This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“At each stage, we pulled a bit of labor out of agriculture and into new industries that managed, leveraged, or improved the very agriculture the labor had originally come from. The steadily increasing levels of labor specialization and urbanization first gave us towns, then city-states, then kingdoms, and eventually empires. Sedentary agriculture may have given us more calories while deserts provided better security, but it took the power of rivers to put us on the road to civilization.” – Peter Zeihan, Section 1: The End of an Era, Page 19
“With cities popping up anywhere the rain fell and the wind blew, cultures found themselves in each other’s faces all the time. Wars involved players with better food supplies and increasingly capable technologies, meaning that war didn’t simply become more common, it also became more destructive. For the first time, the existence of a human population was linked to specific pieces of infrastructure. Destroy the windmills and you could starve an opposing population.” – Peter Zeihan, Section 1: The End of an Era, Page 21
“At war’s end the Americans used Bretton Woods to create the
globalized Order and fundamentally change the rules of the game. Instead of subjugating their allies and
enemies, they offered peace and protection.
They transformed regional geopolitics by putting nearly all the warring
empires of the previous age – in many cases countries that had been in a
shifting, cutthroat competition with one another for centuries – on the same
team. Inter-imperial rivalry gave way to
inter-state cooperation. Military competition
was banned among the Bretton Woods participants, enabling the former empires
(and in many cases, their former colonies) to focus their efforts not on armies
or navies or borders, but instead on infrastructure and education and
development.” – Peter Zeihan, Section 1: The End of an Era, Page 44
Is This an Overview?
Trade is fragile. Trade needs people to want to exchange products
for what others have. As people became
numerous due to advances in food production, more people were able to do
something other than produce food.
Developing industries to manage, leverage, and improve agriculture. Increasing specialization. The development of cities had people
encounter other people more often, which could provide alternative
nonperishable products but also escalated conflicts. Deepwater navigation reduced the costs to
transporting products, making trade more accessible. Alternative forms of energy to muscles,
water, or wind made people less dependent on the weather for trade. What made international trade possible was a
negotiated peace, that each state would not compete militarily with other
states.
States have become
dependent on global trade to function.
Trade has enabled specialization for which states cannot do
without. Without access to trade, the
consequences are civilization shattering.
Very few geographies have the needed resources and access to industry to
be self-sufficient.
Causes of
deglobalization are a byproduct of demographics, for most states have lower
fertility with an older population. Less
people and future workers make economic integration too costly. Trade would decline. Less trade leads to less specialization,
which reduces productivity that causes various shortages. Shortages that are part of a cascade of
social and economic breakdowns that drastically effect civilization.
Caveats?
A complex but simplified history is
presented. The simplification of
historical references leads to various misleading assumptions that effect the
analysis.
The language of the
book can make the book a more interesting, funnier read. The consequence of the language is to reduce
the quality of the analysis.
Globalization has
problems, which the author references.
There are alternative solutions that do not lead into a catastrophic
future.
