The history of public personnel administration is as old as human civilization itself: Persia, China, Assyria, Egypt, and Rome all practiced strategic personnel management systems, some systematically and others unsystematically. But despite the longstanding practice of strategic public personnel administration, the systematic study of this field is a fairly new development in the modern world. Today, the need for strategic thinking in public personnel administration and human capital development is more urgent than ever before. Managing and coping with the challenges of transworld migrations of capital and labor, cyber-employment and virtual workplaces, and relentless global pressures for results-oriented performance through outsourcing all require the development of human capital as a key asset of modern governments and private organizations. Governments and public administration organizations must confront these challenges if they are to survive and thrive in the 21st century, and "Strategic Public Personnel Administration" provides a comprehensive analysis of the past development and current function of the field so as to give a clearly balanced picture of public personnel administration in both theory and practice.