Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

Trouble sleeping last night after screening "Sunshine" on the new Blu-Ray with my boys. Our disc wasn't Blu Ray, so my jury's still out on the great leap forward, but I must say, and I'm very sensitive to this sort of thing, that the picture and sound delivery struck me as noticeably better on this machine. I watched the movie on the old high-res DVD player and it was great, but this was somewhat better, and so I can't wait to see what Blu-Ray ultimately projects.

Anyway, I stay up afterwards to 3am reading the chapter and I'm pretty pleased. I get up this am and crank a quick 2k to tie off the WWI-WWII section. Now I break to review the Cold War histories, hoping to get something cranked today so I can finish the chapter tomorrow.

The book now stands at 62,394 words, and it's really feeling more and more like the most important thing I've ever written, which, of course, is the goal every time you pick up the mouse.

As I understand my four part structure now, Parts I (sort of, what is grand strategy in the age of globalization) and II (America's history in relation to modern globalization's rise) aren't just set-up for a mainstay Part III. Rather, they're logically the first half of the book, so heading toward the 75k mark makes sense if my rough metric is 150k for body text overall. In short, I've come to see Part II as less set-up and more crucial--equal in strength and importance to Part III's delineation of the six realignments I see coming in American grand strategy.

So size-wise, I suspect it's Part I's 15K plus Part II's 60k = first half, while Part III's 55-60k plus Part IV's 15-20k = second half, with an Intro and Conclusion bookending this OODA loop construction of Parts (process observed, American orientation, realignments decided, getting into the act).

I'm really glad I made the decision to explore U.S. history in this volume. It's been a thrill to sort of "get it down" finally in my head. For years I've gone around saying "America's the source code for this era's globalization" without really explaining that loaded concept. Turns out it takes about 30,000 words to make that explanation, but it's really thrilling to deliver.