The Post-American World

Barack Obama Former USA PresidentFact or fiction, the president knows that reading keeps the mind sharp. He also delved into these non-fiction reads: Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Evan Osnos Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman Moral Man And Immoral Society, Reinhold Niebuhr A Kind And Just Parent, William Ayers The Post-American World, Fareed Zakaria Lessons in Disaster, Gordon Goldstein Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin Andy Grove: The Life and Times of an American, Richard S Tedlow Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity,... (Source)

Bill Gates CEO/Microsoft[On Bill Gates's reading list in 2012.] (Source)

David Marquand Zakaria is Indian by origin and he went to America in his youth. He is now a very prominent journalist in America. His thesis is that America, while still being a superpower, has got to contend with the rise of other countries. It can no longer call the shots in the new world that is developing. This is not a new thesis, but he puts it forward very powerfully and very well. He also looks at the question of whether America can continue to succeed in a world where other countries are catching up in terms of markets and economic progress. Because other countries are rising, America is falling... (Source)

Joseph Nye Zakaria is one of the best American commentators on world politics and foreign policy. He has the unique perspective of having been born in India and then doing his graduate degree in the US. He’s a keen observer of the US but with a great knowledge of the rest of the world. Zakaria looks at the issue of whether the US is in decline, and decides that the problem with the term “decline” is that if it means absolute decline, like ancient Rome, then it’s not a very good description of what’s happening in the US. The US is not like Rome, which was an agrarian economy. What the US is facing is not... (Source)

Gideon Rose I had to choose one book about the current state of the world, what American foreign policy is facing right now. This book is the best survey that I know of, and also the best description of what is likely to happen in the next few years.  What Zakaria describes is a world in which much of what American foreign policy sought to achieve over the last half century has been successfully accomplished. It’s provided order for the world at large, and a global free trade system underpinned by American economic policy. That has allowed other nations to make their way forward, and progress within the... (Source)