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

4.13 AVERAGE

zulico's review against another edition

4.0
dark informative medium-paced

trails's review against another edition

3.0
The first half of this book is a very interesting and entertaining read, examining American history through the lense of of geopolitics. The second half is a pitch for the oil industry and American isolationism that has not aged well even when removing personal objection to such thinking. The writing is engaging, but the content made me roll my eyes enough to enduce eye strain when the book shifted from analysis to prediction.

bloodyfool0's review against another edition

4.0
I really enjoyed this book. It uses geography in great detail to describe the geopolitical landscape. It, however, is very pro USA. The concept that geography alone positions a nation alone in terms of economic but also militaristic strength is really taking a high line. But does he have a point? The author presses the argument with interesting detail.

Interesting bits of history along with some bold predictions, one of which I do hope holds true. Read the chapter on China. It is an eye opener for sure.

I would recommend this book highly. It is was easily digestible and although biased in favour of the USA.

bookshelf_from_mars's review against another edition

1.0
informative medium-paced
mellowdave's profile picture

mellowdave's review against another edition

Solid assumptions,

sophiajkessler's review against another edition

5.0
funny informative medium-paced

jane_0_0's review against another edition

2.5
medium-paced
Poor grasp of history and over explanatory language made this book 10 times longer than it needed to be

martzy13's review against another edition

4.25
funny informative reflective tense medium-paced

love_schwizzle's review against another edition

5.0
challenging dark hopeful informative sad fast-paced

marisbest2's review against another edition

4.0
Reading this after Thucydides Trap was very interesting. It feels like he just discounts 1- the destabilizing role of mass immigration from both economic and civil war, 2- internal us politics and polarization, 3- nuclear war and the thread thereof and 4- Xi Jingpings ability to mobilize China especially as our supply chains are more deeply intertwined for information technologies.

I'm not sure how much of this is just that things have changed since 2014 or that his analysis is just super idiosyncratic and potentially missing things.

The economic and geographic analysis was super interesting though. And the US supremicism seems intuitively wrong, but who knows