Rifkin considers the latest phase of communication and energy regimes—that of electronic telecommunications and fossil fuel extraction—as bringing people together on the nation-state level based on democratic capitalism, but at the same time creating global problems, like climate change, pandemics, and nuclear proliferation.

Author Jeremy Rifkin had previously written several books that, like The Empathic Civilization, have attempted to extrapolate trends in the economy, technology, and society.

At the time of publication, the 64-year-old Rifkin was working as an advisor to the European Union concerning issues relating to the economy, climate change, and energy security, as well as president of the American non-profit organization the Foundation on Economic Trends.

Decentralization followed the collapse of the Roman Empire, as each town operated a water or wind mill and the printing press distributed literature, empowering more people.

Autobiographies started to be written, more people married for love rather than other arrangements, and the concept of privacy, democracy, and market capitalism was more prevalent.

Rifkin extrapolates the changes in energy regimes to predict a shift in production towards renewable sources like wind and solar power under distributed (i.e. personal) management.

[3] Rifkin synthesizes research and material from fields such as literature and the arts, theology, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, and communication theory.

[6] The Empathic Civilization was contrasted to the book Crisis Economics by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm, as reaching different conclusions but being complementary by offering valid alternative futures different from contemporary belief in social progress.

[8] The Empathic Civilization was published in January 2010 by Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc., an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), in North America and by Cambridge Polity Press in the United Kingdom.

[8] In The Globe and Mail, the reviewer expressed a similar view that Rifkin "doesn't explain how...empathy can vanquish a physical principle, entropy".

[5] The reviewer in the Edmonton Journal admitted the book is well-researched and presents "an immense amount of engaging evidence" on empathy, but ultimately dismisses it as "a shallow intellectual hit" due to its "simple thesis, souped up unnecessarily" and "impression of having been written in a hurry, with a marketing rep scribbling catchphrases over Rifkin's shoulder".

[12] Michael Dudly, reviewing for the Winnipeg Free Press, labelled the book "ambitious", "deserving of a wide audience" and "at times fascinating but ultimately underwhelming".