The first chapter is a condensed big history course outlining the 18 basic systems that define the universe and the patterns they produce that frame existence. It includes Henriques’ concept of joint points (major upshifts in complexity), of which there have been four thus far.  Reaching the present day, Andersen introduces some of the most significant dangers humanity now faces, and then begins narrating how to proceed by delineating and reconstructing the concept of freedom. She identifies and defines 21 types of freedom she deems as essential for humanity to understand and balance in the century ahead.  Next, Andersen conducts an investigation of human meaning-making—its realities and limitations—and the need to make human understanding as culturally global, well-educated, and human species-wide as possible. She asserts that freedoms and meaning-making allow us to consider the successes and failures of the one successful, existent model humanity has for future development—liberal democracy—to include the things about it that must change to continue its viability.  The challenges to and even prospects of failure of existing human systems—to include that of nation states—are then explored in depth. In the latter chapters, Andersen proposes a path to understanding current day challenges and those of the near-future (even the coming of a 5th joint point) by adopting the concept of libertism—how humanity can consider concepts described in the previous chapters and make meaningful choices for itself, starting now. According to Andersen, libertism will work because it proposes considerations within four dominant memeplexes in our current civilization and includes tenets for new ways of thinking. Libertism also culls still-useful aspects of current systems in order for humanity to rethink its choices moving forward. Lastly, the book outlines very different visions of humanity’s potential future: the first is a world based on the integrative, imaginative, democratic and cultural tenets of metamodernity; the second is the technology-driven, highly-controlled, extractive and exploitive world of hypermodernity.
