Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World *** 1/2

The Post-American World makes a fairly simple argument: soon the United States will not be the uncontested superpower in a unipolar world, not because it has done anything wrong but because of "the rise of the rest." Zakaria uses an analogy of tennis:

In the 1970s, about twenty-five countries sent players to the U.S. Open. Today, about thirty-five countries do, a 40 percent increase. Countries like Russia, South Korea, Serbia, and Austria are now churning out world-class players... In the 19070, three Anglo-Saxon nations — America, Britain, and Australia — utterly dominated tennis. In 2007, the final-sixteen players came from ten different countries. In other words, it's not that the United States has been doing badly over the last two decades. It's that, all of a sudden, everyone is playing the game.

Or, to put it another way, the perceived problems of today are the result of success in helping the rest of the world.

The most enjoyable aspect of the book was viewing the world situation from its perspective. Zakaria looks at the various concerns of modern doomsayers and casually shows that the United States remains in a good position. With respect to education, for example, Americans are frightened by surveys showing that U.S. teens are less skilled at math and science than teens in other nations. Zakaria points out that "the difference between average science scores in poor and wealthy school districts within the United States is four to five times greater than the difference between the U.S. and Singapore national averages... The large cohort of students in the top fifth of American schools rank along with the world's best" (p 192).

The book is easy to read and makes an interesting and compelling argument.