https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xexFJ7h0vULMDE7N77q_MIzXoerexfe_CqqGEL6hEoQ/edit#heading=h.qi8yp2d9wbt2
Podcast note: This reader-written review was included because it won the Readers' Choice Award from among all the runners-up.
What does the future look like? We are living through a transition between epochs. Whether marked by COVID-19, the election of Donald Trump or earlier by the global sub-prime crisis, the golden age of post-Cold War prosperity is ending. With the era defined by US political, cultural and economic hegemony, its decline is inextricably linked to the decline in US influence. Is the twenty first century really going to be the “Asian century” as China’s growth continues unabated? Or perhaps African, given by far the largest forecast population growth? What will become of the US? Of China and Russia and Europe? Two thinkers have sought to define this future.
I first came across Bruno Maçães in 2017 on Marginal Revolution where Tyler Cowen was effusive about Maçães’ new book. I have enjoyed following his conversations and thoughts ever since, but it was only recently that I read Dawn of Eurasia. It is the first book of a career politician and diplomat clearly in love with his continent.
Peter Zeihan I came across on Patrick O'Shaughnessy’s excellent podcast. His brash prophesy and contrarian views on geopolitics are hypnotic and endlessly fascinating. Disunited Nations is his latest in a series that documents the rise and rise of US power.
I found comparing them irresistible. Each lingers after reading. It’s that wonderful feeling of discovering a new area of knowledge to mine. Not natural companions, and mesmerising in their own ways, each story has a different texture and plots a different path for the world. Where one sees pessimistic reversion to a historic state of conflict, the other sees hopeful evolution. Where one deterministically condemns nations to their geographic destinies, the other sees each nation’s destiny as unwritten, yet to be informed by its history, literature and peoples.
Both Peter Zeihan and Bruno Maçães see US influence receding. But they agree on little else. Zeihan is deeply pessimistic about a world that awaits a more isolationist US, with a crumbling world order leaving less room for prosperity and reverting to nation-states jostling for food, energy and military security. Maçães sees China’s rise as
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