place. Other numbers rounded to nearest integer. * refers to projections.
Year Pop West Islam Sinic Afric
1900 1.6 44 4 19 0
1920 1.9 48 2 17 1
1971 3.7 14 13 23 6
1995 5.8 13 16 24 10
2025* 8.5 10 19 21 14
This Table had a profound influence on my thinking - a case of scales dropping from eyes...
Of course, since the book was written 18 years ago, the precise estimates for 2025 have changed - but the direction, speed and severity of changes in the size and composition of the world population over the past century are stunning - and presumably unprecedented in world history.
But, naturally, nobody talks about this stuff.
*
