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andrueb 's review for:
5 Stars, if you take it with a large grain of salt.
Zeihan writes about the world through the lens of demography, geography, and resource/energy distribution. How is China's economy likely to progress as the "One Child" generation comes of age? What advantages does America's Mississippi River have compared to all other major global waterways? How does the modern shale/"fracking" industry work, and how is this affecting American foreign policy?
"The Absent Superpower" is like meeting your super smart friend, 5 beers in, so you can hear his well informed hot takes on the world order. It's not a book for those looking for academic precision. If you accept it as this and are willing to accept some ideas while passing on others, this is the geopolitics book for you. Other people hate Zeihan for this reason. I get it. It just works for me.
"The Absent Superpower" is an update of Zeihan's previous "The Accidental Superpower". In both books he lays out his argument about America's natural preeminence - for reasons that have nothing to do with its culture, politics, founding, etc. This time, Z leads with a deep dive on the American shale oil industry, and these 60+ pages alone are worth the price of the book.
Here I learned that not all oil refineries can process all grades of oil. Some American oil must be exported because our refineries are optimized for imported oil products. How has the fracking industry evolved over the past decade? Why are the largest international oil corporations NOT the ones driving this industry? Basically, if you're looking for a plunge into "how the world works" re oil and energy, you won't get a more detailed and entertaining introduction anywhere else I'm aware of.
Zeihan's predictions tend to get ever more wacky the farther he gets away from the United States. He predicts that Russia will go to war absurdly specific regions, for example. In other cases, his predictions have proved chillingly accurate, as events in the EU, the White House, and American foreign policy have proven.
Read this book for what it is: a passionate and riveting opinion piece. It will force you to think about world events in a new way. Even if you disagree with half of what you read, you will come out the other side better equipped to understand the world. Not everyone is looking for this kind of book, but I loved the ride.
Zeihan writes about the world through the lens of demography, geography, and resource/energy distribution. How is China's economy likely to progress as the "One Child" generation comes of age? What advantages does America's Mississippi River have compared to all other major global waterways? How does the modern shale/"fracking" industry work, and how is this affecting American foreign policy?
"The Absent Superpower" is like meeting your super smart friend, 5 beers in, so you can hear his well informed hot takes on the world order. It's not a book for those looking for academic precision. If you accept it as this and are willing to accept some ideas while passing on others, this is the geopolitics book for you. Other people hate Zeihan for this reason. I get it. It just works for me.
"The Absent Superpower" is an update of Zeihan's previous "The Accidental Superpower". In both books he lays out his argument about America's natural preeminence - for reasons that have nothing to do with its culture, politics, founding, etc. This time, Z leads with a deep dive on the American shale oil industry, and these 60+ pages alone are worth the price of the book.
Here I learned that not all oil refineries can process all grades of oil. Some American oil must be exported because our refineries are optimized for imported oil products. How has the fracking industry evolved over the past decade? Why are the largest international oil corporations NOT the ones driving this industry? Basically, if you're looking for a plunge into "how the world works" re oil and energy, you won't get a more detailed and entertaining introduction anywhere else I'm aware of.
Zeihan's predictions tend to get ever more wacky the farther he gets away from the United States. He predicts that Russia will go to war absurdly specific regions, for example. In other cases, his predictions have proved chillingly accurate, as events in the EU, the White House, and American foreign policy have proven.
Read this book for what it is: a passionate and riveting opinion piece. It will force you to think about world events in a new way. Even if you disagree with half of what you read, you will come out the other side better equipped to understand the world. Not everyone is looking for this kind of book, but I loved the ride.