If you don't try to read the book of Revelation as prediction as all, there is a lot of insight in it; take a cross section of any point in history, and it looks like Revelation. The author was giving a highly (sometimes dizzyingly and confusingly) symbolic interpretation of the nature of history, not a prediction of a particular future period. There is a general sense of prediction that God, through Christ, will ultimately win out; a kind of looking at history through the eyes of the writers faith.