New York Times Reviews The Next Hundred Million

” In “The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050,” the urban scholar Joel Kotkin, 57, suggests that the diversity that may once have seemed unique to New York and other gateway cities for immigrants will be mirrored all over America, and that the nation’s “demographic vitality” — driven by birthrates higher than in developed but aging European and Asian counterparts and by a continuing influx of immigrants — will make it not only bigger but also better when the population passes 400 million before mid-century.

“The America of 2050 may not stride the world like a hegemonic giant, but it will evolve into the one truly transcendent superpower in terms of society, technology and culture,” Mr. Kotkin gushes. “Its greatest power will be its identification with notions of personal liberty, constitutional protections and universalism.”

Given the viral finger-pointing and hand-wringing over what’s seen as America’s decline these days, Mr. Kotkin’s book provides a timely and welcome — if sometimes Panglossian — antidote. He builds his case for the prevalence of American exceptionalism on the nation’s adaptability, ingenuity, vast land and other resources and religiosity (and also on a less convincing argument that the country has rebounded before). “