Customer Reviews
Not as bad as some say 
2008-12-01
From the introduction, Khanna distances himself from other current theorists. In Khanna's description of the world, there are three empires which are competing with each other for influence and power - the US, the EU and China. Each of these empires has differing ways of maintaining empire - the US through coalition; the EU through consensus and China through consultation. Where this new imperial game is played is in the "second world" - states that lie in the income brackets between the first and third world.
Khanna creates this model of the world and then proceeds to go through each region of the second world describing each country's individual situation within the competing powers of the first world empires. These are fired at you at machine gun pace - most countries are covered in four to ten pages.
The speed of the survey is not the only problem. He seems to straddle between the fall of American Civilization and the rise of new institutions. He appears to make American failures couched in "culture" while its successes are in "institutions."
His conclusions are basically that America should act as if it is a multi-polar world. But to be honest by the time you get to the end of the work you just want it to be done and don't really care anymore. Even IR theory people don't have to read this thing.
Excellent Overview 
2008-09-29
This is an excellent overview of the current world situation and look at what is developing. Political forecasters take note, this is one-stop shopping.
Author does a good job juggling a mountain of information and making a coherent whole out of the disparate world at large.
Tour de force tour of the second world. 2008-09-13
Why are the United States and Europe so invested in the outcome of the hostilities between Russia and Georgia? Khanna's lucid tour of "second world" countries, including Georgia and a few dozen others across the globe, provides context for that conflict and identifies other potential hotspots where the major powers are jostling for influence.
I have some familiarity with global politics primarily informed by the New York Times, but I have no particular professional or personal expertise in this area. I would struggle to differentiate Turkmenistan from Uzbekistan (or several other "stans" for that matter). Nevertheless, I found this book very accessible. Khanna's survey approach provides enough depth to give insight into each of these nations and where they fit in the world order, while not creating tedium by devoting too much time to any one of them. The quality of the writing is excellent.
My only criticism of this book is its overreliance on antedotes and on-the-ground reporting. Khanna clearly has traveled the world, but he seems too eager to give authenticity to some of his arguments by quoting (almost always unnamed) locals. Given the sheer number of countries covered by this book, it strains credulity for Khanna to give the sense that on-the-ground reporting greatly informed his impressions of all of these nations, when at least some of them he probably only briefly touched down in. But this minor frustration is greatly outweighed by this book's many merits, and I would highly recommend this book.
Best reading for several years! 2008-09-01
This book has an amazing amount of information about the second world countries and written with excellent form.
One is the Loneliest Number 
2008-08-22
One is the Loneliest Number
RAJESH C. OZA, Aug 16, 2008
In The Second World, foreign relations think-tank analyst Parag Khanna gives a whirlwind tour of "tipping-point" countries "where geopolitics and globalization clash and merge." These nations are a rather disparate group including Ukraine and Kazakhstan in the former Soviet Union, Argentina and Brazil in South America, Iran and Iraq in the Middle East, and Malaysia and Indonesia in Asia. According to the author's bio-blurb, "Khanna has traveled in close to 100 countries and is a member of the Explorer's Club." But this book is much more than a trip around the world in 466 pages. While a majority of these pages read like a Fodor's Travel Guide to many of the places stamped in Khanna's passport (with footnotes for policy wonks), the focus is on three superpowers, as illuminated by the book's subtitle: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order.
In the half-century after World War II, America ascended to hegemonic status. While many of these years were witness to the bipolar struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, American hard and soft power was seemingly unrivaled after the Cold War. Leader after leader in Washington D.C. consistently denied imperial intentions during this period of supremacy, but each president after Truman has sought to extend America's global reach militarily, economically, and/or culturally.
Khanna shares none of the queasiness of anti-imperialists. With a cool rationalism that pervades his thought-provoking book, he proclaims that "for thousands of years, empires have been the world's most powerful political entities, their imperial yoke restraining subjugated nations from fighting one another and thereby fulfilling people's eternal desire for order." Perhaps because of America's inability to be the world's sole superpower, or more likely because power is always contested, two powers have filled the vacuum created by the Soviet Union's demise, and joined the United States at the core of what Immanuel Wallerstein described as a world-system's hierarchy.
Khanna is at his finest in analyzing the three superpowers of the new millennium: the United States, China, and the European Union. A Machiavellian calculus of fear and love inform this analysis: "America is decreasingly loved and increasingly feared, Europe is increasingly loved and decreasingly feared, and China is increasingly both loved and feared." Derived from a robust academic background and from interviews with policy-makers and ordinary citizens across the world, Khanna's thesis is that America is in decline, China is ascendant, and the E.U. is the third leg of a three-legged global leadership stool.
Although Khanna favors the European model of interdependence, he is convinced of China's primacy in the 21st century. He believes that as second world and third world countries are confronted by the challenge and opportunity of being simultaneously Americanized, Sinicized, and Europeanized, China's consultative model, which is far less confrontational than the American coalition-building and more efficient than the European consensus-building, is the most likely to be embraced. In Khanna's new world order, the United States will have a more constrained role focused on the Americas, North and South; wealthy European Union countries will integrate poorer neighbors to their South and East; and China will extend its second Great Leap Forward geographically throughout East Asia and economically through a global manufacturing supply chain that increasingly has China at its center.
For Americans, Indian-Americans, and Indophiles, Khanna raises two important questions. The first is directly asked ("Could America, long the first-world icon, slip into the second world?") and addressed ("America's imperial overstretch is occurring in lockstep with its declining economic dominance, undermining the very foundation of its global leadership."). As an advisor to a Barack Obama presidency, Khanna would advance a European-style bridge-building foreign policy for America, which in the past eight years has isolated itself with a "you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" braggadocio. In support of his policy, Khanna encourages an unconventional political understanding of Darwin, who wrote that "it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
The second question is more elusive because India is inexplicably absent from The Second World. The country of Khanna's birth is perhaps discounted because of the author's emphasis on order and India's precarious balancing of chaos and order. Or maybe it is because Khanna considers India to be part of the "third-world Western subsystem of the China-centered Asian order." Regardless of rationale, to leave India out of any serious discussion of influence in the new global order--while dedicating chapters to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tibet--is an egregious omission.
Khanna's ambitious effort is much inspired by Toynbee's 12-volume A Study of History. Indeed, Khanna opens his book acknowledging his indebtedness, suggesting that "no one knew the world like Arnold Toynbee ... [whose] narrative was my most insightful guide as I set out around the world." As such, it is even more surprising that Khanna has not taken heed of Toynbee's famous mid-20th century prediction that "in the 21st century India will conquer her conquerors." Reasonable people can choose to disagree with that assessment of India's importance; it is, however, unreasonable to ignore India altogether.
Like Parag Khanna, Fareed Zakaria also looks back to Arnold Toynbee while looking to the future. Those seeking a balanced understanding of our world may want to consider reading both Khanna's The Second World and Zakaria's The Post-American World, which will be reviewed in the September issue of India Currents.
From: India Currents
After a long run in the corporate world, Rajesh C. Oza now balances his life between family and friends, organizational alignment and consulting, reading and writing, India and America. He has published fiction and nonfiction and is presently writing a memoir about his childhood in India, Canada, and the United States. Raj can be reached at raj_oza@hotmail.com
A Five Star Fraud 2008-08-04
Grand explanations of how to understand the complex twenty-first-century world have all fallen short–until now. In
The Second World, the brilliant young scholar Parag Khanna takes readers on a thrilling global tour, one that shows how America’s dominant moment has been suddenly replaced by a geopolitical marketplace wherein the European Union and China compete with the United States to shape world order on their own terms.
This contest is hottest and most decisive in the Second World: pivotal regions in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and East Asia. Khanna explores the evolution of geopolitics through the recent histories of such underreported, fascinating, and complicated countries as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Libya, Vietnam, and Malaysia–nations whose resources will ultimately determine the fate of the three superpowers, but whose futures are perennially uncertain as they struggle to rise into the first world or avoid falling into the third.
Informed, witty, and armed with a traveler’s intuition for blending into diverse cultures, Khanna mixes copious research with deep reportage to remake the map of the world. He depicts second-world societies from the inside out, observing how globalization divides them into winners and losers along political, economic, and cultural lines–and shows how China, Europe, and America use their unique imperial gravities to pull the second-world countries into their orbits. Along the way, Khanna also explains how Arabism and Islamism compete for the Arab soul, reveals how Iran and Saudi Arabia play the superpowers against one another, unmasks Singapore’s inspirational role in East Asia, and psychoanalyzes the second-world leaders whose decisions are reshaping the balance of power. He captures the most elusive formula in international affairs: how to think like a country.
In the twenty-first century, globalization is the main battlefield of geopolitics, and America itself runs the risk of descending into the second world if it does not renew itself and redefine its role in the world.
Comparable in scope and boldness to Francis Fukuyama’s
The End of History and the Last Man and Samuel P. Huntington’s
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Parag Khanna’s
The Second World will be the definitive guide to world politics for years to come.
“A savvy, streetwise primer on dozens of individual countries that adds up to a coherent theory of global politics.”
–Robert D. Kaplan, author of
Eastward to Tartary and
Warrior Politics“A panoramic overview that boldly addresses the dilemmas of the world that our next president will confront.”
–Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor
"Parag Khanna's fascinating book takes us on an epic journey around the multipolar world, elegantly combining historical analysis, political theory, and eye-witness reports to shed light on the battle for primacy between the world's new empires."
–Mark Leonard, Executive Director, European Council on Foreign Relations
"Khanna, a widely recognized expert on global politics, offers an study of the 21st century's emerging "geopolitical marketplace" dominated by three "first world" superpowers, the U.S., Europe and China... The final pages of his book warn eloquently of the risks of imperial overstretch combined with declining economic dominance and deteriorating quality of life. By themselves those pages are worth the price of a book that from beginning to end inspires reflection."
–Publishers Weekly
bordering on fraudulent 
2008-07-18
Some of the various, and numerous, factual errors that riddle the book are relatively trivial, but suggest serious sloppiness and disregard for getting facts right. For example, Yugoslavia was not part of Warsaw pact, as Khanna states. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov was appointed to office in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, and not by Vladimir Putin. Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Albania are not all smaller by population than Manhattan, and the death toll from the civil wars in former Yugoslavia was not greater than half a million. Other obviously wrong assertions seem to be made up simply to provide lurid background color to Khanna's travelogue: the former KGB headquarters in Moscow has not been turned into "a high-class disco," expensive Moscow malls do not charge entrance fees, and police road checkpoints in Uzbekistan do not stop and check all vehicles. And other gross misstatements of fact display a simple complete lack of understanding the history and culture of the countries of which he writes: the (Orthodox) Uspenky cave monastery in Crimea is not representative of Ukraine's "proud Catholic heritage," Zoran Djindjic was not the first democratically elected leader since World War II in former Yugoslavia , and in the 1980s Yugoslav republics like Bosnia and Macedonia were not richer than Spain. Many of Khanna's wildly wrong claims sound like local myths that he has taken at face value. I can easily imagine some misguided elderly Belgrade resident waxing nostalgically for the days "when every one of our republics was richer than Spain!"
Yet more of Khanna's assertions are not merely factually wrong, but far exceed the ludicrous. In the fast paced and dangerous Russian business world, "one is safe only in the sauna, where everyone is naked and no weapons are allowed." It was news to me to learn from Khanna that every winter "waves" of Russians and "thousands of Ukrainians" freeze to death in "crumbling heatless apartment blocks." And he employs gross mischaracterizations of fact to buttress his claims. For example, according to Khanna, in 2006 Greek GDP increased 25% when the government started to account for prostitution and cigarette smuggling in its figures. In fact, the government said it would include all unreported economic activity, mostly in construction and trade, but including a "small" amount for illegal activities such as smuggling. And this is merely a sampling of patently ridiculous claims.
And for a "foreign policy whiz-kid," Khanna makes numerous and serious analytical mistakes, showing a clear misunderstanding of economics, international institutions, and international relations. The unhedged statement, "Russia's diplomatic position is purely residual," will surely surprise diplomats from Brussels to Tokyo. Noting that Gazprom's market capitalization is $300 billion leads Khanna to the conclusion that Gazprom is one third of the Russian economy, confusing market capitalization with GDP. And his bald assertion that "[n]one of Central Asian legal systems have evolved beyond Kakfaaesque" is belied by the numerous successful legislative accomplishments of Kazakhstan and its quite sophisticated legal code, for example.
But the worst moments of Khanna's book are when he quotes conversations that seem of such dubious authenticity as to make me believe they may be fabricated, or at best the result of very selective reporting, only relating those comments that fit within his pre-existing views. "'Our pride has suffered'" explains a "Moscow intellectual over a narrow glass of [of course] ice-chilled vodka, `but this only drives our nationalism further.'" In Kiev, the locals "give lifts to strangers for a token fare." Why? "We suffered enough together, so we still trust each other." There are just too many such (anonymous) quotations that fail to ring true to trust in the author's integrity. And he also reports statements by national leaders as if they were heard in personal conversation, yet in a curiously implied fashion that suggests otherwise.
A whirlwind geopolitical tour. 2008-07-08
The best part of the book is the conclusion where it presents to the US reader a combo of a wake up call and a call to action to challenge the misconceived American self-entitlement and eroding hegemony. Great primer on geopolitical players but not completely flawless. Obviously Khanna is enamored with the EU and China. He almost intentionally ignores India's impact but devotes sub sections on Egypt and the Balkan states? Weird, but a good read overall.
A Great Travelogue, a Disappointing Conclusion 2008-06-23
Parag Khanna's travelogue of the world is a good read for 320 or so of its 343 pages. I suggest you keep Google close by however, as Khanna's world tour touches on multiple historical events and places that it does not describe in enough detail, which is understandable in order to keep the book slim enough to draw in readers. Khanna does, helpfully, include regional maps that I found myself constantly flipping to in order to keep track of his travels.
Of the 320 pages or so I enjoyed, one downside was Khanna's overly optimistic view at times of global relations. In discussing China and Japan for example, Khanna ignores the legacy of World War II and continuing fear and dislike between those two important Pacific powers. Another example is Khanna's discussion of the European Union. The EU nations have certainly coalesced in many circumstances around a common purpose, but they do not yet speak as one. Ireland's recent vote against the EU treaty testifies to that face. I felt Khanna did this often, papering over disagreements between nations in favor of what draws them closer together. That could be a good political strategy, but it can also be a bit intellectually dishonest.
But the real downside to the book is its conclusion. After an interesting, compelling travelogue Khanna begins a twenty page rant as to why everything America does is wrong and cannot be restored. It is not constructive. The journal Democracy really nails down the problem in its review of The Second World, comparing it disfavorably to Fareed Zakaria's more constructive "The Post-American World." You can read the review here: http://www.democracyjournal.org/article.php?ID=6626
Another oddity I noticed in the book is Khanna's brief discussion of Israel. On pages 209 and 210 of the hardcover edition, he makes the sweeping statement that "Until Palestinians are granted statehood, pressure on Hamas to recognize Israel is premature and ironic precisely because Palestine is an entity, not a state, and thus is in no position to offer such legal recognition." The statement struck me as strange for a few reasons. First, don't we usually expect organizations, companies, and people to recognize nations? Do I have to be a nation myself to recognize that Ghana, to pick a random example, is a country? Second, the statement is pretty sweeping and probably deserves its own book. But that is all Khanna has to say on the subject. That brief passage stuck out to me as I was reading the book, an uncomfortable speed bump as I was cruising through a great read (again, this was before the disappointing conclusion).
If you are picking up the book, I suggest skipping the conclusion and enjoying Khanna's many insights on the multitude of nations most of us do not think much about, but are all important in their own spheres, and globally.
Tried & true maybe? 2008-05-22
I watched an interview with the author of this book on PBS with Charlie Rose. He was knowledgeable and interesting so I bought the book. Most of what he writes about is still in the proving stage, time will tell how correct he is.
