We’re living the end of time. Not the end of the world, but the end of a world age – a 5,125-year cycle of time – and the way we’ve known the world throughout that time. The present world age began in 3114 b.c. and will end in a.d. 2012.

Because the end of anything also marks the beginning of what comes next, we’re also living the start of what follows the end of time: the next world age, which ancient traditions called the great cycle.

The first part of the book, “The Quickening,” sets the scene. It opens with the increasing pace of life we are all experiencing today. I show how this trend is not limited to modern times, but can be traced back through history all the way to the beginning of creation. What we are experiencing today is the culmination of billions of years of ever-accelerating development.

Why does evolution accelerate? The answer lies in the fact that new evolutionary breakthroughs often facilitate future advances. Multicellular organisms, sexual reproduction, and the emergence of nervous systems have each done their part to hasten the pace of evolutionary change. Now, with the emergence of human beings, two new features are speeding development yet further.

The Venus Project, led by Jacque Fresco, has provided the tools and framework to make a new, humane society possible. He is not a leader. He is simply a thinker with a true humane intent.

The Venus Project is in the process of introducing a set of values and procedures that may enable us to achieve social nucleation. Our project will provide the designs and blueprints for a prototype community to test the validity of our proposals; we will strive to achieve a relevant orientation by which people may adapt intellectually and emotionally to our new technological age. We feel that anything short of overall social design would be inappropriate and ineffective.

At present world affairs are being shaped by three major forces: industrialization, the reaction to industrialization and emerging post-industrial views, values, structures and technologies. Although stories about the rapid expansion of the consumer society and its battles with Islamic traditionalists have dominated the news for decades, environmental problems will increasingly shape national and global events.

This is because resource shortages and failing ecosystems will not only limit the ability of the global economy to expand, but cause it to contract. The result will be growing economic and social crises, which will in turn provoke more local, regional and international conflicts. As a consequence the industrial system will weaken while both pre- and post-industrial forces will strengthen.