Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
The Post-American World
by Fareed Zakaria, Norton, 2008
Reviewed by Dave Mason
Newsweek editor and columnist Fareed
Zakaria has written a thoughtful and thought-provoking book about
America's relative decline in the world, and "the rise of the
rest"-especially China and India. These emerging powers are
following a "third way," not always the path or model of the United
States, and in the process reshaping the international system. They
are gaining regional and global influence not with military muscle
or political power, but by the force of example, and by sheer
economic bulk. Meanwhile, much of the world is moving "from anger
to indifference" about the United States-from anti-Americanism to
"post-Americanism."
Zakaria compares this global shift to previous epochal changes,
with the rise of the Western world, and the rise of the U.S. He
sees the main challenge for the U.S. to get beyond our
"dysfunctional" political system that has us debating trivia
instead of coming to terms with globalization and a more diffuse
international system that requires consultation, cooperation and
compromise.
Curiously, though, he still refers to the U.S. as "the single
superpower" in a unipolar world, and sees U.S. continued strength
based on the dynamism of the U.S. economy. Recent events, however,
suggest that even the vaunted U.S. economy may be pretty
"dysfunctional." The trends Zakaria describes may be faster and
more dramatic than he expected.
- David S. Mason is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at
Butler University and the author of a new book, The End of the
American Century.