Zakaria, who's new CNN show, Fareed Zakaria, GPS, was recently launched, writes another engaging book about the reality that the new global community represents. As he wrote, "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the
rise of everyone else." So begins Fareed Zakaria's important new work
on the era we are now entering. Following on the success of his
best-selling The Future of Freedom, Zakaria describes with
equal prescience a world in which the United States will no longer
dominate the global economy, orchestrate geopolitics, or overwhelm
cultures. He sees the "rise of the rest"—the growth of countries like
China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others—as the great story of our
time, and one that will reshape the world. The tallest buildings,
biggest dams, largest-selling movies, and most advanced cell phones are
all being built outside the United States. This economic growth is
producing political confidence, national pride, and potentially
international problems. How should the United States understand and
thrive in this rapidly changing international climate? What does it
mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria answers these questions
with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination. Here is an excerpt:
"During the 1980s, when I would visit India—where I grew
up—most Indians were fascinated by the United States. Their interest, I
have to confess, was not in the important power players in Washington
or the great intellectuals in Cambridge.People would often ask me about Donald Trump. He
was the very symbol of the United States—brassy, rich, and modern. He
symbolized the feeling that if you wanted to find the biggest and
largest anything, you had to look to America. Today, outside of
entertainment figures, there is no comparable interest in American
personalities. If you wonder why, read India's newspapers or watch its
television. There are dozens of Indian businessmen who are now
wealthier than the Donald. Indians are obsessed by their own vulgar
real estate billionaires. And that newfound interest in their own story
is being replicated across much of the world.
How much? Well, consider this fact. In 2006 and 2007,
124 countries grew their economies at over 4 percent a year. That
includes more than 30 countries in Africa. Over the last two decades,
lands outside the industrialized West have been growing at rates that
were once unthinkable. While there have been booms and busts, the
overall trend has been unambiguously upward. Antoine van Agtmael, the
fund manager who coined the term "emerging markets," has identified the
25 companies most likely to be the world's next great multinationals.
His list includes four companies each from Brazil, Mexico, South Korea,
and Taiwan; three from India, two from China, and one each from
Argentina, Chile, Malaysia, and South Africa. This is something much
broader than the much-ballyhooed rise of China or even Asia. It is the
rise of the rest—the rest of the world."
My grandmother, who could do very many things, couldn't work a video remote. When I first realized this I wondered, when I get old, would I be able to program in a new language of the
future? Or, like my grandmother, will I think of it as the video player I can't
control? In the 80's when my "MIS" department was programming in RPG code I was developing new solutions using the cutting edge dBase III for database driven applications.
