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From:Fareed Zakaria , W. W. Norton ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#112 |
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1 of 1 customers found the following review helpful:
 An Important Book for Your Library, 2008-09-18
I recently read Fareed Zakaria's"The Post-American World", and found the book to be most interesting and informative. I have been recommending it in my blogs and through e-mail as one of several books people should read before voting in this most interesting election year. The chapters on China, India, and Great Britain are excellent, and his thoughts on the role of America are valuable. As someone who was born just before FDR was elected, and who has seen the evolution of American politics and governance, I find that "The Post-American World" is an important book for our times.
What a Book!, 2008-09-18
This book is excellent. One of the best I've ever read. It describes in detail why the United States is slipping in the world economy. I believe that 50 years from now, people who have read this book will say, "I knew this was coming". If your interested in what America's role will be in the next 50 years on the world stage, you HAVE to read this book. It's worth every penny.
Good overview of today's world and America's place in it by a very smart pundit--but still punditry, 2008-09-18
This is an extremely insightful book resting on probably most clearheaded appreciation of what's going on around the world that should be read by any and everyone interested in world affairs. On the downside, it contains too many intellectually facile overgeneralizations that well informed cosmopolitans who lack specialized knowledge of specific topics tend to make. Since Zakaria is in fact one of such people and these do no harm to the general insights contained in the book, perhaps I should not overly critical. More important, though, is that this intellectual facile-ness extends into the conclusions that Zakaria draws from his insights: they read too much like irresponsible punditry. Of course, one needs not agree with his conclusions to appreciate the insights, of which there is plenty.
To cut it short, at the heart of Zakaria's insight is that he understands the anonymous White House staffer who famously boasted "we are makers of history" is in fact right, but only halfway. We--the US--are not alone in making history. The "other guys" are making history, too, for their own purposes. The effect of globalization has been that these other actors have been able to gain substantial means and opportunity to affect the course of history. Zakaria understands, too, however, that this history-making is not a zero sum game: while India, China, and other international actors might be looking to remake history to their ends, their aims do not necessarily involve confronting U.S. or upsetting U.S.-defined world order. Indeed, their goals, for the most part, are perfectly achievable within the context of U.S.-defined world order, provided that they can get their rightfully earned "fair share" from playing by its rules.
What Zakaria suggests is that this situation provides the United States with plenty of leverage to exert influence. It can maintain, and where necessary, put forward, an international order that favors its interests on the whole, but also provides opportunities for other actors, as long as they abide by its rules. Zakaria mentions specifically the work of Bismark, who, in 1880s, crafted an international order where Germany stood as an "honest broker" who could exert influence by prescribing rules and solutions that were fair enough that other countries actually wanted to abide by. In principle, I like this vision, but I doubt this has any chance of success. Zakaria's own example of Germany itself provides an example of how such an arrangement can unravel very quickly.
An honest broker cannot be too greedy. He must renounce all his prejudices to be accepted and trusted as being "honest." Historically, Germany could not put up with this renunciation for so long. Germany was strong and many of its leaders and population were not content retreating to the back seat when they felt they could do better--at least in short or medium term--by asserting their strength and doing what they wanted, even at the cost of losing the credibility to act as "honest broker." Merely two decades after the Congress of Berlin that inaugurated this new world order, Bismarck himself was ousted from power and Germany began to poke its nose in businesses that were of little substnatial import to them--often for the sake of short term domestic public opinion. It antagonized the British over the Boer War. It built a battleship navy that had little use other than make the British nervous and angry. It antagonized the Russians over the Near East. The list can go on. The lesson is clear: even if the long term advantages of playing an honest broker are substantial, the temptation of using hard power to gain a short term advantage is difficult to resist, especially when that hard power is right there. I doubt a powerful nation--which United States is bound to remain for the foreseeable future--can so easily become and remain an honest broker. Bismarck was a political genius--and even he could manage it for only two decades. Can lesser politicians do it? I am skeptical.
2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
A very interesting book for very interesting times., 2008-09-17
The U.S. is the world's only hyperpower today, a position roughly similar to Great Britain's in the late 19th century. We all know what happened to Great Britain. The question is whether the U.S. is destined to decline too.
Zakaria discusses how economic, political, military, and cultural factors affect the great game of international relations and offers some interesting insights into what's next for America. Zakaria foresees a decline of American power relative to the rest of the world, but proposes that the decline will result primarily from the rise of the rest of the world, not from an absolute decline in America's power. The U.S. still has some important advantages, but other nations have advantages too. China and India, which Zakaria examines in some detail, are both growing enormously faster than the U.S. Other emerging markets, like Brazil and Russia, are growing faster too. So even if America isn't declining in absolute terms, it is still losing ground in relative terms; and that relative decline, if it continues, can't help but have important consequences for international relations.
Zakaria drew some interesting historical parallels. For example, just as the Boer War marked the beginning of the end of Great Britain's hyperpower status, the Iraq War may mark the beginning of the end of ours. Zakaria reports that he himself was in favor of removing Hussein, but was dismayed at Bush's incompetence in actually doing it. In particular, the U.S. was enormously popular prior to the war, and goodwill in the international arena is extremely valuable, but Bush's policies simply squandered that goodwill.
However, the picture is not all bad. Zakaria also looks at some of the challenges that the U.S. faces -- terrorism, radical Islam, and others -- and proposes that some of those challenges, while not trivial, are at least not necessarily as formidable as our sensationalist media sometimes makes them out to be. As FDR said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
A very interesting book for very interesting times.
2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
Eye Opening, 2008-09-16
Anyone with an interest in world affairs and global economics should read this book. Zakaria, who is a naturalized citizen, gives the reader a much-needed, objective perspective on flagging American hegemony.
America is still great, but the rest of the world is catching up. Read this and understand the future.
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