"The Absent Superpower" by Peter Zeihan. A Review

The Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without AmericaThe Absent Superpower: The Shale Revolution and a World Without America by Peter Zeihan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In "The Absent Superpower" Peter Zeihan, geopolitical strategist, speaker and author, picks up where he left off in "The Accidental Superpower." And in these 422 pages, published in January 2017, the author revs the engine to higher RPMs, slams into first gear, and screeches out onto the track. For a hardback packed with details about geology, oil production, politics, and history, it is amazingly an engaging read! My wife, who read the book, agrees!

The main focus in the book is oil production, and specifically shale. Zeihan's premise is that the shale revolution has made the U.S.A. more independent from the rest of the world. Couple that with the end of the Cold War, and the rise of isolationism (evidenced in the 2016 Presidential election), then it is highly likely the America will pull back from the larger world allowing things to go to pot. "The question no longer is whether shale will be at the heart of American energy (it already is) but what the world will look like when the United States no longer is tied to global energy markets" (93). The lion's share of the book is the author's answer to that question.

"The Absent Superpower" unfolds into three main parts. The first explains the history, how and headway of shale petroleum production in four chapters. Then Zeihan describes, through six chapters, what he sees as the coming world disorder, its three major wars, who may sink and who might survive. Finally, the author takes three chapters and a conclusion to draw out the ways America will, and will not, engage with the global system, and will not be absent in one area: Latin America. As an added bonus Zeihan has three appendices, with "Shale and the Changing Face of Climate Change" being worth the time to read and ponder, no matter where you come out on the subject.

If you enjoyed the first volume, you will find the second an essential addition. "The Absent Superpower" is just the book for anyone looking around the world and trying to make out heads and tails. Folks who work in the oil patch will also gain much from the manuscript's bigger picture, and how their work in the energy industry fits into the landscape. I highly recommend the book!

My thanks to Peter Zeihan and Peter Zeihan on Geopolitics for sending, at my request, the volume used for this review. Neither the author nor the publisher made any demands. All thoughts in this review are mine, freely arrived at and freely bestowed.

You can purchase the book here: "The Absent Superpower"

View all my reviews

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more