What the President Is Reading and a Reprisal of Reviews Passed

I just ran across a list of books that President Obama has been reading the past several months. Since a couple of them are books I also read and have written reviews on, it seemed fitting for me to post those here.

The first installment is for Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World. Keep in mind that I read the book and wrote the review in July 2008. Bush was still president and the economy hasd not collapsed yet. In hindsight it can be safely said that one of the pillars of Zakaria's theory -- about the strength of the U.S. economy was somewhat flawed. Regardless, here's the review:

The American hegemon is at a crossroads. This is the central and compelling idea behind Fareed Zakaria’s most recent book The Post-American World. In his wide-ranging and optimistic look at the future of the United States, Zakaria argues that hegemonic America, no longer the youthful and ambitious democracy it was a hundred years ago, is much more like an elder statesman who has taught other nations of the world how to be democratic – and perhaps more importantly, capitalistic – and must now step aside and allow the “rise of the rest”. To extend the metaphor, the economically youthful “rest” includes China, India, Brazil, Nigeria and other non-Western countries whose economies and governments are emerging on the world scene with vigor and vitality. In economic terms, these countries are second tier nations that are embracing capitalism and resource nationalism in an effort to compete with the West. Thus, the 21st century represents their rise on the international scene.

And so, the crossroads: America can allow the democratic and capitalistic rise of the rest with grace and magnanimity or can fight it with bitterness and distrust. It is America’s choice to make and it is America’s future to lose, claims Zakaria. Thus, the reader arrives at an explanation for the title of the book. Zakaria makes the case that American power is not waning so much as it is changing, and that change is what will determine the quality of the 21st century, the post-American future. Indeed Zakaria makes an artful distinction between society and economics when he says “Ultimately, the base of American power – a vibrant American society – was its greatest strength and its weakness. It produced America’s gigantic economy and vibrant society. . . [and] this tension between society and the state persists in America to this day” (166). Zakaria maintains that the U.S. will continue to be the most important country in the near future but he also “ask[s] how America itself will react to a post-American world” (166).

If there was ever a vindication for the worn out cliché about the value of understanding history or being doomed to repeat it, this book is it. The answer to the question about America’s reaction to its own shifting power can be found, according to Zakaria, by understanding history. And although he uses other examples of historical hegemons, the most poignant, immediate and obvious is the case of Pax Britannica at the end of the 19th century. Britain of 1897 was the sole world power. Even so, Britain’s grasp on that power was waning. Zakaria claims that Britain choose – quite wisely – to allow power to shift away from itself to the newly emerging center of power, the United States. Furthermore, Zakaria claims that “Britain was undone as a great global power not because of bad politics but because of bad economics . . . its economy was weak” (180), led to its hegemonic demise. This is significant for an understanding of the post-American world because, as Zakaria points out, “Britain’s decline – irreversible economic deterioration – does not really apply to the United States today” (180). According to Zakaria “the U.S. economy has been the world’s largest since the middle of the 1880s, and it remains so today” (180). Importantly he claims that “America will remain a vital, vibrant economy, at the forefront of the next revolutions in science, technology, and industry – as long as it can embrace and adjust to the challenges confronting it” (182).

Those challenges include science in areas such as nanotechnology and biotechnology, manufacturing and American competitiveness, the quality of higher education, demographics and, perhaps most importantly, immigration. Zakaria’s compelling exploration of these challenges to America’s future is rich and, in the mind of this reader, clearly hopeful about the future. He thinks America can and will overcome obstacles such as these, and he concludes with the optimistic perspective that a post-American world is one where “American influence is strengthened by the growth” of other nations (233). Indeed, the central idea is that countries like China and India “want to gain power and status and respect . . . by growing within the international system, not by overturning it” (232).Therefore the 21st century presents the “United States [with] an opportunity to play a large and constructive role at the center of the global order” (233). This is the post-American world, one where America is a power broker within and amongst other emerging nations. Despite all of this high level, global power and with Zakarian finesse, the case is also made that the American people have a role to play in this unfolding global drama. How Americans solve the inequalities in education and how Americans resolve the snares of immigration and latent nativism are integral to Zakaria’s vision of this post-American world. Ultimately he claims that “being the global broker today would be a job involving not just the American government but its society” (233). Zakaria claims it is we the people who will decide at this crossroads.

So there it is. Our system of government is the envy of the world. Our economy is strong and resilient, and will continue to be so. The American institution of “higher education is [our] best industry” (190) and our scientific discoveries are decades and dollars ahead of all other nations. Immigration, one of our greatest issues of contention, is also one of our most potent strengths. These realities serve as the foundation upon which Americans stand as we collectively look into the future. Our choice: gracious acceptance of the rise of the rest, or bitter resistance to its inevitability. It is no simple irony that in a land where we jingle the coins in our pocket engraved with the Latin phrase e pluribus unum, the quality and the direction of the 21st century world might really come down to the citizenry living out its English translation. Out of many, one.