The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization
Peter Zeihan
2019 was the last great year for the world economy. For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it. more
512 pages, Hardcover
First published Harper Business
4.2
Rating
9016
Ratings
1088
Reviews
Peter Zeihan
9 books 886 followers
Geopolitical Strategist Peter Zeihan is a global energy, demographic and security expert.Zeihan’s worldview marries the realities of geography and populations to a deep understanding of how global politics impact markets and economic trends, helping industry leaders navigate today’s complex mix of geopolitical risks and opportunities. With a keen eye toward what will drive tomorrow’s headlines, his irreverent approach transforms topics that are normally dense and heavy into accessible, relevant takeaways for audiences of all types.
In his career, Zeihan has ranged from working for the US State Department in Australia, to the DC think tank community, to helping develop the analytical models for Stratfor, one of the world’s premier private intelligence companies. Mr. Zeihan founded his own firm -- Zeihan on Geopolitics -- in 2012 in order to provide a select group of clients with direct, custom analytical products. Today those clients represent a vast array of sectors including energy majors, financial institutions, business associations, agricultural interests, universities and the U.S. military.
His freshman book, The Accidental Superpower, debuted in 2014. His sophomore project, The Absent Superpower, published in December 2016.
Find out more about Peter -- and your world -- at www.zeihan.com
Community reviews
“The crux of the problem is that, geopolitically and demographically speaking, for most of the last seventy-five years, we have been living in that perfect moment. At the end of World War II, the Americans created history’s greatest military alliance to arrest, contain, and beat back the Soviet Union…What is often forgotten, however, is that this alliance was only half the plan. In order to cement their new coalition, the Americans also fostered an environment of global security so that any partner could go anywhere, anytime, interface with anyone, in any economic manner, participate in any supply chain and access any material input – all without needing a military escort. This butter side of the Americans’ guns-and-butter deal created what we today recognize as free trade. Globalization. more
As a person, I like and even admire Peter Zeihan. But I'm an analyst. "Dear is Plato. Dearer still is truth. " Zeihan is a good strategist, though his strategy is sometimes based on disinformation and thus is both opaque and sub-optimal. more
The End of the World Is Just the Beginning is geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan’s FUH-KING-HELL-AIR-EYE-US apocalyptical decry. Zeihan utilizes his expertise in the areas of demography, geography and history, and very detailed systemic analyses of global supply chain involving global transport, finance, energy, materials, manufacturing, and agriculture to argue (quite convincingly) that the world we’re currently living in, the world of affordable goods and services, brought to you via globalism, is about to end, and as such, we are about to experience something akin to mad max. Except in America (north, central and south included), because were have sick as fuck geography, with natural defenses and mega (not MAGA) resources, and a young enough population to survive the twilight of the boomer generation. If this sounds bullish on the future of American prosperity, Zeihan is exponentially more bearish on the future of China, who according to Zeihan, are about to completely shit the bed due to decades of one child social engineering that have left them without enough young people, and WAY WAY WAY too many old people. Zeihan predicts that China’s situation is so dang bad, that we’re probably looking at mass starvation and TOTAL social collapse within the next decade or sooner. more
This is book #4 by Geopolitical consultant Peter Zeihan (pronounced "Zion"), and his Magnum Opus. And boy is there a lot to unpack here. What makes Zeihan indispensable is his knowledge and approach that integrates the effects on nations of their geography, resources, demographics, and economics to explain their history, understand the current situation, and forecast what may happen next. As an example of why people like me follow him, in his 2016 book "The Absent Superpower" Zeihan devoted a chapter to how Russia would invade Ukraine and he explained why and for what aims. (The explanation is SO Zeihan, based on geography and demographics. more
The End of the World reads like a political manifesto. Most of the book will resonate well if the reader is an American nationalist, particularly a MAGA-believing Trump supporter. Otherwise, a lot in the book would be so deeply offensive that most readers are unlikely to retain their objectivity enough to pick the good points in between. It must be recorded that the author declares himself a democrat as well as an internationalist in the passing. He is definitely not a climate-damage denier. more
An interesting book that I found difficult to take seriously. I applaud the author for making a number of verifiable predictions, however, I found the writing style unserious and flippant. The author's arguments revolve around the primacy of both demographics and geography, as such political systems and ideology do not play significant roles in the author's thesis. The author presents his arguments with detail and repetitiveness, however, what disappoints me is that the author is so evidently confident in his predictions that no counterargument and antithesis is considered. Of interest are those surprising countries that will do well in this changing world order such as Argentina, Columbia, and Mexico. more
The Order is collapsing. My first Zeihan read and it was phenomenal, thought-provoking, sobering and also terrifying. The crux of this book is that the American hegemonic global order of peaceful and protected commerce is coming to an end as the Americans lose interest in maintaining the Order. If you couple that with the abject demographic collapse of global drop in fertility rates, we’ll find ourselves witnessing the utter collapse of a globalized economy over the next 10 to 20 years. For Zeihan, it’s a certainty. more
I found this book to be both fascinating and terrifying. Peter Zeihan takes an unforgettable and humorous at times approach to demographic and globalization data sets. Not statistics, but hard data giving this book an immediate authority lacking in statistical analyses. This geopolitical analysis is a prediction of the future world collapse that cannot be avoided due to the extreme interconnectedness of the world economy, transport systems, and regional products or globalization. Why will this collapse. more
Peter Zeihan has become a popular man in recent months. He has taken up the profession of prediction, calculating through geography and demographics where the wider world will turn in the next thirty or forty years. Seen in private consultation, podcasts, roundtables and more, he has an engaging personality and an effective style of communicating information that would, under normal circumstances, put an audience to sleep in roughly six minutes flat. He is, of course, banking on the premise that these are not normal circumstances. I'd say that's a safe bet. more
A Realist Looks To The Future. I've read several books in the last few years covering the general real-world end of the world scenarios and/ or projections for the next few decades, and this text is refreshing in just how grounded and real Zeihan's approach is. There may in fact be squabbles about a particular point here or there, or even Zeihan's entire general premise, as the only other review on Goodreads at the time I write this points out, but for me the analysis was close enough to be at least one plausible scenario among many that *could* play out - unlike most others I've read in this field. Add in the fact that this isn't a dry academic look, but instead a somewhat humorous and even crass at times real, straightforward analysis. and you've got my attention. more
This book is heavily biased pro-america can do no wrong, and with massive blind spots ignoring even the possiblity of resource shortages in America. The premise of the book is that the "World Order" created by America's Military Industrial Complex is the only thing that makes it possible for nations to be kind to one another. And than if USA leaves an area then the whole world will fall into ruin and disrepair as they will all tear each other to shreds and leave America alone. The author is under the delusion that American oil supply is forever, and is completely unaware that American shale has pretty much dried up, and conventional passed peak decades ago. He was making projections saying things like "when they enter the workforce in the 2040's" the workforce. more
Whether you agree with his thoughts or not, this book is a MUST READ. I have read his prior three books. I enjoyed them more. This one has a little too much of Peter's political views. Peter Zeihan is brilliant. more
This guy. I have read his 3 books in a month since I've heard the recommendation from David Sacks in The All In Podcast. A year later i found myself waiting for a premiere of his new book, he published ~100 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, at the beginning of Polish long weekend. Talk about timing. Everything that constitutes modern life relies on what we know as globalisation with roots in Bretton Woods. more
4. 5 Stars for The End of The World Is Just The Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization (audiobook) by Peter Zeihan read by the author. The amount of research that the author has done on this subject is staggering. There is so many details to consider from so many different countries. The picture that Peter Zeihan paints for our future is rather bleak for much of the world. more
This is a terrible book that feels like not only was no editor involved but I'm not sure the author himself ever reread and rewrote any of it. It feels more like a continuous flow of consciousness brain dump than, you know, a book. First the small stuff: for some reason the book decides to start at the beginning of human history, through the sedentary farming revolution, irrigation, wind power, the industrial revolution, British importing cotton from India in the 1700s. it all honestly has nothing to do with anything. At least not whatever this book is about. more
Zeihan's thesis is baked into the subtitle: globalization is falling apart. Bringing it home for anyone with retirement savings, the inside jacket claims that "2019 was the last great year for the economy. " The book chronicles why the last ~30 years were basically the best ever and how we got to that state, and the subsequent world of pain that will be felt on global transport, finance, energy, energy, industrial minerals, manufacturing, and agriculture. This is the third Zeihan book I've read (The Accidental Superpower / my review, and Disunited Nations / my review) and there's a very similar feel to the previous ones: 1. Fawn over navigable waterways and how much sweet, sweet capital they generate. more
Where to begin. Full of American hubris and triumphalism; utterly silent on the multiple, complex social (mental health, opioids, social isolation and atomization, income inequality, faltering democracy, etc. ) and ecosystem (soil and freshwater loss, the sixth mass extinction, microplastics, all exacerbated by climate change) crises; dismissive of any approach that doesn't align with market fundamentalism; takes an amoral /chillingly pragmatic view of the role of slavery and genocide and their imoacts on Black and Indigenous Americans (not so much as an "oh well"); operates from a view of the economy (the only important thing) being utterly disconnected from the ecosystem upon which it owes its existence; fails to acknowledge that the economic gains of the last 200 years came at the cost of plundering our natural capital and treating the earth like an infinite waste dump. This is what passes as wisdom. Jesus f###ing Christ. more
No rating because DNF. The basic thesis, that recent decades have been, economically, the way they are because of America's willingness to spend $$$ on a navy big enough to make international shipping safe to use on a major scale, is probably true. The initial 30 pages were full of too much vague assertion, not enough data-backed proof, of the points in question. I may circle back some day; maybe the later chapters get better, but for now I'm moving on to other books. more
It was an interesting read but the author's approach to the future world order seemed rather shallow and lacking in imagination. Especially regarding the possibilities for the future of energy. The book takes a realist approach for analysis of the world but is navie about how the current domestic polices of USA would be affecting its future. The author is rather preoccupied with American expectionalism (and takes it a little too seriously). Apparently, America has ONLY PLAYED A POSITIVE ROLE IN THE WORLD ORDER SO FAR (I can't even). more
Zeihan has a couple annoying verbal tics:Our globalized world is, well, global. no one really wanted to gather and inventory and distribute and . apply the stuff. After I got past the excessive use of 'well' and ellipsis, I found a lot substance to this book. Zeihan is clearly an expert in his subject area, far beyond my meager knowledge. more
Even though I love Peter Zeihan (The Accidental Superpower is one of my favorite books of all time), this book is basically an extension of his previous writings, without any new "big" ideas. but it does have a lot of interesting points. and his witty writing style is always enjoyable. In a nutshell, his main thesis is we are living in an artificial environment of unbelievable economic global growth and prosperity. and that this has been primarily driven by the United States hegemonic power and safety (for most countries). more
Best science fiction I've read since "The Three Body Problem. " This seems like an intelligent guess at where the world is headed. I don’t think Peter has a crystal ball any more than the rest of us, but he’s well read, thinks through his work while pulling together a lot of different themes and threads. What results is a pretty thoughtful mosaic of what might happen over the next few decades. Definitely worth a read. more
The author raises a lot of great points on specific risks and specific areas of fragility but then makes equally fragile assumptions about how those risks will play out. The author then levers those brittle assumptions up to macroscopic behavior of the overall system. I doubt the author is as confident/naive as his writing suggests making me wonder if this is all a cash grab (ie. "the apocalypse narrative sells well"). If readers are willing to ask the question "how else might this play out. more
Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical analyst that has previously worked at George Friedman's intelligence consulting firm Stratfor. His book The End of the World Is Just Beginning could end up being a blueprint for the future collapse of civilisation as we know it or just another junk prediction. The summary of the book is that basically in the past 70 years the world has been at peace and enjoying prosperity as a result of the American created global order. The Americans set international rules and used their powerful fleet to protect free trade allowing for smaller states to specialise, trade and develop under this protective umbrella. America is now starting to retreat from their position of hegemony which means that global trade and shipping will start being disrupted either by illegal organisations or by other states. more
This is a non-fiction about the coming end of the world as we know it by the author, who often glosses over facts that don’t confirm his picture of the world. The book can be re-titled: The US with friends will survive the apocalypse, China will perish and in the rest of the globe survivors will envy the dead. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for November 2023 at Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group. The main idea of the book, maximally shortened is: “After WW2 the US contain the Soviet Union fostered an environment of global security of travel. This allowed the explosion of trade and specializations, rapid export-backed industrialization, and mass consumption societies. more
In his book, "The End of the World is Just the Beginning," Peter Zeihan provocatively asserts that the U. S. -led global order, born in the post-Cold War era with a core focus on globalization, stands on the brink of imminent collapse. His central argument pivots around several pivotal claims. First and foremost, Zeihan contends that the current global order deviates from the norm and is fundamentally unsustainable. more
Zeihan uses his skills in geography and demographics to predict the next couple of decades. He shows how the aging populations will interact with current constraints and problems. Why I started reading this book: Received my library hold, and the list was so long that I started immediately even if this is lot more than a causal beach read. Why I finished it: Fascinating. I really like Zeihan’s work, and would love to read this for a book club so that I could talk about it. more
The maps are difficult/impossible to read. At the and of the book, in the acknowledgements, the author provides a link to maps from another of his books: https://zeihan. com/the-accidental-sup. more
My 150th book of the year, finished just a few hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve. This one is exceptional. One of the few this year that merited five stars. The reasons I loved it:- meticulous research and fact-based arguments — but not in a Thomas Piketty avalanche of facts that overwhelms the reader, but in a targeted iceberg that sunk my Titanic ignorance of the core issues - humorous delivery both written and spoken (the author has given 600+ talks, and the audiobook performance is ace) that makes the scary future somehow more palatable— like funfetti on a casket - I finally feel like I have a grasp on the shape of the future in a way that makes it feel more manageable, even if it’s going to be wild and terrible, it also feels less scary — it’s like my fear of the future had been irrational in the way that thalassophobia is irrational— now that I know it’s a shark beneath me, I don’t have to fear alligators, piranha, giant vampire squid, or eldritch horrors from the deep — knowing is calming, and gives me ideas to work with. more
The End of the World is Just … a TED Talk Initially: I regret having paid actual money for this book. From the cover flap, the author grins out at the reader, adorned in a black shirt and a cobalt blue tie, a self-appointed consultant, a stereotypical guy’s guy that blue-chip firms just love to throw money at. And he does not fail to ‘talk the talk’, boiling down complicated issues into edgy sound bites, with snarky asides for just about everything (including a cheap shot at sauerkraut. Really. ) and nary a fact-checker in site. more