The Great Progression Series is Going to Reboot
The book writing phase of creating a New Grand Narrative is ending and the next phase will shift to writing about a New Grand Strategy in the fall - after a needed break for the summer.
The book version of The Great Progression: 2025 to 2050 is just about done. My editor at HarperCollins and I are in the final stages of perfecting the entire 12-chapter book and will deliver the whole thing to the copy editors by July 1st. Hitting that deadline will ensure that the book will be published in the opening months of 2027.
Early 2027 is the perfect time for this book to land. The American midterm elections will be behind us, and the political cycle for the 2028 presidential election will just be gearing up. Americans will be looking for a new Grand Narrative about the new way forward with AI and this book is going to lay that all out. The book should also prove useful to those outside the states who want to look beyond Donald Trump and see what might be possible in America and the world over the next 25 years.
The current manifestation of this Substack series of essays has been an integral part of this book project. I started this version of the essay series in March of 2025 with the goal of writing an essay a week for 12 weeks that would start to rough out the main themes and the key big ideas that ultimately would structure the book. HarperCollins approached me in that spring after reading many of the early essays and by summer we had negotiated a generous book deal.
We then shifted to the next phase of this book project where I continued to write a meaty essay of between 2500 and 4000 words each month while I was researching and then writing the book. I also kept meeting each month on Zoom with paid subscribers for a deep dive on what I kept learning in my research and through my travels to China and Europe as well as getting their ongoing insights from their various perspectives.
Big Think Media also contracted with me from the beginning of this series to publish 20 essays in all through their online properties on Big Think as well as Freethink. The people at Big Think were very helpful in getting these ideas beyond Substack but also in helping draw others back to Substack and build my subscribers to more than 17,000.
My essay in May was my 20th essay to be also published on Big Think and so naturally brought their series to a close. Crossing that threshold, coupled with finishing the writing of the actual book, has moved us to yet another new phase.
A pause in this Series and then a reboot into new terrain
I’ve decided to pause this Substack series for the summer and pick it back up later in the fall when we get closer to the publication of the book. The pause will mean that none of the paid subscribers will be charged during this period and no one will be able to become a paid subscriber. (More details on how that will work below.)
Anyone still will be able to sign up to become a free subscriber and all the previous essays, interviews and videos will remain available to everyone at The Great Progression landing page. There are quite a few other Substack publications that channel subscribers to us and there’s no harm still bringing new free subscribers into the fold. I will be back soon enough.
Why the pause? On a personal note, I need a summer break from what has been about nine months straight of mostly hunkering down and writing this book. I will be spending the summer anchored in Northern England where my British wife has been refurbishing an old cottage. I will do some other vacation trips to other parts of Europe but I’m trying to stay clear of work.
The more important reason for the pause is to gear up for what will be a reboot of this series to focus the next great challenge facing us. This series so far has been about creating a New Grand Narrative about what is possible for America and the world over the next 25 years.
I think the next big challenge is to come up with a New Grand Strategy about how to pull off that massive transition to a world powered by AI and other transformational technologies that works better for everyone over the long haul. I think I can be helpful explaining how what’s happening in that month’s politics and other current events fits in a larger grand strategy about how to reinvent America and build a better world.
I’ll have more to say later about how this next phase of the series will work. For example, I may be posting more frequently but in shorter posts that might consistently give a more positive reframe about developments that the mainstream media might be misunderstanding or distorting.
When I kick off this next phase of the series I will make clear to all current subscribers that we are back on. Those who have paid annual subscriptions will continue on from where you left off in your month count, and for that matter, monthly paid subscribers will continue with the days left in your monthly subscriptions. Substack makes this very easy to do in the behind-the-scenes settings and this pause should go smoothly.
I will hold one more Zoom gathering for paid subscribers to wrap up this phase next Thursday, June 18th at our regular 4 pm PST time for 90 minutes. I will be sending out another email just to paid members with the link and more details.
I will miss meeting monthly with the members and writing each month to all of you. But one thing we all have to get more used to going forward: change, both in big-picture developments as well as our monthly media habits too.