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| The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order | 
 enlarge | Author: Parag Khanna
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $29.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 23757
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 496
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 1400065089
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.1
EAN: 9781400065080
ASIN: 1400065089
Publication Date: March 4, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
The Geopolitical Marketplace April 27, 2008
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
Parag Khanna of the New America Foundation draws his inspiration from Arnold Toynbee's 12-volume history of the world. Toynbee wrote his books first, and then embarked on a trip around the world to check the acurracy of his work. Khanna, however, did it the other way around: he spent two years travelling to forty countries, talking to people and getting a first-hand look at the facts on the ground, then writing this book. The result makes this volume a very pleasurable read, mixing policy recommendations, historical analysis, and traveller's eye for local color.
Khanna argues that there will be three superpowers in the 21st century - China, the European Union, and the United States. He sometimes calls them empires as in the subtitle of the book, but that term is confusing since the Big Three will not resemble the empires of old. These superpowers will have their own unique approach for extending their power and influence. The main objectives of the Big Three are essentially the same: they want to be in the good graces of energy- and resource-rich second-tier countries such as those of the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Khanna calls this the second world. And as more and more countries become nuclear, military muscle becomes less of a tool. The superpowers are developing non-military means to win allies and influence. According to Khanna, winning in the 21st century will not take place in the battlefield but in the geopolitical marketplace.
Of the three, Khanna finds the European model the most attractive. The European practice of offering the prospect of membership in the world's richest market is a very powerful incentive for countries to reform themselves and comply with EU standards. Europe has successfully assimilated many countries on its periphery. Khanna, however, glosses over Europe's problems, such as an ageing population and unassimilated minorities.
Khanna also speaks glowingly of the rising influence of China. By the shear thrust of their economic growth, China has been able to buy friends and influence in the second world. And with their indifference to human rights, they acquire some very unsavory friends. This practice however, is now backfiring as people everywhere are rallying for Tibetans as the Olympics approach. Khanna's praise for "Asian values" amounts to accepting enlightened despotism.
The most scorn, however, is reserved for the United States. With the war in Iraq in its fifth year, America is starting to look like an overstretched empire and an object of global resentment. He excoriates America for neglecting its poor as well as its physical and financial health. This may hold some truth at the present, but Khanna has forgotten that America is resilient and has a great capacity to renew itself.
Critics of Khanna, however, should not write him off as anti-American or a pessimist. At the end of the book, he has a long list of recommendations for transforming the military-industrial complex into a diplomatic-industrial complex. He would like to see the resources that we now invest in the Pentagon go to the State Department. A new muscular foreign service is needed to further American interests and make globalization work for us. If this book sounds like it's written by an international relations graduate student, that's because it is.
Good overview, but in need of depth March 8, 2008
15 out of 19 found this review helpful
This book provides a great overview of some of the most critical parts of the world. For some, it is a useful summary of these regions and their history. However, I was hoping for a bit more. In particular, I would like to know more about what the EU, China, and US do in each region. Mr. Khanna is very general in his assessments of these three superpowers and their access to these regions, which is sometimes frustrating since the book was billed as a study of the new world geopolitical order.
For example, he seems to assume that everything the US does is wrong, while China is always around doing stuff right, and the EU as sophisticated. Yet, it also seems that the EU is overly bureaucratized, China still has enormous internal development and governance challenges, and a huge amount of America's downturn can be reversed (we are still the world's largest economy, with the best educational institutions and companies). The whole rise of China theme eerily seems to me a replay of the rise of Japan fears of the 1980s. While China will probably rise, Khanna is ascribing the country with a power I don't think it yet possesses.
Furthermore, it seems America is always assumed to have the worst possible motives, even when it does not make sense to assume so. For example, when talking about the Middle East, Khanna suggests that it is America that is trying to find excuses such as oil and terrorism to intervene in Arab affairs, which seems to have the situation backward - the US would have no interest in the region if not for oil or terrorism. If we got alternative energy or the Middle East stopped spawning terrorists, we'd love to let it alone. Likewise, the book makes it seem as if the US gives no foreign aid while the EU gives a lot, but the US private sector gives a huge amount of aid that should not be discounted (indeed, some would argue that aid is better spent through private institutions than the government). Without further discussion, I'm not sure I can accept Khanna's assumptions.
This book is great if you want an overview of the "second world", their histories, and current problems. It should be further developed though with more explicit reference to what the US, EU, and China can and are doing. It's a fun overview, but don't treat it too seriously since it leaves a lot out.
 The new Mr. X? March 5, 2008
12 out of 20 found this review helpful
After reading The Second World, it's hard not to see that Khanna is the new "Mr. X," the great Cold War diplomat/historian George Kennan who articulated the strategy of "containment" towards the Soviet Union in an anonymous article in Foreign Affairs in 1947. It's hard to imagine the current crop of usual suspects in the foreign policy world - Friedman, Huntington, Fukuyama, Kagan, Zakaria, Mandelbaum, etc. - driving bumpily around a hundred countries to prove their armchair theories. Khanna's advantages are obviously his multi-cultural upbringing and his youth. He cleverly decides not to engage in their stale debates about the "clash of civilizations," but rather invokes the far greater historical intellects of Arnold Toynbee and Oswald Spengler, using their great debate to frame his narrative. Their grasp of world history - and Khanna's - proves to be far superior to the mainstream foreign policy pundits of today. It's a mystery why it's taken over a decade for someone to come along and debunk both the post-Cold War triumphalists and the hyper-alarmist neo-conservatives at the same time, but at least it's finally happened. A must read to understand the 21st century, period.
Cliff's Notes for the 21st century world March 4, 2008
11 out of 14 found this review helpful
Thumb through any section of The Second World and it will become clear that Khanna has read more books, been to more countries, and interviewed more people than most leading authors put together. You name the place, Khanna has been there - and within the past few years. Only Sub-Saharan Africa is purposely left out of this consistently high-energy global tour, which stops only to make unquestionably profound commentary on the state of entire continents and regions in the grand sweep of history. Packing in essential histories, key thinkers, recent trends, and on-the-ground reportage, encyclopedic Second World is the definitive Cliff's Notes for the entire planet in the early 21st century.
The most important stylistic fact of this book is that unlike just about every other travel book I've ever read, the author does not appear in a single sentence after the two-page Preface. This book is all about place, with absolutely no pretense or narcissism. You never hear about food poisonings, armed hold-ups, or other maladies of travel, but judging from the places Khanna has been, all these must have happened. Instead you get only useful social, cultural, and political knowledge and insights. The next time you turn on the TV and there's a coup in Kyrgyzstan, bombings in Lebanon, an earthquake in Indonesia, or some oil-rich despot threatens America's energy supply, you'll know exactly why after reading this book.
Second World is first rate original thinking March 4, 2008
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
In a dynamic world, this book offers a new theory or framework for understanding the complexities of the 21st century. Khanna does an excellent job constructing a consistent framework across multiple cultures, geographies and cultures. I have read many books in the international field and it is hard to find unique ideas - The Second World is full of them. Khanna brings geography to life in this book without being too deterministic, for in fact this book is as much about globalization (which implies the "death of distance") as it is about places and spaces. The book also has a very modern spirit, lucidly demonstrating how economic power is very often more important than military power, and that fact alone implies a rebalancing of world power. Finally, the book's bracing conclusion puts forward devastating evidence that far from remaining master of the world, the U.S. may need a "Marshall Plan" just to stay where it is. Combined with the elegant writing and on-the-ground narrative feel, this book far surpasses the competition.
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