Douglas Purdy

I am a fan of Fareed Zakaria, but this book is very close to “Give me my money back” territory.

It reads like a The Rise and Fall of Great Powers-lite.

Reviewing my notes, I don’t believe that I gained any particularly new insights, but updated my Paul Kennedy VM with some new anecdotes. 

Three things are worth calling out:

1. The book didn’t spend nearly enough time talking about the challenges of carbon-based economies and how this will play a role in a “Post-American World” (this is top of mind for me right now).
2. The footnote that outlined Fareed’s defense of the Iraq war seemed very forced and very out of place, so much so that it diminished the rest of the chapter for me.
3. I kept having the nagging feeling that the world is in a state like something from the time of Unification of Germany.  I need to think more about it.