Name: The accidental superpower
ISBN: 9781455583683

The accidental superpower

tradition of The World Is Flat and The Next 100 Years, THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER will be a much discussed, contrarian and eye-opening assessment of American power. In THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER international strategist Peter Zeihan examines how geography, combined with demography and energy independence, will pave the way for one of the great turning points in history, and one in which America reasserts its global dominance. No other country has a greater network of internal waterways, a greater command of deepwater navigation, or a firmer hold on industrialization technologies than America. Zeihan argues that the future is undoubtedly bright for America, the only country with enough young adults to fill the capital-generating void that will be left behind by 2030. THE ACCIDENTAL SUPERPOWER also explores shale oil and its surprising key role in America's move towards energy independence and how it will shape (and is already shaping) American life for the next fifty years"

What Hacker News says

SeanambersJun 2023

Peter Zeihan has a lot of interesting POVs. I'm half way through his first book 'The Accidental Superpower' and he makes convincing arguments all around so far.

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jvanderbotMay 2023

> The fourth default was the 1971 breaking of the U.S. government’s commitment to redeem dollars held by foreign governments for gold under the Bretton Woods Agreement.

Bretton Woods is a fascinating topic on its own. Accidental Superpower is a good read that dives in a little, but isn't focused specifically on it. I can't resist bringing up that book because in one of the later chapters, it predicted the invasion of Ukraine, IIRC, down to the month.

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matthewfelgateDec 2022

  Winter Is Coming by Garry Kasparov

Gave me knowledge about modern Russia.

  Prisoners of Geography

Because it explains how physical geography affects the economic success of countries.

  The Accidental Superpower by Peter Zeihan

Because it has good opinion on geopolitics.

  Carl Sagan’s Contact

Great book on theoretically communicating with aliens)

  The Art of the Long View by Peter Schwartz

Because it have me advice on how to predict the future.

  China Coup by Roger Garside

Because it is an interesting opinion on future problems China may have.

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MR4DDec 2022

I highly recommend going back and reading The Accidental Superpower as well. Considering it was written a decade ago (pub. 2014) it’s amazing how correct he’s been in forecasting things.

To be clear, there is a certain fuzziness in timeframes, and he mentions that, but in general, the timing he mentions is scarily accurate.

One thing that I saw earlier this year was Sri Lanka. Many others will follow in various levels of degradation over the coming years.

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bocNov 2022

The Accidental Superpower is a good book that goes deeper on this topic.

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DennisPSep 2022

Imho his latest book isn't the best starting point. He justifies his basic thesis more in earlier books, but in the latest he just reviews it and moves on to new material. The argument is not just a reaction to Trump; he lays it out first in The Accidental Superpower, published in 2014. (This book is fascinating in its own right, covering a broad sweep of history starting from ancient Egypt.)

Zeihan's predictions don't extend much past the next decade. Governments can enact policies to encourage childbearing but it will still take 20 years to make a 20-year-old. Immigration is another matter of course, but for many countries, cultural issues make that difficult. The US does a pretty good job of assimilating immigrants and giving them a fairly equal place in society. Many other countries do not, and that makes them less attractive to immigrants.

Internationally, the US has definitely stepped up more this year. But during and shortly after the Cold War, the US fought serious wars to defend the borders of other countries, maintaining our credibility as global security guarantor. I don't think we're near so dedicated to that these days. We'll sanction, and share weapons and intel, but that's relatively cheap.

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