Book excerpt: This book combines academic wisdom and practitioners’ insights to critically examine the challenges faced by civil service systems in the 21st Century. Moreover, the book evaluates what types of civil servants are needed to tackle critical issues such as rapidly ageing populations, increased urbanisation, environmental degradation, swift technological advancement, and globalisation of the market place in the social and economic realm of the 21st Century. Its topics range from civil service development in post-Soviet countries indicating that peer-to-peer learning is the way forward, to civil service reforms in China, Japan, and Korea in their quest to satisfy their citizens demands and expectations in the 21st Century. Other topics span across regional analyses by focusing on current dominant trends and challenges confronting administrative and civil service systems, vis-à-vis technology, innovation and “big data”, and their disruptive effects on society and government. This book will be of interest to both academics and practitioners, and would-be builders of the 21st Century world.