schizophrenic view of the world

books:

	• The Post-American World Simon & Schuster Audio, 2008 average customer review:based on 158 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Post American World

Fantastic read. The author sums up a lot of history in a few pages with insights that opened my mind to what was really happening and what is now happening. Wish all our candidates would read this book.

An Optimistic View

As usual with this author, this book contains a great deal of good sense. It is surprisingly optimistic, long on generalities, and short on specific policy recommendations. It is all well and good to advocate bipartisanship in Congress and alliance-building in foreign policy, but when it comes to specific proposals, Mr. Zakaria barely dips his toes in these troubled waters. I also have to say, unlike Zakaria, that the increasingly destructive potential of terrorists and authoritarian states, together with a seemingly unfixable world-wide shortage of vital oil reserves, just absolutely gives me the willies.

That said, Zakaria's book still provides a useful antidote to much of the inflated rhetoric that passes for analysis these days. It's an appreciated contribution to the debate, and I can only hope that his optimistic vision may somehow come to pass.

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WHY WORRY? READ AND BELIEVE!

Have friends who are convinced by negative talk radio, thinking and preaching that the world is becoming more dangerous? Well, THE POST AMERICAN WORLD can set them straight and calm their fears. Mr. Zakaria brings to light the fact that democracy, market economics and openness are springing up around the world creating a more happy, satisfied planet that looks to be a more peaceful and prosperous world. Zakaria will also make you feel more proud to be an American and reflect on those values so admired around the world that have been so arrogantly and carelessly violated by the current "administration."

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Post-American World

THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD BY FAREED ZAKARIA: Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom, and editor for Newsweek International, offers up a sobering yet fascinating look at the possible future of the United States and its stake as the global superpower in the first half of the twenty-first century. The Post-American World is part business, part political, part historical, and part sociological; as Zakaria analyses how the United States has arrived at the state it is in internationally, and ...more THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD BY FAREED ZAKARIA: Fareed Zakaria, author of The Future of Freedom, and editor for Newsweek International, offers up a sobering yet fascinating look at the possible future of the United States and its stake as the global superpower in the first half of the twenty-first century. The Post-American World is part business, part political, part historical, and part sociological; as Zakaria analyses how the United States has arrived at the state it is in internationally, and what the future holds for the two global giants of India and China on the horizon.

Zakaria begins by discussing how the United States - as well as its citizens - has continued to perceive itself, from the end of the Cold War to the present, as the sole global superpower and utopian democratic and capitalist nation by which the rest of the world should admire it and follow suit. This is all too clear with the globalization of numerous American companies such as the McDonalds and Starbucks franchises, which can now be found almost anywhere in the world, on every continent except Antarctica. But in that time, the United States has lost uncountable jobs, manufacturing industries, and development institutions to other countries, which is now causing serious problems with unemployment and the cost of goods and services to the nation and its citizens. Zakaria points out:

"Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that, in the early decades of the twenty-first century, the United States succeeded in its great and historic mission - it globalized the world. But along the way, they might write, it forgot to globalize itself."

Coupled with this is the continued downfall and disinterest the rest of the world now has in the United States with the choices and decisions it has made. "The world is moving from anger to indifference, from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism," Zakaria says. And it is not until the United States fully comprehends this, that things will begin turning around and improving.

With the United States left in the wake of globalization, Zakaria turns the reader to the next two giants that will become the next so-called superpowers due to the variety and number of industries already situated within their borders, as well as the exploding workforce that is available at a much cheaper rate than the Western World. Zakaria spends most of the book, with specific chapters each on India and China, giving their history and development over the centuries and how it is that they now stand at this brink to become the next superpowers. He also offers sobering statistics in a world that is becoming more environmentally inclined: "Between 2006 and 2012, China and India will build eight hundred new coal-fired power plants - with combined [carbon dioxide] emissions five times the total savings of the Kyoto accords." And yet the growth in these countries is unstoppable and how is America to critique this when it is one of the largest contributors of carbon dioxide in the world?

In the last chapter, Zakaria addresses what the United States needs to do to become the once great shining nation it was. "It needs to stop cowering in fear. It is fear that has created a climate of paranoia and panic in the United States and fear that has enabled our strategic missteps." While at this moment in time, this seems more of a lesson for its government than its people, it is the last paragraph in The Post-American World that makes the most sense to the reader:

"For America to thrive in this new and challenging era, for it to succeed amid the rise of the rest, it need fulfill only one test. It should be a place that is as inviting and exciting to the young student who enters the country today as it was for this awkward eighteen-year-old a generation ago."

[...]

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schizophrenic view of the world

Contrary to the title, this book is not about the demise of America. It is about the rise of the rest of the world and its global implications.

The author makes somtimes contradictory statements. For example, he firmly believes that India will economically surpass China mainly because India is a democratic country (democracy is better for long term economic growth he says). His conclusion ignores his own data that India is growing at 6.9% versus China's 9%, the China's economy is about 3 times as large, and there is no indication China is slowing down anytime soon. And he ignores some major long term problems in India, such as its decisively 3rd world literacy rate (around 60%).

The same goes for his purported demise of America. He says that America has too many long term competitive advantages (democracy, top notch universities, market flexibility, willing to accept immigrants, demographic trends etc) to be relegated to anything less than a superpower in the next few decades. So how does that translate into a "Post American World"? America just will not be AS influencial, says the author, since it must share its power with the rest of the world.

It appears the author has trouble coming to a firm conclusion on most subjects except that there is an unprecedented global economic growth.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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