Fareed Zakaria's book, The Post-American World, is not an anti-American treatise as the title might be interpreted to imply. Zakaria posits a "rise of the rest" argument, specifically the billion-plus countries China and India. These giant industrial-developing societies best illustrate, Zakaria argues, a forming new world order where America is a still-dominant superpower, but a power that will see some of its fortunes diminish or change as other countries ascend. Zakaria presents a co-existent uni- and multi-polarity world powers construct to illustrate this point. By acknowledging changing world events head on the United States can play a best-leadership and diplomatic hand that is accommodating to new realities; America can contribute instrumentally to maintenance of an important world-stability framework that fairly recognizes the legitimacy, valid contributions and power of non-Western societies. American can impart best leadership practices on how to behave as a rising major power to India and China by its own example.
The book is a lean, popular read that deftly covers a lot of historical ground. I most enjoyed the two chapters devoted respectively to China and India. Zakaria provides historical perspective but also a contrast and comparison of the two societies and the challenges that each country faces for its respective history and social order. For China the markets genie is out of the bottle: how does its top-down authoritarian-regime apparatus manage and show more thrive in a market-based economies world. India's challenge is how, as a maturing democracy of British colonial legacy, to build a national identity and infrastructure in an inefficient, politics-is-local factioned society.
In context to China's growing industrial manufacturing base, I enjoyed Zakaria's presentation of the Shin Shih Smile Curve. While probably not universal for all time, the Smile Curve does seem a plausible snapshot of value delivery distribution for outsourced American production today. Presentation of this idea over the Christmas dinner table produced mixed reaction. On one hand it provoked an a-ha moment, as if this production model were the missing piece to finding complete comfort with America's loss of its production base; on the other hand, I was dismissed as a liberal idiot for ever comprehending such a notion.
James Fallows, writer for The Atlantic Magazine whom Zakaria references for his use of smile curve concept, recapped this idea in his Atlantic magazine blog-space much as Zakaria delivers it in his book: http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/more_on_the_smiley_curve_ch...
On the whole I found this a good, relevant topic that is well presented and highly readable. As someone who did not always pay attention to history I found the historical references engaging, and Zakaria's assembling of the history into context brilliant. Zakaria's concluding multi-point prescriptive plan for America is a bit too tidy and rushes the book's conclusion but is not inconsistent with the popular reading aim of the book overall. show less
The book is a lean, popular read that deftly covers a lot of historical ground. I most enjoyed the two chapters devoted respectively to China and India. Zakaria provides historical perspective but also a contrast and comparison of the two societies and the challenges that each country faces for its respective history and social order. For China the markets genie is out of the bottle: how does its top-down authoritarian-regime apparatus manage and show more thrive in a market-based economies world. India's challenge is how, as a maturing democracy of British colonial legacy, to build a national identity and infrastructure in an inefficient, politics-is-local factioned society.
In context to China's growing industrial manufacturing base, I enjoyed Zakaria's presentation of the Shin Shih Smile Curve. While probably not universal for all time, the Smile Curve does seem a plausible snapshot of value delivery distribution for outsourced American production today. Presentation of this idea over the Christmas dinner table produced mixed reaction. On one hand it provoked an a-ha moment, as if this production model were the missing piece to finding complete comfort with America's loss of its production base; on the other hand, I was dismissed as a liberal idiot for ever comprehending such a notion.
James Fallows, writer for The Atlantic Magazine whom Zakaria references for his use of smile curve concept, recapped this idea in his Atlantic magazine blog-space much as Zakaria delivers it in his book: http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/08/more_on_the_smiley_curve_ch...
On the whole I found this a good, relevant topic that is well presented and highly readable. As someone who did not always pay attention to history I found the historical references engaging, and Zakaria's assembling of the history into context brilliant. Zakaria's concluding multi-point prescriptive plan for America is a bit too tidy and rushes the book's conclusion but is not inconsistent with the popular reading aim of the book overall. show less