The post-American world

Halfway through this audio-book, I decided that I was going to want to listen to it a second time before it went back to the library. The post-American world is a look at major world powers in the past, present, and future. Author, Fareed Zakaria, examines history, culture, religion, language, commerce, politics, economics, warfare, technology, and government in an effort to understand the past and predict the future of our world.

Although the presentation is not academic in tone, there is so much information packed in here, that I know I didn't get it all the first time through. As editor of Newsweek International, best-selling author, and international affairs columnist, one expects Zakaria to communicate well and he does. He is thorough and methodical with a good measure of anecdotes to balance out the theory.

Zakaria is well-positioned to provide analysis of non-Western culture and history. Born and raised in India, he moved to the United States for post-secondary studies and stayed put. He has experienced two vastly different cultures from both inside and out. I think that goes a long way toward explaining his facility for explaining the basics of widely differing foreign mindsets. Instead of just reporting what China did or how India voted, he explains how those actions were logical outcomes of the Chinese or Indian (or some other country's) way of thinking. Those patterns are then projected into the future for a look at where things will be if change does not occur.

There is no crystal ball here. The post-American world was written before the U.S. mortgage crisis hit and that collapse was not expected by Zakaria. He wasn't the only one to miss it though, and I don't think the value of this work is negated by that omission. That's because the primary benefit I gained from "reading" this book was a vastly improved understanding of other cultures and their histories.

The post-American world by Fareed Zakaria. Published in 2008 by Simon and Schuster. Audiobook ISBN: 978-0-7435-7685-7.