The Post-American World

Overview

One of our most distinguished thinkers argues that the "rise of the rest" is the great story of our time.
"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important 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 great story of our time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings, biggest 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 understand 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.

Editorial Reviews

When a book proclaims that it is not about the decline of America but "the rise of everyone else," readers might expect another diatribe about our dismal post-9/11 world. They are in for a pleasant surprise as Newsweek editor and popular pundit Zakaria (The Future of Freedom) delivers a stimulating, largely optimistic forecast of where the 21st century is heading. We are living in a peaceful era, he maintains; world violence peaked around 1990 and has plummeted to a record low. Burgeoning prosperity has spread to the developing world, raising standards of living in Brazil, India, China and Indonesia. Twenty years ago China discarded Soviet economics but not its politics, leading to a wildly effective, top-down, scorched-earth boom. Its political antithesis, India, also prospers while remaining a chaotic, inefficient democracy, as Indian elected officials are (generally) loathe to use the brutally efficient tactics that are the staple of Chinese governance. Paradoxically, India's greatest asset is its relative stability in the region; its officials take an unruly population for granted, while dissent produces paranoia in Chinese leaders. Zakaria predicts that despite its record of recent blunders at home and abroad, America will stay strong, buoyed by a stellar educational system and the influx of young immigrants, who give the U.S. a more youthful demographic than Europe and much of Asia whose workers support an increasing population of unproductive elderly. A lucid, thought-provoking appraisal of world affairs, this book will engage readers on both sides of the political spectrum. (May) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Author Information

Bio of Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria was named editor of Newsweek International in October 2000, overseeing all Newsweek's editions abroad. The magazine reaches an audience of 24 million worldwide. He also writes a regular column for Newsweek, which also appears in Newsweek International and fortnightly in the Washington Post. Starting this year, he will host a new foreign affairs show on CNN Worldwide. Zakaria was the managing editor of Foreign Affairs, the widely-circulated journal of international politics and economics. He is the author of several books, including The Future of Freedom, which was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages. His new book, The Post American World, is being published in May 2008. Zakaria has won several awards for his columns and cover-essays, in particular for his October 2001 Newsweek cover story, "Why They Hate Us." In 1999, he was named "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century" by Esquire magazine. In 2007, he was named one of the 100 leading public intellectuals in the world by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines. He has received honorary degrees from many universities. He serves on the board of Yale University, The Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and Shakespeare and Company. He received a B.A. from Yale and a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. He lives in New York City with his wife, son and two daughters.

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Additional Info

Imprint

W. W. Norton & Company, Incorporated

Filesize

644.45 KB

Number of Pages

288

eBook ISBN

9780393069099