The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-First Century - Softcover

Khanna, Parag

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812979842 ISBN 13: 9780812979848

Publisher: Random House Trade, 2009

Synopsis

In The Second World, scholar Parag Khanna, chosen as one of Esquire's 75 Most Influential People of the Twenty-First Century, reveals how America's future depends on its ability to compete with the European Union and China to forge relationships with the Second World, the pivotal regions of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East, and East Asia that are growing in influence and economic strength.

Informed, witty, and armed with a traveler's intuition for blending into diverse cultures, Khanna depicts second-world societies from the inside out, observing how globalization divides them into winners and losers-and shows how China, Europe, and America use their unique imperial gravities to pull the second-world countries into their orbits. Along the way, Khanna explains how Arabism and Islamism compete for the Arab soul, reveals how Iran and Saudi Arabia play the superpowers against one another, unmasks Singapore's inspirational role in East Asia, and psychoanalyzes the second-world leaders whose decisions are reshaping the balance of power.

About this title

Review:

"A fascinating, colorful, and always intelligent tour through a new world."
-Fareed Zakaria

"A savvy, streetwise primer on dozens of individual countries that adds up to a coherent theory of global politics."
-Robert D. Kaplan

"Confident in his predictions and bold in his recommendations . . . Khanna's book is written with ambition, scope, and verve that sets it apart from the usual foreign policy tome."
-Andrei Cherny, The New York Sun

"A panoramic overview that boldly addresses the dilemmas of the world that our next president will confront."
-Zbigniew Brzezinski

"Khanna is something of a foreign policy whiz kid."
-Raymond Bonner, The New York Times Book Review

"[A] sweeping, often audacious survey of contemporary geopolitics . . . moves at lightning speed."
-William Grimes, The New York Times

From the Back Cover:

A New York Times Idea of the Year

'Takes us to a whole series of important places we might be disinclined to visit for ourselves and gives us glimpses of life on that messy borderland between the second world and the first ... a great feat of reportage' Niall Ferguson, Financial Times

'Amid the recent surge of dashing political-military-international-affairs intellectuals, Khanna stands out as young, original, and roughed up.' Esquire

At the end of the twentieth century, America dominated the world.No longer. We are on the verge of a new world order, and for anyone who wants to know who's holding the balance of power, Parag Khanna's bracing account of the increasing influence of the 'Second World' is vital reading. Reporting first-hand from more than fifty countries - in Eastern Europe, Central and East Asia, the Middle East and South America - Khanna travels through the heart of global power in the coming century, and takes you with him.

Because America isn't the only choice anymore. These countries - from Libya to Venezuela to Azerbaijan - now have their pick of three superpowers: America, China and the EU. Who they choose to ally themselves with will define the coming years.

'A thrilling tour d'horizon ... witty, intelligent, insightful portraits of regions and countries struggling to find their way amid globalization's explosive advance' Thomas Barnett, National Review

'This is the sort of reporting newspapers can no longer afford to send correspondents to do ... compelling and exciting' Malcolm Moore, Daily Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0812979842
• ISBN 13: 9780812979848
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496