The End of the World is Just the Beginning
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4.5 • 638 Ratings
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- $29.99
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
2019 was the last great year for the world economy.
For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it.
America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.
Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.
All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending.
In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging.
The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change.
A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
When it comes to the global economy, the end isn’t nigh, it’s now. Geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan makes the case for this argument in his eye-opening audiobook. Zeihan starts with an overview of how human history led us to this particular place at the dawn of the 21st century—where goods are cheaper and easier to buy than ever before—before diving into a survey of all the ways that our social and economic systems are coming apart at the seams. He sees America’s lack of incentive to prop up our globalized economy as the root of its downfall and offers insights into the ever-present climate crisis and geopolitical tensions too. Despite his belief that things are about to turn truly ugly, Zeihan narrates with a liveliness that kept us rapt. It’s not light listening by any means, but it did make us think harder about how our own personal choices and actions—from how we shop to whom we vote for—can have some small effect on the world.
Customer Reviews
An impressive analysis
The author is profoundly knowledgeable in his fields of expertise. The book is very interesting, and makes one wonder what the world will feel like in a decade or so. It almost seems like it would remind me of my childhood growing in Argentina. A time when the world seemed much bigger.
Thorough
This book is a VERY thoughtful, in-depth, and engaging description the world we are facing. I would challenge you to find a more complete, articulate, or thorough description of that world. It is an intersection of history, anthropology, economics, politics, technology, and creative interpretation that, at the very least, is guaranteed to make you think critically. Additionally, Peter does a FANTASTIC job narrating it.
Thorough But Big Blind Soots
Peter is one of my favorite authors and YouTube personalities, but he does have some major blind spots, largely because he has the too common tendency to not strictly follow the scientific method of always seeking to challenge and debunk ideas, especially those that are mainstream.
An example in this book is the issue of Climate Change and Green Tech. Strangely enough, Peter actually prefers the more extreme views on climate change to the more milder one ms and actually despises the “king of green tech,” Elon Musk, who is a tutor the milder view and yet far more optimistic about Green Tech than Peter is. The result is that Peter has a far more pessimistic view than is likely the case, which of course colors his projections to be far worse than they likely will be.
But overall, his trajectory is accurate: the demographic shifts impact geopolitics, and this results in the world likely regressing into a far more hostile planet, as the “Pax Americana” known as Globalization comes to an end.
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