ARTICLE: After America: Is the West being overtaken by the rest?, by Ian Buruma, The New Yorker, April 21, 2008
I like Ian Buruma a lot. His Occidentalism book was truly superb. I think his review here is great.
I will, however, still need to peruse all three volumes.
For my purposes, the Zakaria and Kagan books are great inputs for Great Powers: Zakaria's argument nicely beats back the "we're-doomed-to-be-just-like-Great-Britain" argument and Kagan's lays out the full-throated neocon view of "let's-take-'em-all-on."
(Thanks: Florian Widder)
Comments (3)
Hey: Yesterday I picked up my preordered "The Post American World" by Fareed Zakaria. I also picked up the May/June "Foreign Affairs mag that has a Zakaria article entitled "Why the United States Will Survive the Rise of the Rest". I have yet to read either but that is comming up soon. I am now waiting for my favorite political scientist Ph/D (Fareed is a close second) to come out with his next book--Tom Barnett. Rest assured I will preorder it as well as soon as I here that I can. =)
Posted by Tom Mull | May 5, 2008 9:16 AM
This was an excellent article. Kagan and Zakaria point out possibilities for the future with China. While I hope it goes the way of Zakaria, I believe that Kagan's views of both Americans and Chinese are more realistic. Because I believe in liberty and thus democracy, I must despise autocracies, and I do. We all should!
I don't believe we can trust autocrats to do the right thing.
So....
How do we as a nation, not just some president's administration's foreign policy, guide China through the process and achieve liberty for their citizens through decocracy? How do we enact Zakaria's vision of the future with China?
Posted by Wiredman | May 5, 2008 6:52 PM
One unanswered question on this article: I noticed he didn't mention Khanna's concept of Europe as an Imperial counterweight to China & Co. Why not? Did that not get discussed in the book? Is Buruma mushing Europe and the US together? Or is it another possibility I haven't thought of?
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May 5, 2008 9:15 PM