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For Fareed Zakaria, the great story of our times is not the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else -- the growth of countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Kenya, and many, many more. This economic growth is generating a new global landscape where power is shifting and wealth and innovation are bubbling up in unexpected places. It's also producing political confidence and national pride. As these trends continue, the push of globalization will increasingly be joined by the pull of nationalism -- a tension that is likely to define the next decades.

With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, Zakaria draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past five hundred years -- the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States -- to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the "rise of the rest." Washington must begin a serious transformation of global strategy and seek to share power, create coalitions, build legitimacy, and define the global agenda. None of this will be easy for the greatest power the world has ever known -- the only power that for so long has really mattered. But all that is changing now. The future we face is the post-American world.

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The Post American World	Customer Rating:
The Post-American World I got a great price and excellent service on the delivery of this book. Zakaria's book is very provocative, and challenges most of the assumptions we have inherited about America from our parents. He gives us a sypathetic look at America from a world that is moving beyond the cold war, in many places faster than we are.

The Post American World

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It is uncanny how accurate Zakaria is in his assesment of the current relative financial positions of the world's major economic powers in light of the world financial meltdown. THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD is an eye-opening informational treasure. Most Americans see the interaction of America with the rest of the world through special lenses. This book reveals the lenses used by the other contries seeing America's actions as they are affected. The idea of sitting down at the table with another country as opposed to putting them in their place is an idea we all need in the worst way to learn. This book makes that position tenable.

A non-spastic view of America's future

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Zakaria presents an excellent, balanced view of the future of American unipolarity and the impact of the Big Two - China and India, on America's future. Instead of doomsday predictions and worry about how China and India will take over, he presents a pragmatic view of how these and other countries are rising - not that America is necessarily failing. Zakaria also outlines a realistic roadmap for how America can avoid continuing as an international pariah and retain its influence, by realizing it is the most powerful part of a multipolar system, but the other parts add up to far more than its power. His repeated statements of how we live in fear rather than pride strike a powerful chord and should make all Americans focus on what we've done right rather than what we are told to fear.

American Purpose

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This is an excellent book with a few very minor flaws, but if a reader had only time for a quick read he/she would do well to turn to the chapter called "American Purpose" and read Zakaria's six simple guidelines for what operating in the "new world" would look like. He suggests that America: 1. Choose. 2. Build broad rules, not narrow interests. 3. Be Bismarck not Britain. 4. Order a la carte. 5. Think asymmetrically; and realize 6. Legitimacy is power. His explanation of each of these guidelines is thought provoking. The greatest weakness of the book comes in the final pages as he uses his own experience of coming to America in 1982 to convince the reader that 'openness' may be America's greatest strength. I was not convinced. Our US Presidential candidates should take time to read this important analysis of America's flawed foreign policy and economic weaknesses. They and their Vice Presidential candidates would do well to consider how they intend to face the challenges and lead America back to a position of strength as a reliable and legitimate world power. It is a pity that this book was not available as a text book for Ms. Condoleezza Rice, whose foreign policy and State Department seem to have been diametrically opposed to every reasonable position advocated by Zakaria in his excellent book.

This is a highly informative source for coming to terms with the positive changes that globalization could and is bringing.

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Fareed Zakaria has really given a great deal of thought to globalization and its larger meaning, and it is obvious for almost all to see. His thoughts on how the U.S., India, China, and Russia should interact are spot on. His use of statistics is pretty much a welcomed blessing because it helps remove many of the doubts that critics can present upon hearing his core idea. It flies starkly in the face of the notion that U.S. power is diminishing due to globalization. This nation according to Zakaria is as strong/relevant as it ever been, meaning that we ultimately decide what our nation's fate will be. A must read for those of us that are not buying the Lou Dobbs, O' Reilly xenophobic non-sense!!