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The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

Peter Zeihan

Start date: November 1, 2023

Finish date: December 31, 2023

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Nov 17, 2023 Oleksandr Zholud rated it liked it · review of another edition

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 So 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. However, falling birth rates, aging of population and decisions of the US politics to turn inside and let the rest of the world be will lead to dangerous waterways, halting specialization and trade, killing everyone (except the USA+).

First of all, I agree with a lot of his predictions and assumptions, from “China descending into narcissistic nationalism” to “For those of you organic buffs out there who refuse to eat anything that’s been touched with anything artificial, know that a roughly half-mile radius around organic banana plantations is practically nuked with (eminently non-organic) pesticides and herbicides and fungicides to protect your proclivities. Organics also tend to be grown at higher, drier elevations to somewhat limit pests, which means the bananas need massive irrigation to grow. The result is the food product with the highest chemical and carbon footprint, as well as the highest staff turnovers from death in any product set in any industry. Happy eating.” Yes, definitely, the globe will face huge problems in upcoming decades and yes, no country (including the US) is ready for coming demographic change.

There are some minor nitpicks, like “the United States features the developed world’s healthiest demographic structure” – I say Israel; or “meat thermometer that can tell your smartphone how hot your roast is, a cheap chip from China will do just fine. If you want a zippy smartphone so you can post your doctored videos to TikTok, it’s best you go with something from the other side of the Taiwan Strait.” – yes, true, Taiwan makes hi-end chips, but when elsewhere the author says that Chinese cannot do (and never will be able to) hi-end chip, ask him (1) why current US administration attempts to limit flow of such chips in China, sale of lithography machines to them and (2) what Huawei Mate 60 Pro handset went on sale on August 29th, 2023 has as its chip, plus finally (3) why in July 2023 Taiwanese TSMC delayed the launch of its first fab in Arizona by a year, to 2025? (because it could not find enough staff with semiconductor industry experience). So, yes, there is still a gap and the US leads, but the gap is rather small and not only because the PRC is better than suggested but also because the US also lacks a professional labor force.

Also a personal dislike for his equating the Soviet and Russian Empire solely with Russia or using terms like “the great expanses of the Russian wheat belt, a zone that includes Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.” – calling this wheat belt ‘Russian’ may be what he is used to, but one doesn’t call India, Pakistan and Bangladesh “The British Raj” nowadays.

The author stresses that the US subsidized the global Order, as would Kipling say "The White Man's Burden", while they also benefited and continue to benefit from it, like that US Dollar is the main reserve currency allows the Fed having a much larger swings in its monetary policy – this isn’t a leftist rhetoric, unless one considers Milton Friedman a leftist. Or omits to note such tiny thing as Monroe doctrine when saying that unlike previous imperial world leaders, the US is completely other. I won’t even start on how he mixes currency, debt and working of the financial system both before Bretton Woods and after.

The book is definitely a worthy read, especially to highlight the real issues the world will face in the next 20 years. However, his praising of the US and bashing of almost anyone else is too biased.
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