As a historian, do you ever make predictions? Can you imagine that our 21st century might be remembered for producing anything on the order of the transcontinental railroad?

I do think about what the headline will be for the 21st century. I think it's going to be that the first human being will live to be 200 years old. This is going to be the best century ever. The last was the worst -- more people were killed, more buildings were destroyed than in any previous time. I believe that the cure for Alzheimer's will come out of a plant or a fish. Remember, 97% of the world is made up of oceans. As a historian, I'm fascinated by the history that is locked up in these waters. I predict that the 21st century is going to be the great age of discovery.

Is there really anything left to discover?

There's still so much to be discovered. And we're going after it, in the mountains, in the oceans. What's going to happen is that the idea of universal education will spread, along with the idea of democracy. We've defeated all of the totalitarian countries except for China and North Korea.

It's going back to George Washington Carver: Who knows how many geniuses there are among Muslim women who are uneducated? When we start teaching these women how to read and write, what will they teach us about the human condition? Imagine doing that in Africa or India or Pakistan. We're going to unleash the power of the brain. I don't have any idea what these geniuses are going to come up with.

The primary reason why this will be the age of discovery is that there is only one superpower in the world. So there won't be a big war. That's what's really going to distinguish the 21st century from the 20th century.

Harriet Rubin (hrubin@aol.com) is a Fast Company senior writer and author of The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women (Doubleday, 1997) and Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambition (HarperCollins, 1999).

Sidebar: Pure Ambrosia

What can business leaders learn from history? Here is what a lifetime spent in the past has taught Stephen E. Ambrose about the future.

• History teaches us what never works. Racism was our nation's biggest mistake. Today, our greatest sports heroes are African, Asian, and European. That was unthinkable 50 years ago.
• Nothing is permanent, even the most blood-soaked prejudices. Our two best friends are Germany and Japan, formerly our two worst enemies. You learn from history that although the young men from both sides threw themselves at each other in mortal combat, they could shake hands a generation later. Strong characters have a lot more in common than strong ideologies.
• The biggest successes are often created by the smallest changes. George McGovern was director of Food for Peace in 1961, when the dean of the University of Georgia called him. The dean asked, "What is the best thing that the federal government has ever done for the South?" McGovern said, "The New Deal." The dean said, "No, school lunches." He pointed out that school attendance was pitiful and that test scores had been terrible. As soon as lunches were served, attendance and scores went way up. That's a lesson. McGovern is building on what we've learned from history. The McGovern-Dole Bill, which is soon to be introduced, calls for funding for school lunches all around the world. If passed, this bill will start a revolution, because the greatest thing out there to be discovered is the potential of the human mind.
• Optimism is always justified. What makes me confident in the future is that we've tried racism, totalitarianism, and a lot of other ideas in order to find that democracy is the best form of government.

Where should an education in history begin? "Go to Gettysburg," Ambrose says. "Or compare yourself with the greatest heroes of history: Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 20th century, Abraham Lincoln in the 19th century, Meriwether Lewis in the 18th. One classic to start with is David McCullough's The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1840 - 1914 (Simon & Schuster, 1977). For those with an interest in health, there is E.G. Chuinard's Only One Man Died: The Medical Aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (A.H. Clark Co., 1979). One of the great works of heroism is Eugene B. Sledge's With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa (Presidio Press, 1981)."