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The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder

Peter ZeihanNovember 4, 2014

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In the bestselling tradition of The World Is Flat and The Next 100 Years, THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER will be a much discussed, contrarian, and eye-opening assessment of American power.

Near the end of the Second World War, the United States made a bold strategic gambit that rewired the international system. Empires were abolished and replaced by a global arrangement enforced by the U.S. Navy. With all the world's oceans safe for the first time in history, markets and resources were made available for everyone. Enemies became partners.

We think of this system as normal-it is not. We live in an artificial world on borrowed time.

In THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER, international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how the hard rules of geography are eroding the American commitment to free trade; how much of the planet is aging into a mass retirement that will enervate markets and capital supplies; and how, against all odds, it is the ever-ravenous American economy that-alone among the developed nations-is rapidly approaching energy independence. Combined, these factors are doing nothing less than overturning the global system and ushering in a new (dis)order.

For most, that is a disaster-in-waiting, but not for the Americans. The shale revolution allows Americans to sidestep an increasingly dangerous energy market. Only the United States boasts a youth population large enough to escape the sucking maw of global aging. Most important, geography will matter more than ever in a de-globalizing world, and America's geography is simply sublime.

About the author

Peter Zeihan has lived in the world of international affairs throughout his 15-year career. He launched his own firm, Zeihan on Geopolitics, in 2012 in order to specialize in customized executive briefings for his clients. Previously to going independent, Zeihan worked for twelve years with the geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor, where he was Vice President of Analysis. He is a frequent contributor in the media, and has been covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post,Forbes, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, O'Reilly, National Public Radio, MarketWatch, and others.

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Additional Information

Publisher

Twelve

Published on

Nov 4, 2014

Pages

352

ISBN

9781455583676

Features

Flowing text

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Web, Tablet, Phone, eReader

Language

English

Genres

Political Science / Comparative Politics

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