Review Of The Post American World By Fareed Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria wrote a book in 2008 called “The Post American World”. His main argument in the first book touched on that due to America spreading its liberal democracy theories around the world, now the other countries around the world are competing with it socially and economically.

The book turned out to be a decently good seller and just like most good selling books, Zakaria wrote a second version called “The Post American World 2.0”.This was just a second version of the first book and that is what I will be discussing in this essay. When writing “The Post American World 2.0” Zakaria has a very optimistic view about Globalization due to the progress it has created.

Zakaria writes about the unchallenged role that America once previously had in world politics, along with other Western Powers that have dominated the world for centuries. Zakaria seems to make the point that America’s dip in recent years have opened a door for other countries to take advantage. He also argues that other countries a quickly growing economically. It is not that the America is losing ground economically or anything of that nature. It is just that other countries are making America economically look like a smaller country. Zakaria focuses on two particular countries in his view that are rising economically.

In chapter four, Zakaria talks about China and its political and economic rise. In chapter five, he talks about India and its political and economic rise. He argues that these two countries are on the rise both economically and politically and are equal with the United States and could possibly even supersede the United States one day. These countries could pose a threat to the United States one day because they are the two largest countries on the world population wise. He argues that China has superpower type of potential and that India has the largest Democracy in the world. Zakaria does make it clear though that India has an advantage over China because of its attitude towards the dissatisfaction of its people where as China does not seem to care as much about that.

In the final stretch of the book, Zakaria describes Americas’ history of the power it had and how unchallenged it once was. Also, tied along with that he talks about the American worry to potentially lose that power that America has known for so long, pretty much since the end of World War Two to be exact.

Zakaria outlines the problems that America faces for years to come. Specifically, his opinion of the sources for the American problems come from two things. For one main problem in the United States is the media. What I mean by this is the American media tends to turn and twist stories just to make them “more interesting” or more “politically biased”. Fox News and CNN are notorious for this as they use shocking stories and use interesting language at the expense of the actual validity of the story.

The other main source of the problem in Zakaria’s view is deliberative democracy. In the very end of the book, Zakaria makes rules that the United States should follow on how they should conduct themselves in the world’s future. I just want to make the point again that Zakaria is very optimistic about globalization. Truthfully, I have never heard anyone be so optimistic about globalization. This could be a problem with his book though because there a pros and cons to everything. Based off of that, this leads me to my next part of the essay.

The strengths and weaknesses on Zakaria’s novel “The Post American World 2.0”

I love sports and my favorite sports team is the Chicago White Sox because that is the way I have been raised and my entire family are White Sox fans. As a fan I like to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the team (unfortunately, now we have more weaknesses than strengths). Sports and reading are similar because when reading it is important to be like a sports fan and to analyze the strengths and weaknesses about the book. I will admit that Zakaria made good points in his book. But there definitely are some weaknesses to his book as well. So, the next part of the essay will be analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of this book.

To start off, there are multiple strengths about his book. One strength of his book believe it or not is his sincerity. This may sound like a joke, but seriously sincerity goes a long way with people and it did with me when writing this. Zakaria is very honest about the future of America and their contenders, as an American citizen now he acknowledges that America might not be this super power anymore that it once was, which many Americans fail to even comprehend. He does not sugar code the subject, he just gives it how it is. He does explain how his move from India to America in his teen years was a great part of his life, and how he never wants this vision of American freedom and opportunity to vanquish.

Another strength he shows is optimism for America when he writes, “For America to thrive in this challenging era, for it to succeed amid the rise of the rest, it need to fulfill only one test. It should be a place as inviting and exciting to the young student who enters the country today as it was for this awkward eighteen-year old a generation ago. ” Zakaria is very optimistic about America and its future. He makes the point that the greatest tool for this is that America has its education and not only that but the opportunity of higher education. He writes that America dominance the world on a collegiate scale which should help keep America maintain its world power. Continuing about the subject of optimism, Zakaria suggests that America can continue to grow through international resources and intellect internationally. For a book which is supposed to criticize America and show how America is falling behind, Zakaria shows a lot of optimism for the country he migrated to years ago.

On the other hand of this book there are multiple weaknesses. The first weakness that I noticed is how Zakaria seems too optimistic about Globalization. As we have discussed in class, there a pros and cons to Globalization but I don’t think Zakaria believes there is such a thing as a con when it comes to Globalization. He writes endless examples positive viewed examples of Globalization but no criticisms or warnings about it. This builds an unstable argument and also an unbalanced worldview. An argument that doesn’t include any cons or not even any warning signs about globalization can create problems economically, politically and culturally. For example, just because a country grows its GDP does not mean that the county’s culture can grow spread as well.

Also, Zakaria is very critical about the American media well at least the American media is at least acknowledged. The Chinese media is less embraced around the world along with its culture. He also suggests that political power goes hand in hand with economic power when it is actually quite the opposite. The country with the most economic power is going to have the final say no matter what.

Another weakness that Zakaria has is he does not look so deeply into certain subject. He seems to just not have the time and just barely touches on a few subject matter. One subject that he barely touches on is China and the relationships they have with other countries. China is known to have problems with other countries around the world but Zakaria fails to acknowledge that. Also, Zakaria suggests that certain political and economic standpoints of Middle Eastern countries are not included as much in the global market which leads to a lack of power. But he doesn’t talk much about the fact that corporate powers have a huge impact on these globalized markets, or maybe he just fails to realize it. Overall, Zakaria has a well written book that describes America’s place in this quickly changing world. He has well rounded points about the good and the bad about America. This book helps the modern American really understand where the country is at on a global scale.

In conclusion, Zakaria has strengths and weaknesses to his book, but who doesn’t?I believe that every American should read this book if they really want to know what America is globally compared to other nations.