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John Harbison
John Harbison is an American composer whose work is notable for its astonishing range and diversity. He has written for every conceivable type of concert performance and is also considered[…]
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How the United States will cope with China’s rising prominence.

Question: What is America's greatest challenge?

John Harbison: Well, just one is that it’s not going to be as dominate a force over the next quite soon years. Particularly China, and India, and other regions of the world have the latent resource and power which we barely imagined, and the United States will not too long from now begin to adjust to not having the kinds of controls that it has. Already it’s adjusted to being essentially a third world economy; but a much more fundamental, psychological adjustment will have to take place, something like that which England experienced around the Second World War. And we’ll see whether we have the innate civility to do as well as England did with it.

Recorded On: 6/12/07

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