The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
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Description
A New York Times Bestseller!
2019 was the last great year for the world economy.
For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it.
America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.
Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.
All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending.
In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging.
The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change.
A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.
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Published Reviews
Choice Review
This provocatively pessimistic look at the future reads like a quirky mashup of works by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and journalist Robert Kaplan. Like Friedman, Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist and consultant, prognosticates that the unique and fragile globalization order fostered by the United States after World War II is now ebbing away. He focuses on the interplay of demographics and geopolitics in shaping the rise and fall of nation-states--also key themes in Kaplan's work. Zeihan argues that globalization, which exploded between 1980 and 2015 under the American military umbrella, has already started to break down into regionalization and localization due to the collapse of birth rates worldwide. In the bulk of the text, Zeihan draws out the implications for the transportation, finance, energy, industrial materials, manufacturing, and agricultural sectors. Zeihan's style is far from academic. He writes in a conversational tone with short, punchy sentences, leavened by snarky footnotes and witty asides. Although his analysis occasionally becomes too simplistic or pessimistic, it is always entertaining--and enlightening. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. --Scott Waalkes, Malone University
Kirkus Book Review
Geopolitical strategist Zeihan argues that we are heading toward a period of deglobalization, with ensuing chaos and disaster. The author believes that the period between 1980 and 2015 was an aberration in human history: an era of plenty, reliability, and relative stability. Going forward from 2022, he writes, everything is going to become more expensive and more difficult to obtain. He traces part of the problem to demographic struggles, as rapidly aging populations are leading to significant decreases in viable labor forces. Another issue is the withdrawal of American leadership on the global state, including the protection of the vital sea lanes that made globalization possible. The most recognizable element is climate change, undermining food production in key parts of the world. Zeihan predicts that nations will increasingly resort to aggressive tactics to ensure their own security, with the emergence of regional blocs dominated by the player with the biggest guns. Countries that depend on trade will find it tough going. The U.S. is in the best position due to its natural resources, agricultural capacity, industrial base, and inherent adaptability. However, notes the author, radical reform and increased costs are inevitable. Zeihan is enthusiastic in his writing, and he covers a great deal of territory, some of it in superficial or questionable fashion. Are countries really going to develop their own pirate fleets to seize supply ships? Will the U.S. establish a quasi-empire of the Americas, using food as a weapon of intimidation? Is China facing collapse within a decade? Predictions of world-ending resource depletion and geopolitical disaster have been made before--and often. The Club of Rome and Paul Ehrlich were saying it in the 1970s, and their fears turned out to be misplaced. Humans face significant obstacles, but that has been the case for centuries. The climate crisis, however, has never been more urgent. Zeihan captures that sense, at least, but his cynicism was more palatable in Disunited Nations. The book has entertainment value, but some of the material should be taken with many grains of salt. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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Citations
Zeihan, P. (2022). The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization . HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Zeihan, Peter. 2022. The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Zeihan, Peter. The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization HarperCollins, 2022.
Harvard Citation (style guide)Zeihan, P. (2022). The end of the world is just the beginning: mapping the collapse of globalization. HarperCollins.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Zeihan, Peter. The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization HarperCollins, 2022.
Copy Details
Collection | Owned | Available | Number of Holds |
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Libby | 44 | 44 | 0 |