“The Post-American World,” examines how the world will change as the U.S. slips further from its decades-long position of dominance. In The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria argues that the “rise of the rest” is the great story of our time.

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post’s Book World/washingtonpost.com: After the Iraq war, Fareed Zakaria argued in his Newsweek column that the world’s new organizing principle was pro-or anti-Americanism. But as the Iraq muddle drags on and China rises, the larger story of the post-Cold War era has come into sharp relief: We are not the center of the universe. It matters less that particular countries are pro- or anti-American than that the world is increasingly non-American. We need to get over ourselves.

Zakaria’s The Post-American World is about the “rise of the rest,” a catchy phrase from one of the most widely cited writers on foreign affairs. His prism is correct: We should focus more on the “rest,” even if America is still the premier superpower. But within this broad approach, Zakaria leaves policy-makers to figure out how to rank challenges and restore U.S. legitimacy.

Zakaria zooms in on Asia, especially India and China, which he uses as proxies for “the rest.” The first third of the book sets out his thesis — “For the first time ever, we are witnessing genuinely global growth” — and the next third describes how China’s economy has doubled every eight years and how India may have the world’s third largest economy by 2040.

This year has brought a flood of books on Asia’s rise, including Bill Emmott’s Rivals and Kishore Mahbubani’s The New Asian Hemisphere. For the most part, they embody the “world is flat” thesis — lots of economic statistics, little geography. But geopolitics is about more than growth rates. It matters that China borders a dozen more countries than India does, isn’t hemmed in by a vast ocean and the world’s tallest mountains, has a loyal diaspora twice the size of India’s and enjoys a head start in Asian and African marketplaces. Zakaria’s chapters on China and India, though of equal length, should not connote equivalency, and all “the rest” cannot be happily lumped together. Does China’s example tell us what has gone wrong in Venezuela and Pakistan, and could go wrong in Egypt and Indonesia?

Ironically, the final third of The Post-American World, which focuses on us rather than on “the rest,” is the strongest. Zakaria argues that America’s world-beating economic vibrancy co-exists with a dysfunctional political system. “A ‘can-do’ country is now saddled with a ‘do-nothing’ political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving,” he writes. That makes it hard to devise a grand strategy, and Zakaria offers just a few “simple guidelines” on the need to set priorities, build global rules and be flexible. But in this non-American world, it may be too late to restore U.S. leadership. “The rest” is moving on…Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Product Description: 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.

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Notes: The Roots of Anti-Americanism

   Barack Obama Likes Farid’s Book Too!

….and, Barack Obama Dialed My Number - And I am Not Even An American

Popularity: 27% [?]

Monocultural planting of corn around the world is not in the best interest of people or nature. Pesticides are used more in Africa than in Australia, Europe, North America, South America or Asia.

It was tough on my friend. His hopes had been up, recently though. He told me of his plan from his booth at the parking garage underneath Philadelphia Community College on Spring Garden street.

Here he was an agronomist and experienced in the organic food growing methods-but he hadn’t counted on the United States of America reality dawning on him like this.

In his native Guinea, the holistic idea of planting, tending and harvesting pesticide free fruits and vegetables was as ordinary as breathing. Through the historical course of time and political realities of Sékou Touré rejecting French “aid” at Guinea’s 1958 independence, this made sure Africans depended on classical agriculture.

Finally being able to meet the suburban Philadelphia Rodale firm, a famous American organic food and natural living organization had been a dream.

His prior contact with Rodale had been through the US government and Guinea’s officials. By the mid 1980s, the outlook for the slim, good natured man was structured by several events that emerged unseen to change his life.

The Marxist Muslim (leader from ‘58 and from a line of warriors) since the final days of colonial French control, Touré, died in early 1984.

The West, eager however late in the Cold War game to finish off Moscow’s links to Africa, had no problem with Lansana Conté moving into office. In cruised capitalist interests: Guinea is a world giant in bauxite, the raw material for aluminum and needed for various metallic industry items. By then, the “friendly” arms of the USAID and it’s international corporate/governmental cousins were closing in.

My friend, forced to declare himself a refugee on the east coast of the USA, went seeking Rodale’s help. I saw him off from 30th Street station, bound for the areas most people that resembled us weren’t seen unless we were janitors or maids.

When he returned, he sadly explained that he was not needed, even as a volunteer. Back in the chilly windowless West Philly apartment, he had me sit and we both had a juice.

Even though he had the seniority of nearly all the Americans and the ties academically and in the field to prove it, he was not ‘official’ anymore.

As he popped in his favorite National Dance Theater of Guinea videotape, I saw the longing for home in his weary eyes.

Development had come to another corner of the globe.

Outside, the gunshots on dark 60th street bucked.

“Chock!”
“Chock Chock!”

A son of Africa had his hands bound, unable to do more than stare at his hands and remember.

7 February 2008
From Exile,
Bankole
http://www.geocities.com/exiledone2002

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