The Post-American World
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- ISBN13: 9780393334807
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
“Zakaria . . . may have more intellectual range and insights than any additional public thinker in the West.” —Boston Sunday Globe “This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else.” So starts Fareed Zakaria’s blockbusting bestseller on the United States in the twenty-first century. How can Americans know this rapidly changing international climate, and how might the nation continue to thrive in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.
Book Description
“This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else.” So starts Fareed Zakaria’s vital new work on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm cultures. He sees the “rise of the rest”—the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the fantastic tale of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, largest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially international problems. How should the United States know and thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.
Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria: Leader One-to-One
Fareed Zakaria: Your book is about two things, the climate crisis and also about an American crisis. Why do you link the two? 
Thomas Friedman: You’re absolutely right–it is about two things. The book says, America has a problem and the world has a problem. The world’s problem is that it’s getting hot, flat and crowded and that convergence–that perfect storm–is driving a lot of negative trends. America’s problem is that we’ve lost our way–we’ve lost our groove as a country. And the basic argument of the book is that we can solve our problem by taking the lead in solving the world’s problem.
Zakaria: Clarify what you mean by “hot, flat and crowded.”
Friedman: There is a convergence of basically three large forces: one is global warming, which has been going on at a very slow pace since the manufacturing revolution; the second–what I call the flattening of the world–is a metaphor for the rise of middle-class citizens, from China to India to Brazil to Russia to Eastern Europe, who are beginning to consume like Americans. That’s a blessing in so many ways–it’s a blessing for global stability and for global growth. But it has enormous resource complications, if all these people–whom you’ve written about in your book, The Post American World–start to consume like Americans. And finally, global population growth simply refers to the steady growth of population in all-purpose, but at the same time the growth of more and more people able to live this middle-class lifestyle. Between now and 2020, the world’s going to add another billion people. And their resource demands–at every level–are going to be enormous. I tell the tale in the book how, if we give each one of the next billion people on the planet just one sixty-watt incandescent light bulb, what it will mean: the answer is that it will require about 20 new 500-megawatt coal-burning power plants. That’s so they can each turn on just one light bulb!
Zakaria: In my book I talk about the “rise of the rest” and about the reality of how this rise of new powerful economic nations is completely changing the way the world works. Most everyone’s efforts have been devoted to Kyoto-like solutions, with the thought of getting western countries to lower their carbon dioxide emissions. But I grew to realize that the West was a sideshow. India and China will erect hundreds of coal-fire power plants in the next ten years and the combined carbon dioxide emissions of persons new plants alone are five times larger than the savings mandated by the Kyoto accords. What do you do with the Indias and Chinas of the world?
Friedman: I reflect there are two approaches. There has to be more understanding of the basic unfairness they feel. They feel like we sat down, had the hors d’oeuvres, ate the entrée, pretty much finished off the dessert, invited them for tea and coffee and then said, “Let’s split the bill.” So I know the huge sense of unfairness–they feel that now that they have a chance to grow and reach with large numbers a whole new standard of living, we’re basically telling them, “Your growth, and all the emissions it would add, is threatening the world’s climate.” At the same time, what I say to them–what I said to young Chinese most recently when I was just in China is this: Every time I come to China, young Chinese say to me, “Mr. Friedman, your country grew dirty for 150 years. Now it’s our turn.” And I say to them, “Yes, you’re absolutely right, it’s your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I reflect we probably just need about five years to invent all the new clean power technologies you’re going to need as you choke to death, and we’re going to come and sell them to you. And we’re going to clean your clock in the next fantastic global industry. So please, take your time. If you want to give us a five-year lead in the next fantastic global industry, I will take five. If you want to give us ten, that would be even better. In additional words, I know this is unfair, but I am here to tell you that in a world that’s hot, flat and crowded, ET–energy equipment–is going to be as huge an industry as IT–information equipment. Maybe even larger. And who claims that industry–whose country and whose companies dominate that industry–I reflect is going to delight in more national security, more economic security, more economic growth, a in excellent health population, and greater global respect, for that matter, as well. So you can sit back and say, it’s not honest that we have to compete in this new industry, that we should get to grow dirty for a while, or you can do what you did in telecommunications, and that is try to leap-frog us. And that’s really what I’m adage to them: this is a fantastic economic opportunity. The game is still open. I want my country to win it–I’m not sure it will.
Zakaria: I’m struck by the point you make about energy equipment. In my book I’m pretty optimistic about the United States. But the one area where I’m apprehensive is really ET. We do fantastically in biotech, we’re doing fantastically in nanotechnology. But none of these new technologies have the kind of system-wide effect that information equipment did. Energy does. If you want to find the next technological revolution you need to find an industry that transforms everything you do. Biotechnology affects one critical aspect of your day-to-day life, health, but not all of it. But energy–the consumption of energy–affects every human activity in the modern world. Now, my dread is that, of all the industries in the future, that’s the one where we’re not yet to be of the pack. Are we going to run second in this race?
Friedman: Well, I want to question you that, Fareed. Why do you reflect we haven’t led this industry, which itself has huge technological implications? We have all the secret sauce, all the technological prowess, to lead this industry. Why do you reflect this is the one area–and it’s enormous, it’s really going to dwarf all the others–where we haven’t been at the real cutting edge?
Continue reading the Q&A between Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria
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Too much beating around the bush to finally arrive at Mr. Fareed Zakaria’s central point: India, China and the rest – rising powers; United States not any longer. No fantastic surprise, the leader happens to be an Indian, explaining his unquestionable objectivity.
Consider the following: United States no longer has the tallest building, the longest bridge, and the largest dam. I forgot to mention that only one of America’s shopping malls even made the top ten of the world’s largest shopping malls. That’s some “hard” evidence pointing to the decline of America in increasingly global world. And yes, Bollywood – the entertainment power house that helps Indians renovate a new sense of national pride. Are you kidding me?! It’s a very, very sad tale!
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Zakaria has written a nice book, based upon his to some extent limited perspective. For this oversight, I cannot rate the book privileged than 4 stars. While he did provide some appealing insights, he failed to give a full picture of the forces in motion that will most certainly continue to ruin America as we know it.
Zakaria sees globalization as a huge improvement for all people throughout the globe. In this regard, it appears that he is thinking more of the people of Shri Lanka or Haiti, rather than more developed nations. Certainly, persons in on the breadline nations stand to benefit from this globalization trend. They have small to lose. But for much of the developed world such as America, Canada, Europe, Japan, and the UK, this trend promises to strengthen the 2-class trends we see today.
As globalization strengthens, so will the momentum towards one world government, as seen in Orwell’s 1984. This has already happened with the formation of the European Union. Forcing EU laws upon all participant nations is causing many societal and economic problems. In the USA, we are seeing the early stages of plans for the North American Union.
Can you not see how corporations have seized America? Can you not see how they control life and death? Look at gas prices, look at food prices. Know that corporatization is a strategy that is consistent with globalization. Mega-corporations are partners with their respective national governing bodies.
While globalization might make goods and services more well-organized, it will also run under one power. You wont have a choice to place if you don’t like how you are being governed because every nation will be run the same way. Lacking individuality and freedom, we all become slaves who will answer to the government.
Preserving each nation’s sovereignty is vital. Combining the world into one economic, political, and judicial system will be disastrous and it will surely enslave everyone but the wealthy elite.
In conclusion, as a stand alone the book is a nice read and offers a very optimistic look at the effects of globalization. But what it lacks is a full perspective. I would highly recommend as companions to this book, the following:
This no non-sense, data-backed look at America has already successfully predicted the current economic turmoil, with more to come
America’s Financial Apocalypse: How to Profit from the Next Fantastic Depression (Condensed Edition)
Hard-arresting, straight-mouthed views from a man who isn’t that stupid afterall (despite being a ex- wrestler)
Don’t Start the Revolution Lacking Me!
All About the forces behind the New World Order, otherwise known as globalization
The Right Tale of the Bilderberg Group
If you read these books along with Zakaria’s, you will have a full perspective to determine whether the benefits of globalization are worth the risks.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Views like this book’s depend on worldly assumptions. If leadership and influence do not gyrate around how much stuff you make and buy (the world as a huge strip mall), it falls apart.
China, Brazil, Russia, India are one-trick ponies. Cheap labor or energy reserves. No one looks to them for leadership; they produce no thoughts and inspire nothing but consumption and criminality (Russia). Their cultures are based on systematically defective understandings of reality, such as Confucianism, Buddhism, or Hinduism, that will very much limit them.
China will gyrate around the same oriental despotism they have practiced for thousands of years. The mindset made by their cultural assumptions prevents them from offering anything meaningful to the world but cheap labor (for a time). China can only reflect about and take care of China.
The success of the west is based on a point set of beliefs: that the world can be understood and is worth understanding (leading to science), that humans were made in the spiritual image of God, thus have intrinsic worth (human rights), but voluntarily corupted themselves (requiring representative, decentralized government).
Non-western countries do not have a culture that supports such beliefs. Thus they can lead only to human-centered responses; despotism, cronyism, organized crime with a veneer of jingling cash registers until it fails.
Problems in the west similarly stem from the decline in Christian culture among the ruling elite, now most advanced in Europe. Watch how long cash registers can keep a “post-American” world pleased.
I have lots of Chinese junk I bought that seemed vital and worthwhile at the time but is just sitting there, representing wasted effort on my part and persons who made it.
Turning to the “noble savage” of the third world for insight is a reflection of an inner desolation and confusion due to losing the way from the reality of the path of Christ.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
In writing as if American decline were a fait accompli, Zakaria engages more in wishful thinking than in principled analysis (of which he, ever keen for acclaim and influence, seems constitutionally incapable). So long as men exist who cherish freedom and individual rights and will defend them unto death, America will permanently lead the world, morally and politically, if not economically. What was right in 1776 holds right today: America, founded on the rights of a sovereign people to pursue their own happiness apart from State or Religion, is the last, best hope of planet. If Zakaria had a deeper respect for his adopted homeland, he would stop being the crusader boy for national self-deprecation and attempt a genuine contribution to political thought. Alas, from this Harvard Ph.D. we get only a hash of warmed-over Newsweek magazine articles.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
The blame America first crowd has authored a book to accept the decline of America, which they have caused. This book outlines a rosy scenario that the decline of America and the rise of the rest are going to champion another natural age of progress and we should all look forwards to when America is no longer a super power. This in a post 911 world…talks about not having safety and security as a priority. I just hope the U.N. can continue to stop the genocide in Africa and Muslim extremist from getting nukes and destroying the infidels-oh wait they don’t. This book illustrates what would take place if the left continue to get there way, as it would be a blueprint for a worst case scenario for the world. This book takes us down the lefts (aka the democrats) yellow brick road and tells us it will be fantastic and all will be right in the world. Get this book if you vote for Obama then you can see his world view. Thanks Mr. Muslim for your next book write about how sharia law is going to save America.- utter nonsense
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5