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https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-accidental-superpower

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[This is the eleventh of many finalists in the book review contest. It\\u2019s not by me - it\\u2019s by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I\\u2019ll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you\\u2019ve read all of them, I\\u2019ll ask you to vote for your favorite, so remember which ones you liked. If you like reading these reviews, check out\\xa0point 3 here\\xa0for a way you can help move the contest forward by reading lots more of them - SA]

In\\xa0The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder\\xa0(2014), Peter Zeihan predicts the future of world politics and economic development in a way that an ACX fan would appreciate. He puts a timeline on it. The book isn\\u2019t about \\u201csome hazy distant future after we\\u2019re all dead and gone, but the future we will all be living in for the next fifteen years of our lives.\\u201d Zeihan\\u2019s subtitle hints at his big and bold thesis, which predicts \\u201cthe dissolution of the free trade order, the global demographic inversion, the collapse of Europe and China,\\u201d which \\u201cis all just a fleeting\\xa0transition\\u201d to a world largely abandoned by America.

People have fun making predictions like this (and mocking those who get things spectacularly wrong). With money and fame available to people whose predictions turn out right, and the ease with which we fo