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The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century |  | Author: Parag Khanna
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
List Price: $16.00
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Seller: critic_l
Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 52515
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 496
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0812979842
Dewey Decimal Number: 320
EAN: 9780812979848
ASIN: 0812979842
Publication Date: February 10, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
 The Second World October 3, 2009
JD Johnson (USA)
Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making
This author allows one to question where the global powers' stance amidst the rising of nations and collapse of their federations that shaped them. Parag Khanna is chiseling and tunneling through the geopolitical demographics and dispelling xenophobia of the i.e. (European Union, Russia, China). The is commendable and contains data that was lacking in the information highway.
 Snarky and Wrong... July 2, 2009
James M. Smith (MD, USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I have taught a Geography of International Affairs course for a decade, and spend a fair portion of my time reading books and articles on IR and geopolitical change. I agree with the detractors: this is easily one of the worst. A lack of data and analytical rigor combined with absurd overestimation of "Europe" as a great power. The European Union is not a state, but a myopic, postmodern entity that will likely break apart due to the irreconcilable differences between the new members in eastern Europe, paricularly Poland, and the established powers of France and Germany. In short, having twenty-seven countries try to form a common foreign policy is geopolitically impossible.
Like several prominent authors, Khanna is especially dismissive of the United States and its emphasis on hard power...and seems to disregard American advantages vis a vis China, particularly ratio of population to resources and the ecological constraints to China's growth. Some of his discussion of "Asian values" also smacks of the hyperbole that we suffered through in the late 1980s and early 1990s about Japan becoming the domimant world power. Now with China, the actors have changed, but the creed remains the same.
For an insightful and useful corrective, I recommend George Friedman's "The Next Hundred Years", which deploys sound methods and disciplined analysis. Friedman demonstrates that demography, technology and geography drive longer-term geopolitical trends, and the American propensity to absorb immigrants, embrace creative destruction and apply science to hard power give that nation-state insurmountable advantages.
Worst Book on IR that I Have Ever Read June 27, 2009
Robert Farley (Cincinnati, OH)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
If you find Tom Friedman too complex, nuanced, and conceptually sound, you'll love Parag Khanna. It's as if he read Friedman, figured out what all the annoying bits were, and decided to double down on them. He even quotes random, anonymous, wise taxi cab drivers!
A genuinely terrible book, and a waste of my valuable time.
Implausible vision May 16, 2009
S. Basu (Massachusetts)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The core assertion of the book that China, Europe and US are the new world powers in that sequence is fiction. China has tremendous internal challenges which elude many foreign observers. Europe is aging and headed towards increasing conflict with its minorities. The United States is open, resilient, inclusive, innovative, deeply allied with other free societies, and, through globalization has Americanized the rest.
The most pathetic aspect of the book is the author's dismissive and farcical attitude towards India - where his own origins lie. The demographic mega-trend is that an increasing proportion of the world's working age population will be in India (at the expense of China and Europe).
As economic contacts between the US, Europe, Japan, India, Australia and Arab Gulf states deepen and prosper, China's regime will lose its raison d'etre and it will have to deal with a potentially disruptive transition to democracy.
Well worth the read April 14, 2009
J. B. Reynolds (Bangkok, TH)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Parag Khanna is wise and traveled well beyond his years. He gives the current state of global politics in a well-researched and fast moving way. Mr. Khanna begins with Eurasian politics (game), focused on the Balkans and Caucuses, their Soviet past, and EU future. Here he really shines in his analysis, as this is obviously where he spent the bulk of his travel time and gained his greatest understanding.
From there, the book becomes a mix of journalism review, travel experience, and soapbox. Along the way he denounces India without rigorously pursuing "why", completely ignores sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and Canada, and heaps enormous amounts of praise on East Asia. The problem with this is that the book becomes less of an objective resource, and more a one-sided rant about the things E. Asia and the EU do great, and the things the USA does poorly.
The omissions and understatements are glaring as Parag tries to quickly fit modern history into his case. One example are the efficient sky trains East Asia has versus the supposedly antiquated subway systems of New York and DC. This is obvious as the former cities were constructed decades after the latter. He similarly states as part of an argument on how advanced E. Asia is that Vietnam now uses more concrete than France. Again, this is obvious as the West is no longer in the developing phase its younger Asian siblings are.
He also mentions a time when the New York subway was on strike making New Yorkers feel like "third-world" citizens (there is no formal citation for this feeling). I'm sure Chinese felt the same way when in February 2008 the northern part of their country came to paralysis when a snow storm shut down their rail system (and later suffered stampedes when the train services resumed).
I don't see this so much as "picking on America" as other reviewers have noted, but more as weak research and weak supporting arguments. There are so many things wrong with the United States and every other country, that he should not be lacking convincing material or original thought on this.
On the whole I enjoyed the book for assembling the world puzzle in one contemporary perspective. Just for trying and succeeding at this, the author gets 4 stars. Sure, I had to laugh and skim through some of his precarious arguments, but readers of all ages, backgrounds and countries would benefit from taking a quick read of this book. Just keep in mind it is in no way a primary resource or atlas of world affairs.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
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