The Post-American World

I have enjoyed Fareed Zakaria on the ABC Sunday morning program "This Week" for years, and learned from his perspective. I was hoping I would learn more from his new bestseller, The Post-American World, and I did. He states right up front that this is not a book about the decline of America but rather about the rise of everyone else. Without being overly pessimistic, he does suggest that as the rest of the world rises, America will experience a relative decline, at least in purely economic terms. He goes into great detail about how China and India's economies have risen to become the production and customer service powers of the world, and what their rising standard of living has done to the rest of the world and to us.

Fareed Zakaria offers such interesting insights on how we see ourselves in the United States. For instance, we are the only country in the world to issue annual report cards on every other country's behavior. He goes into detail about America's debt, noting that we are borrowing 80% of the world's surplus savings and using it for consumption. "In other words, we are selling off our assets to foreigners to buy a couple more lattes a day." And then there's this one, "Americans may admire beauty, but they are truly dazzled by bigness."

Such interesting insights. I give a hearty thumbs' up to a well-written and interesting read from the Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World.