About the Author

Fred Kilbourne is a consulting actuary whose office has been in San Diego for over 30 years. Actuaries are mathematicians who search historical data for trends which they then project into the future, after first adjusting those trends for knowledge and judgment currently available concerning the future. Since actuaries are paid to foresee the future, it is perhaps unsurprising that my task of updating and revising the original 2010 edition of The Untied States of America required not a single change to the covers of the book – neither to the map on the front cover nor to the text of the back cover. The book between the covers, on the other hand, required a good deal of updating and some revising to reflect changes during the decade from 2010 to 2020. One result of these changes has been that the prospect of another US civil war has gone from unthinkable to an issue of frequent public discussion – as has, although to a lesser degree, the question of reparations to atone for the institution of slavery.