Connectography: Mapping the Global Network Revolution

by Parag Khanna

Which lines on the map matter most?

It is time to reimagine how life is organized on Earth. We're accelerating into a future shaped less by countries than by connectivity. A world in which the most connected powers, and people, will win.

In Connectography, Parag Khanna guides us through the emerging global network civilization in which mega-cities compete over connectivity and borders are increasingly irrelevant. He travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, London to Dubai and the Arctic Circle to the South China Sea - all to show how twenty-first-century conflict is a tug-of-war over pipelines and internet cables, advanced technologies and market access.

Yet Connectography offers a hopeful vision of the future. Khanna argues that new energy discoveries and innovations have eliminated the need for resource wars, global financial assets are being deployed to build productive infrastructure that can reduce inequality, and frail regions such as Africa and the Middle East are unscrambling their fraught colonial borders through ambitious new transportation corridors and power grids.

Beneath the chaos of a world that appears to be falling apart is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Science, Business, History, Technology

496 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 21, 2016

About the author

Parag Khanna is Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. He is the international bestselling author of six books, has traveled to most of the countries of the world, and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics

Reviews

[John Newbery · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve just finished reading Parag Khanna’s Connectography. It’s comfortably the most disappointing book I’ve read for a long time. As a committed open borders and free trade kind of guy, I was expecting to lap this up. Parag’s main theme is that humanity is becoming more connected and that the supply chain will overtake the nation state as the main organizing mode of society. I agree with him up to a point and I was hoping for some insights and analysis into what that actually means, but sadly the book is deeply flawed on many levels and doesn’t offer anything original on the subject.

Probably the most infuriating of those flaws is Parag’s clumsy and strained metaphors. Here’s an example from late in the book “Supply chains literally embody how we (indirectly) feel each other”. Notice the unliteral literal modifier, the embodying/feeling double act, the parenthasized indirectly and italicized feel. There’s a lot going on in that sentence, and I’m not sure if any of it actually means anything. Even more irritating is Parag’s overarching metaphor of tug-of-war for supply chain competition which he uses throughout the book. Here he is introducing the metaphor in Chapter 6:

Tug-of-war is where geopolitics and geoeconomics come together. War among states is declining while war over supply chains is rising. Tug-of-war, however is fought not over territory but over flows—of money, goods, resources, technology, knowledge, and talent. These flows are like the rope in tug-of-war: We compete over them, yet they connect us. The global tug-of-war is about pulling the world’s supply chains towards oneself, to be the largest producer of resources and goods and gain the maximum share of value from transactions.

In case it’s not obvious, tug-of-war is a horrible analogy for competition in a connected supply chain world. Let’s count the reasons why:

1. Tug-of-war is a zero-sum game. For every meter that one team gains, the other team loses a meter. If one team is victorious, the other team has lost. Trade is not zero-sum. For trade to happen there need to be gains on both sides. Every time a trade is executed, economic surplus is created. Sure, there can be losers, for example if my competitor undercuts me and I lose a sale, but that sale has still brought economic benefit to the buyer and seller. Any comparison of trade to a ‘war’ or a ‘sport’ is misleading and dangerous.

2. Tug-of-war has two teams. Connectivity and trade in the 21st century have ~7 billion participants. Each of those participants has her own motives, preferences and aims, and each one in their own way is attempting to improve their circumstances. Trying to expain the latter by way of the former is not at all illuminating.

3. Teams in tug-of-war have almost entirely aligned incentives and motivations. Humans within countries, communities or companies don’t.

Analogies exist to bring clarity to a new concept by comparing it with something with which we’re already familiar. Parag’s ‘tug-of-war’ brings no illumination or clarification to the concept of a hyper-connected world.

Parag’s shortcomings as an author don’t stop at the use of the inappropriate analogy. Sometimes the writing is fist-clenchingly awful, especially towards the end of the book, where it feels like the editor must have dozed off. For example: “Internet data can be replicated infinitely and exist in multiple places at the same time. Additionally it can be rerouted or smuggled “in” to its destination, while the receiver has the ability to come “out” as well to access it.“ What does it mean for the receiver to come “out” as well to access it.“? Who knows? I don’t, and I’ve worked in telecoms and networking for many years. Here’s another: “Connectivity brings individuals the choice to belong to other places than those they do or to have loyalty to multiple places at the same time.” To belong to other places than those they do? Those they do what? Again, who knows?

Along with the sloppy writing, there are places where Parag is just wrong, or clearly doesn’t really know what he’s talking about and is just throwing buzzwords around. For example, chapter 14 covers technology and the internet and is strewn with inaccuracies and errors:

- “Google began as a web browser but has become a global data utility.” Not true – Google began as a search engine and became an advertising channel.
- “Data centres have now become lucrative real estate. The physical footprint of digital empires has certainly jacked up the cost of living in San Francisco.” Wrong again. An influx of affluent young workers, a limited supply of new land, and a very regulated housing market have jacked up the cost of living in San Francisco, not a bunch of servers. Server farms are more likely to be located in regions with cheap land, labour and energy.
- “Bitcoin began as a niche cryptocurrency, but people increasingly live off it in the “real” world; if it acquires a banking license to issue credit, it could outmanoeuvre banks in reaching the bottom billions.“ Bitcoin is a decentralized network. There is no “it” to acquire a banking license. ‘Bitcoin’ acquiring a license is a bit like someone suing the ‘Internet’. There’s no there there.
- “ISPs, the current backbone of the internet, prefer self-management and self-regulation to heavy state involvement” is a wildly over-reaching statement. The biggest ISPs in most countries are incumbents and state entities. Who likes regulation? Incumbents and state entities.
- “China also demanded that software sales within the country include backdoor access to source codes.” It’s almost as if Parag has heard the words “back door” and “source code” and tried to make a sentence out of them. It comes very close to making sense, but not quite.
- “Subjected to restrictions on online speech and data security violations, citizens mobilize not just on the internet but for their right of unfettered access to it, shifting their data to new Google, Amazon, or other services safeguarded from government intrusion just as Chinese and Russian citizens move their cash abroad. (Amazon revenues from Web services now equal those from e-commerce). Alongside the Web and the Deep Web, there will also be a “Safe Web”. The cloud may indeed prove to be safer than the ground.“ – again, Parag is confusing different concepts here. What does the fact that Amazon Web Services is the largest part of Amazon have to do with online data security? Who knows? Parag certainly doesn’t seem to.

And that gets to the nub of the the problem. Parag throws around big words and name drops important thinkers without really explaining what that has to do with his argument. For example, in chapter 14, Parag talks about how the internet is everywhere and declares that “In the quest to compute more data faster than ever, scientists are applying the principles of quantum entanglement and superpositioning to multiply the capacity of photons to transmit data.” Yes, it’s true that scientists and engineers are working on quantum computers, but what does that mean for the thesis? I don’t know, and the feeling I get is that Parag doesn’t either, but wants to use impressive sounding words. Even more infuriating is the academic name-dropping. Here’s a typical example: “Economists such as Ronald Coase sought to determine the optimal size of firms to reduce transaction costs in carrying out certain functions efficiently. Today’s network structures that leverage growing frictionless connectivity shatter previous assumptions by expanding in scale without commensurate growth in size.” It’s true that Coase wrote a very influential paper about the nature of the firm in 1937 that tries to explain why firms exist and how large they grow in terms of their marginal external (transaction) costs and internal (organizational) costs. How Coase’s theory of the firm applies to today’s connected world with its rapidly tumbling transaction costs is a fascinating topic, but not one Parag wants to explore. He’s happy to drop the name into a paragraph, demonstrate his learnedness and move on. It’s the same for the hundreds of other quotes in the book. No context, explanation or discussion of what the person in question thought, just an opportunity for Parag to demonstrate that he’s read books and listened to TED talks.

Another serious problem with the book is the naiveté of its argument, and its vast simplifications. Parag treats countries as if they are individual entities, and assumes that the government of the country is always acting in the best interests of its citizens. We know that’s not the case for many, if not all, governments.

And then there are the statements that stand out as just plain wrong. Here’s one: “In the early years of the twenty first century, antiglobalization activists descended by the thousands on international summits …. Today we know they were wrong, and so do they. That’s why the protests stopped.” The protests haven’t stopped, and in fact the United Kingdom’s elites have recently been caught off guard by the people protesting against movement of people and free trade in the most devastating way. 52% of the voting population elected to drop the UK out of the world’s largest trading bloc, in part because of fears of globalization and control of borders. In the United States, there’s a very real chance that the next president will be someone who promises to build a wall along the Mexican border and halt trade with China. Across Europe, extreme parties who vow to close borders and role back globalization are growing in popularity.

That’s the problem with Khanna’s thesis. He presents the march of history as inevitable, and the arguments as won. He explains “The global division of labor thus makes everyone better off, by creating jobs in poor countries, reducing prices in rich ones, and expanding choice for all.” which is clearly not true. Trade surely makes many people better off, but as David Autor has pointed out in his paper The China Syndrome, economists have consistently underestimated the costs on local economies when they open up to increased globalization. The labour economy is not as flexible as we’d like to imagine, and the costs of losing low-skilled jobs is therefore much higher than we’d hope. The march towards freedom of movement and freedom of trade is not inevitable, and the progress we’ve made so far could easily be reversed by a rising wave of nativism and populism. Khanna choses to ignore this.

Overall, a very disappointing book.

[Dominic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parag Khanna reminds me of a younger Thomas Friedman. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Friedman was the most visible and prolific apostle of globalization (most notably in "The Lexus and the Olive Tree"). Khanna is now taking on that mantle.

The biggest difference between Friedman and Khanna is that the latter focuses much more on connections. As the title of this book suggests, Khanna's "Connectography" explores how people around the world interact with each other. He points out that mapping out connections between places can tell us much more about them than a traditional map with political boundaries. For example, the lives of city dwellers in New York, London, and Tokyo have more in common with each other than those of a New Yorker and someone from rural Oklahoma.

The key to this connectography is infrastructure. Khanna argues that infrastructure investments facilitate connections by reducing the cost of travel, trade, and communications. The book provides an impressively detailed overview of the various types of infrastructure that have made our world more connected, from oil pipelines to fiber optic cables.

The most connected units of civilization are cities. Khanna is a big proponent of urbanization, noting that the density of urban areas and their developed infrastructure facilitates connectivity. Indeed, urban areas account for the overwhelming share of global GDP, human capital, and culture.

Khanna goes so far as to recommend that governments learn to govern based on connectography rather than political boundaries. This idea isn't quite so ridiculous as it sounds. It doesn't mean the Westphalian state is dead. As he notes, many governments have already established special economic zones that effectively cede some state authority to private corporations in return for increased investment. Moreover, policy solutions that work well for urban areas might not work well for rural ones (and vice versa).

Another important difference from Friedman is that Khanna does not write for a predominately American audience (although Khanna is an American citizen). Whereas Friedman seemed to focus on what globalization meant for Americans and U.S. policymakers, Khanna's book isn't so constrained. This is both an asset and a limitation of the book. Khanna explores many trends and developments overseas that most Americans probably didn't realize were occurring. The book is sure to open some eyes.

The focus on infrastructure is especially important because it's not something most Americans consider. The trend during the past 20 years at least has been to focus on governance and development. Governance matters, but as Khanna points out connectivity can supplement or even supplant weak governance (through SEZs, etc).

On the other hand, it's not clear Khanna "gets" America or U.S. politics. He frequently compares the Chinese government's willingness to build infrastructure and engage in economic diplomacy with the lack thereof from the United States. Khanna's explanation for what he considers China's success and America's failure tend to boil down "China smart, America dumb." That seems too simplistic an answer. Indeed, the 2016 election so far has shown that there is something more fundamental going on with regards to American attitudes towards globalization.

Another concern I had with the book is that, like Friedman, Khanna seems to revel in hyperbole. Rather than simply noting an interesting and important trend, Khanna has to treat it like THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT IN HUMAN HISTORY!!! In point of fact, "connectography" is nothing new, even if the term is. The Roman Empire was based around the rim of the Mediterranean Sea precisely because ocean travel facilitated trade. I remember coming across maps (I believe from Jared Diamond) that attempted to show how humans in urban coastal areas were more connected than others. The scale of human connectivity and infrastructure is unprecedented, but more in scale than kind.

There's also a tendency to exaggerate problems in America and the progress overseas. I've traveled widely around the world, particularly in Asia. In many parts of developing Asia, infrastructure is in horrible states of disrepair. Wi-fi in most hotels is so slow that I would do chores while waiting for web pages to load. Khanna spends quite a bit of time talking about Singapore and southeast China, but those are and have for years been exceptions. Khanna is absolutely right to point that the developing world is becoming more connected, but the book overstates its point.

Overall, like Tom Friedman's earlier books, this is one of those rare books that really has the potential to reshape how you see the world. If you can tolerate some of the hyperbole, it's definitely worth a read. I also recommend checking out Parag Khanna's recent TED Talk on the subject:

https://www.ted.com/talks/parag_khann...

[NOTE: I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

[Steve · Rating 1 out of 5]

The unfulfilled promise of this book ultimately led me to rate it so poorly. I love the concept, the idea of exploring connections between myriad people and places and integrating them with actual maps - a natural fit for exploring connected/geographic data - all to provide some insight to how the future might unfold. Unfortunately, the execution of this idea fell far short of where I thought it could have gone.

I wanted to give up on this book, but I gutted it out solely because there were a lot of interesting tidbits throughout. I feel like I learned a lot about worldwide issues, economics, and strategies but more through a torrent of trivia than a unified essay. Because of the sheer quantity of facts (or perhaps opinions masquerading as facts) I almost wanted to give this another star, but I just expected more from this book and the author.

In an effort to spend little more time on this book, I will just give a brief outline of my dislikes from this book. In summary, there were three main problems with this book: 1. lack of clear, convincing arguments, 2. poor use/integration of the inset maps, and 3. the feeling that this was a derivative work.

There were many discussions about expanding globalization into an increasingly connected world, hence connectography. The reasons and ramifications of this connected world are explored from various angles like resource management, technology, and trade zones, but there is little attempt at fitting a cohesive narrative to bring it all together (except, I guess, that everything is connected). When drilling into any particular exploration, Parag Khanna presents long chains of anecdotal evidence and various hypotheses generated from very loose facts and does nothing to defend his positions from alternative explanations. While I do not doubt Khanna's scholarship and detailed knowledge of many of the areas of this book, I simply do not believe a reasonable effort was made to convince curious readers.

The maps were a massive disappointment. Many of them were densely packed with information, but it was sometimes hard to tease out what the main lessons of each map. Visual analytics is a difficult area to master, and so I don't really ding the author for any shortcomings there. What I do hold the author/editor responsible for is integrating the maps into the book. They just sort of hang out in space out away from the main text - their only direct connection was a fleeting reference in the beginning of each chapter. The reader is basically left to consult the maps as they see fit, but given the extra draw and expense of including them, their inclusion just seems like a gimmick to get people who like maps to buy the book.

Parag Khanna has authored a few books on very similar subjects prior to Connectography. I don't go into a book thinking that an author will completely change their direction between books, but I do expect a new thesis to be developed (in a non-fiction book). In this case, given the loose construction of topics and seemingly arbitrary - though non-stop - factoids, I developed the feeling that this book was constructed of the leftovers from the others. I started feeling that way about 15 pages in, and I was unable to shake the feeling throughout the rest of the book.

Despite the one star review, please don't think this is the worst book I have ever read. The writing was generally clear, if a bit verbose, and it was educational, especially for readers with a less than expert grasp on geopolitics, but I believe it is but a shadow of idea this could have been. I think Parag Khanna has and can do much better, but I'm not sure I'll revisit the author any time soon.

[Rob Woodbridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It is dense but the macro concepts are so important. In a nutshell: Man-made borders are not as important as man-made supply chains. Nation building within man-made borders is not as important as group affinity - think along the lines of "I'm a Google'r" vs "I'm Canadian". Overall a really great read to understand how connectivity is the juice for the next generation.

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an optimistic take on globalization, which argues that infrastructure investment and connectivity is the key to unlocking the full potential of societies. As Khanna argues (fairly persuasively, in my own opinion), globalization is generally a positive, but its benefits have not yet been extended to everyone. Physically connecting people, resources and telecommunications allows the possibility of opportunity and dignity to be extended broadly. Isolation, whether individually or within political borders, on the other hand stifles people and prevents

I first picked up the book after reading a few of his essays on the enduring importance of cities to human societies. Cities have been around since the dawn of civilization and endure today, while nation-states are a recent and perhaps transitory phenomenon. Khanna envisions a world divided into UAE-like city-states, which he sees an optimal size for both management and competitiveness. The absence of imperial leviathans would also make major wars less likely and incentive cooperation and trade among city-states to help integrate their own economies across borders. Its also a lot easier to identify with a diverse megacity than a giant, incomprehensible and contradictory "nation". Cities are human scale, and I've noticed how enthusiastically people have responded to this argument from him. In this light, city-alliances and networks are really interesting as an organic, sub-state level form of diplomacy and international organization.

Back in the day, maps used to be something more like guidelines to the imagination. For instance they'd contain things like mermaids and dragons and would offer only the vaguest suggestion of directions or territorial outlines. Maps have changed since then, but our normal one is a jigsaw puzzle of modern political boundaries. This map too has become completely antiquated however. As Khanna argues, really beautifully in my opinion, maps should rather be functional rather than political and should show where natural resources, megacities, high-speed transit, pipelines and other things that make human civilization possible are. By doing so we can have a proper image of our species as urbanizing and coastal-based, and can see where the things we actually need to live are located on the planet. Political maps with the old borders are hopelessly quaint at this point and don't tell us much, especially if (as trends suggest) we're trying to build a global society rather than ossify into our existing divisions.

This book is packed with interesting facts and anecdotes. Its clearly one of those books where the author loaded every interesting thing they'd read or heard in the past few years into the text. Some of the best stuff was his observation that thanks to the internet decentralized "networks" are now warring against nations the way nations once warred against empires, the idea of global passports linked to biometric data instead of citizenship (the fact that I found it interesting is not an endorsement by the way), and the impact of SEZ's on developing countries. There are also just incredible statistics, such as the the fact that Silk Road China-to-Europe rail transit has exploded from 2,500 containers in 2012 to an estimated 7.5M by the end of the decade(!!) and that in 30 out of 50 states in the United States the most prominent job is truck driving (what will that mean when automation comes?)

This is definitely a "Rise of Asia" book, although he predicts a meaningful role for the United States in the coming century, particularly if it invests in infrastructure and human capital. He clearly is a fan of the Singapore model and some of the stuff he likes will be anathema to Western democrats, as he doesn't seem to care as much about "democracy" as prosperity and dignity. I find the idea of a world where citizenship is devalued in favor of corporate and supply-chain dynamics to be troubling, but I am also a privileged person who lives in a relatively responsive state. I've seen for myself how many people around the world are willing to trade their useless governments for corporations that at least offer the prospect of a livelihood, and oftentimes even healthcare, security and other benefits.

I could go on and on, its a really interesting book. I almost didn't read it because of a scathing New York Times review by another author, but in retrospect that take was petulant and unwarranted. As someone who absolutely despises books that are full of self-important business jargon, I can confidently say that this one is not. It can be somewhat dense at times, but at those moments you can see that its just because he's trying to tell you a lot. This is an optimistic book and useful read for anyone. Its full of great historical facts and contemporary statistics, but is most useful for offering a largely coherent vision of a world of cities rather than states, connected infrastructure and functional maps. Anyone who says something new or bold should expect to take some slings, but in my humble opinion this is a great book that offers a plausible outline for a hopeful future.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Connectography aims to explain how supply chains are more important than borders, and how the world is rapidly moving into an era of interconnectedness that we haven't seen before. As well as making it very clear that all societies will have to conform and adapt to globalization, it brings arguments for why globalization is actually a good thing, rather than a bad one. A very interesting read for anyone interested in how our world might look in 50 to 100 years.

[Tristan · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the whole I enjoyed this book with a few major caveats. The overarching message is simply that connectivity is paramount when it comes to increasing wealth and quality of life. In a connected world people are more mobile with more options for employment, and are thus better able to improve their well-being. At the same time, when supply chains are globalized, there is more redundancy built into the system which provides more overall stability. Khanna makes the argument that supply chains, infrastructure, and digital connectivity are ultimately more important than national borders and promoting the development of these will provide more long term benefit to individuals and global stability than doubling down on border controls and isolationist policies. A connected world results in more cooperation and interdependence between nations, corporations, and individuals, leading to more stability by replacing war with a supply chain “tug-of-war”. His argument for infrastructure focused investment in poorer countries as a path out of poverty and towards stability, by increasing their connectivity and role in the global supply chain, was especially convincing.

Despite agreeing with the book's primary message, there are two areas where the book falls flat. Firstly, I cannot agree with Khanna’s overtly pro-capitalism stance as a way towards his world vision. For example, he argues for standard neoliberal strategies such as slashing corporate taxes to benefit society as a whole, and presents removing regulations to encourage free trade as having no downsides. He also tries to present inequality as not necessarily being bad, even going so far as to say there is both good and bad inequality, which just sounds more like he is trying to justify the west's privilege and exploitation of underdeveloped nations. Connectivity doesn't imply neoliberalism, and in fact, as Paul Mason argues in Postcapitalism: A Guide to Our Future, increased connectivity may actually be its downfall.

The second major aspect of the book which was incredibly irksome was that Khanna presents climate change as a threat which can mostly be ignored, despite explicitly detailing what the consequences of ignoring it will be. This led to some cognitive dissonance in reading parts of his book: in one paragraph he will be talking about how coastal cities will be under water by the year 2100 and there will be massive desertification in equatorial regions, and in the next paragraph he’ll be promoting fracking and the construction of more pipelines to service an ever increasing demand for oil. As Naomi Klein explains in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate, we cannot continue to extract and burn the world's remaining oil and gas reserves without catastrophic consequences, and given that Khanna seems to at least somewhat understand this, some of his writing was rather self-conflicting.

Despite these shortcomings, the book offers a convincing vision of a globally connected world, albeit one which cannot be achieved exactly as outlined. Rather than continuing to build pipelines and refineries as means to enhance connectivity and for poorer nations to move up the value chain, investment into renewable energy and a more extensive electricity grid would provide the same (or greater) benefit without the adverse environmental impacts. Infrastructure can, and should, be built without the exploitation and inequality that Khanna presents as unavoidable. In the end I would recommend this book, for the globally connected and borderless world presented is an enticing prospect, even though I cannot agree with some of his suggestions for how to get there.

[Denis Vasilev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Границы значат все меньше, мир дробится в одних аспектах, чтобы сливаться в других

[Dina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Author is overly excited about globalization, overestimating and exaggerating its benefits without representing a balanced assessment. The book does assume rightly however that corporations and businesses matter more than governments, but it is not really presented in a critical way but a champion for capitalism and a form of modernization without a soul.

Interestingly, the author seems in favor of China's model over that of the US, which I can appreciate for a change, nice to see a different point of view. He also provide interesting facts that are not well know, after all, his point can be summarized in one paragraph but you've just purchased a 400 page book. His argument was repetitive filled with bold and dramatic statements that I found rather annoying.

These highly reviewed non-fiction books are often a disappointment. Few original thinkers have the means to get published and get the kind of coverage and funding these types of book and well connected authors receive.

[Martinocorre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Un vero e proprio manifesto Pro-Globalizzazione, uscito però nel 2016 cioè pre-Brexit e soprattutto pre-Trump. Che dire, l'autore si è infilato gli occhiali rosa Globalize e vede solo cose meravigliose e mirabolanti grazie ad un mondo iper-connesso, senza più confini, senza la necessità degli Stati, con le multinazionali improvvisamente buone perchè così vuole un mercato connesso.
Un po' tutto troppo facile, no?
E' comunque anche un buon libro di geografia economico-politica. Due stelle e mezzo a mio modestissimo parere. Da leggere se volete sentire la campana del punto di vista di chi è per il "liberi tutti".

Aggiornamento del mio commento, Agosto 2023:
dopo gli hard-lockdown attuati dalla Cina per il Covid, l’invasione russa dell’Ucraina ed il reshoring americano, questo è uno dei libri invecchiati peggio, scritti negli ultimi dieci anni.

[Paco Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult not to be seduced by the shiny maps in this book. The author argues for a "Pax Urbanica" where interconnections among coastal megacities have more impact than nation-state trade policies, etc. The gist of his argument is that trans-border infrastructure is a true measure of wealth; in which case, SF seems quite truly genuinely fucked. As it is. Moreover, that supply chains define the real politics, not national policies and laws which get readily circumvented, e.g., via SEZs which have spread worldwide. To wit: "Infrastructure, markets, technologies, and supply chains are not only logistically uniting the world, but propelling us toward a more fair and sustainable future." Perhaps that simple insight earns the loftiness of the subtitle.

The analysis of geography and history is thought-provoking, albeit some flawed historical citations. Clearly he loves major cities. Plus, there's a bunch of "US bad, China good" on the surface. Quite a bunch. Dig deeper, it's worthwhile.

The author obviously didn't get the memo about effective use of rhetorical oscillation. Most chapters get constructed by building on a sweeping generalization, followed by a "pro" line of arguments, followed by a "con" line of arguments that undermines all of the above. Awkwardly. I recognize the "OTOH" trope, but he's basically arguing all sides and not particularly convincing about any.

The author pulls from so many diverse sources and disciplines, which on the surface is intriguing, though in practice perhaps becomes a bridge too far. For the few areas where I have some expertise and direct knowledge, those generalizations were terrible, some outright embarrassing. For example, I dare any SF Bay Area resident to read the passage about resolving SF housing prices – and not want to throw the book in disgust. That makes me wonder about the other areas where I have no real baseline from which to draw judgement.

Overall, I'd say that the futurism therein ranges on a spectrum from rampant over-generalization to fetish fan fiction on behalf of urban corporatist utopias. Quite the tedious globalist love fest, seemingly a transnational corporatist love fest, at heart – though the author offers key criticisms about corporatist values vs. effective capitalism, in keen support of the latter.

At least one brief chapter discusses environmental concerns, though it reads like an afterthought. Most of the other chapters seem relatively dismissive of genuine concerns about the environment vs. resource extraction. For example, he rejects the notion of "Peak Oil" given that fracking works so amazingly well. The word "douche" comes to mind, not to mention the risks any alleged futurist faces by stretching so far to be perceived as global without a grasp of the nuances of the reality faced by those of us dwelling amidst the regolith.

The final chapter and conclusion chapter gain momentum and start to get interesting, if one can stomach the references to Kissinger. I prefer my war criminals a bit more crispy-fried than that. Basically, then end of the book becomes a near-religious tract about the virtues of global supply-chain infrastructure.

One part that I found fascinating was a comparison of equity. Notably: Instividuals, $46T; Pension Funds, $40T; Insurance Funds, $30T; Central Bank Reserves, $8T; Private Equity, $2T; Hedge Funds, $2T; but then the other "diversified" entities break these categories, e.g., Black Rock invests $4.5T wherever/however seems best for their interests.

Hedge Funds and Private Equity rank fairly low on that list. The "instividuals" category refers to family office, i.e., quite wealthy families that invest as if they were institutions. Aka, the proverbial 1%. I'd encountered this distribution at a breakfast led by Monsanto's strategic fund in Silicon Valley, the one out-flanking VCs for tech companies that could serve Monsanto's needs. Most of the audience was either fund managers for "instividuals" or other strategic funds, with only a handful of VCs represented. Not quite as seen on television.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was something kind of refreshing about reading this book. Parag Khanna's discussion of how economic and technological forces drive globalization reminded me a little of the more hopeful and inevitable view of globalization from the 1990s.

It would not be correct to think of this as a geopolitics book. If anything it aims to be something of a corrective to the resurgence of classical national rivalry geopolitics that seems to have reasserted itself since the 2000s. Connectography is the word used to broadly describe the technological and economic forces that are connecting the world and changing it in the process. The book surveys regions of the world where Connectography is having an impact, though Asia seems to figure most prominently and the United States somewhat less so. Some of the observations were things that you'd already know if you follow the news closely. The discussion of special economic zones and supply chain geography were new to me and I found them very interesting.

The book is mostly observational and not argumentative but to the extent it does offer an argument, I would say he's urging a move away from traditional geopolitics focused on national control of territory and sovereignty and towards a more inclusive, sustainable, and global concept of citizenship and geography. He makes a good case, though I don't think people who read this will need to be sold. I think I did not quite connect with Khanna's view of globalization being driven primarily by economic and technological forces. I think economics and technology are very significant, but the role of established national and cultural institutions also shape globalization (or destroy it). Khanna makes the point that more connected globalized urban centers are perhaps better functioning than many nations (political devloution is a big theme in the book). Sure. But nations- which have police, armies, currencies, intelligence, and the authority to negotiate with other nations- are still where power is concentrated and that doesn't seem likely to change even if it evolves. There doesn't seem to be much precedent out there for the peaceful devolution of power from national to sub-national components that Khanna persuasively argues would govern better. Therefore, to understand how connectedness will shape our world, we can't just ignore politics and wait for technology and market economics to bring the future.

Overall, I thought this book was really good, but I think globalization, or "connectography" is something that will be negotiated at the national level, with politics, tradition, and other established institutions playing a big role. The confrontation between the transnational forces and the established forces might be a big part of what globalization is. So if we are going to talk about globalization, we have to understand how that confrontation works.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are in an ever-connected world, connected by networks of different kinds, of which the Internet is just one small part. National boundaries, important as they may be, can have less power and impact. Alliances are being formed by networks and these play an ever-increasing role in everything. Alliances will fight against other alliances, economic, political and maybe even physical fights or wars too.

This was a fascinating, thought-provoking and incisive book that gets you thinking. The author takes the reader on a worldwide tour, looking at how connectivity is making the world smaller, closer and yet more polarised in part. The author believes that there is hope, with connectivity potentially eliminating the need for resource wars and inequality can be reduced. It is by no way clear that this utopia will be reached, yet there is no harm in hoping. Maybe the one-time nationalistic battles for resources and wealth will be replaced by alliances instead.

The author is optimistic, noting that beneath the chaos of a world that appears to be falling apart, there is a new foundation of connectivity pulling it together. Time will tell. In any case, this is not some naïve, blue-sky thinking type of book written. Even if you don’t or can’t agree with the author’s grand vision, it does not mean that the rest of the book should be ignored or denigrated. Far from it. So far China is winning the race to connect up the world, developing a host of infrastructure projects to link its industries to the world, notes the author. The United States is on the back-foot. The European Union is fragmented and barely pulling together.

The whole world is changing but what type of change is happening, is it good and who will benefit from it?

This is a book you will read several times, with each read giving a bit more knowledge and having different impact on different elements. It is a whirlwind adventure covering many disciplines in a relatively compact volume. Take away the geopolitical forecasting and futurology and you still have a great political, geographic and societal compendium of knowledge to enjoy. This book gives a lot to many audiences.

A highly recommendable, possibly essential read for the curious or concerned reader.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Connectivity is the most revolutionary force of the twenty-first century. Infrastructure in roads, cell phones, internet and other forms of connection are the key to pushing nations up the supply chain and into prosperity. Physical maps show borders, but we also need to redraw them to reflect the flow of currency, products and people.

Why I started this book: Professional Reading title with an audio edition... I'm working my way thru the list.

Why I finished it: Khanna is verbose and this book was dense. And it was a difficult book to rate, I enjoyed listening to it but I think that many of Khanna's ideas were contradictory, optimistic and a few are flat wrong. At times he was arguing that it was only governments that could protect consumers, then it was the international corporations, and then it was the consumers themselves that had to hold the other two accountable. Plus the argument that trading partners don't go to war, was the same argument that pacifists used before WWI... I think that we can all agree that WWI was a long and protracted war between the two trading partners Germany and England.
Khanna favored the metaphor of a tug-of-war... but I think that a spiderweb would have been better. Not every thread or connection is strong enough on its own... but together it's strength can hold the future that we want to build. And if something does tear thru; natural disasters, wars or plagues, the remaining strands can hold enough to work around and rebuild the broken parts.

[Stephen Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a timely book. Khanna illustrates the incredible value realized when cities (quite often moreso than nations!) integrate with each other in multiple complementary pathways creating webs of economic interdependence. I do not know that I've read such a glorification of supply chains and their positive effects upon peace & prosperity before, but now that I have done so it is easy to see how all of these interdependencies that bind the world together are forces for good (largely, mostly). Those politicians who may advocate for isolationism, or somehow making their nations "great again" by bullying other polities would do well to hush and sit down, it seems.
The consistent downer in this book is the section upon the seemingly inevitable human-caused changes to our planet's climate & sea levels. The idea that vast areas of Canada & Siberia would suddenly become desirable areas for human habitation while entire swaths of nations on & near the equator become uninhabitable is incredibly frightening. I do not have faith in political leaders doing anything about climate change, sadly.
A solid book. I highly recommend it. I received an advance reading copy from the publisher in exchange for writing this review. All hail interdependencies!

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think there is much to this book that explains our world today and where we're headed in the future.

He makes a compelling case that from leading politicians to corporations, supply chain influence is everywhere and I think he's right. From China's meteoric rise to the country's development strategy to access resources in Africa, the economics of supply chains are at the center. As he shows in the text, supply chains have also contributed to the growing influence of cities and mayors, while the power of central governments wains in perspective.

It doesn't get everything right. Khanna's notion that war will be irrelevant as states increasingly fear disruptions to their supply chains sounds similar to the pre-WW1 calls that there will never be war because a system of alliances. Or the interwar period following the "War to end all wars." His claims that national identity will go away are also a little too bold and a little too futuristic.

However, looking past these peripheral predictions and accepting his ego (he makes sure to mention of how extensively he has traveled--from North Korea & Afghanistan to Singapore & Berlin), Parag Khanna gets a lot of this book right. Recommend for anyone who's interested in foreign policy or economics!

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's premise is as follows: Let'd do away with the border lines of the 19th and 20th century and look at what really connects and divides people around the globe: conduits of trade, transportation, and human movement, money, and services. These tendrils of connection are growing wider and more complicated and make the actions of people in one region influential to others in sometimes inexplicable ways. I didn't understand all of it, but it sounded pretty interesting. Also, the maps are pretty cool.

[Joshua Bowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

REALLY helped me challenge many long-standing assumptions about the future of humans, politics, and boundaries. Definitely opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities in the realms of courses of action that I didn’t even think realistic (the actual degradation and possible eradication of political-boundary maps for example). Fascinating. Helped better shape thoughts on possible futures.

[Lauren Hiebner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great update to Friedman's The World is Flat. China is the future for controlling the supply chain. Best to work with them. Best to build connections not walls.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best written books I have ever read

[Chuck Kollars · Rating 4 out of 5]

My own three biggest themes of this book (probably not what the author intended): First, this is a great gateway to a world of unusual-looking and very data-rich maps, the sorts of (sometimes interactive) maps that could be used to decide policy (!), the sorts of maps that make typical "road" and "political" maps seem to be from another world altogether. Second, much of our current economic activity is based on "digging things out of the ground" (perhaps more politely called "resource extraction"): oil, gas, water, coal, metals, rare earths, etc. And third, there's a whole lot of detailed (but unorganized) current "travelog-style" information, from all over but particularly about Asia and the Middle East, most particularly about China, Mongolia, the Malacca Strait, India, and Dubai.

The points the text of the book actually try to make: Globalization has been active much longer and has proceeded much much farther than most folks realize, so much so that nation-states are already becoming irrelevant. Current economic activity is really organized around "supply chains", many of which are anchored in "special economic zones" (SEZs). As nation-states become less important, city-states are becoming _more_ important since a single city is often associated with a single supply chain or a single SEZ. (besides, "By 2030, more than 70 percent of the world's people will live in cities, with most of them located within fifty miles of the sea.") The world has become so interconnected that all-or-nothing conflicts have become unthinkable as they would almost certainly lead to national suicide. We're well on our way (and it's a good thing) to "one globe-wide civilization", one where the whole world should make conscious decisions about things like where to relocate refugees, how to distribute water, and where and how much of the surface of the globe can be relegated to "sacrifice zones". (Of course all this places great emphasis on geography: "America abandoned teaching geography after WWII and hasn't won a war since.")

The author also inadvertently delivers a couple big warnings: First, the way the world currently "really" works is so different from most U.S. citizens' understanding that at best it sounds like a tall tale, and at worst we're so woefully unprepared that we're unable to make good policy decisions. Second, the U.S. is far far behind much of the rest of the world on infrastructure. We haven't had a nation-wide infrastructure project since the Interstate Highway System more than half a century ago. A significant part of our infrastructure is crumbling. And the scale of current projects in other parts of the world dwarf even many of our biggest historical projects (ex: the Panama Canal). The U.S. is so far ahead it won't matter too much anyway for the next couple generations, but eventually -if we continue with our current policy- we'll fall.

The author is obviously a big winner at the current globalization game, and is obviously young and very energetic. Reading all the things he's already done and places he's been, and all the dropped comments about his having a meaningful conversation with so-and-so, quickly becomes breathtaking. In fact, I can't help wondering if he ever sleeps.

There's a bothersome "gee whiz" attitude about the book though. It's simply assumed without question that the "global" civilization will be "western" civilization. It's simply assumed without question that "money" will be the universal metric and driver. It's simply assumed without question that trade always benefits everybody. And it's simply assumed without question global civilization will automatically converge on some sort of reasonable and sustainable "steady state". Everything is described in such a positive light, accompanied by so many reasons why flows of both goods and money should be even less restricted than they currently are, the author comes off sounding a bit like a cheerleader for the Britain of 1900. To the author's credit, big problems (rampant inequality, further strengthening of class separations such that virtually none of the globalization construction workers will ever be able to live in the places they build, ecologic damage on a huge scale, growing urban areas that are already well beyond any possibility of governing or planning or organizing [ex: Lagos], the majority of new jobs related to globalization being in the single field of construction, current dramatically unreasonable distribution of population, etc. etc.) are covered frankly and thoroughly. (Not covered though is the problem of change occurring on a far faster time scale than human psychology over a lifespan can tolerate.) What bothers me though is problems are always discussed as if they are each completely separate from all the others; the possibility they might just be the varied symptoms of a single underlying systemic problem (or be otherwise inter-related) is never even considered.

This book has a very large footprint. It at first seems otherwise, as the style is easy to read and there are only about 400 pages of text. But when you finish it and look back on all the things that were covered, it feels like you've just finished all the readings for a multi-semester multi-disciplinary college course on history and sociology and economy. The book is carefully organized by "themes", each re-approaching the subject from a different perspective. This organization makes what might otherwise be just a bewildering mass of new concepts seem approachable. The ideas in this book will seem "new" (or even "revolutionary") to many readers. There's actually in fact little or nothing completely new here, but simply organizing and writing down the very latest makes the concepts _seem_ new.

The author presents a lot of little-known historical tidbits that never made much sense in other contexts, such as: "When, in 1867, the American secretary of state, William Seward, purchased Alaska from Russia, he envisioned a united hemisphere from Greenland to Guyana, with a second capital in Mexico City." really? And the author frequently makes connections between far-flung items that we're not used to thinking of together. He throws off as "of course" things that nobody else even imagined (let alone documented). For example: 'In 1815, the eruption of the Tambora volcano on Indonesian Java killed seventy thousand people, unleashed a tsunami, spewed thick ash that caused drought and ruined crops across Asia (giving rise to the "Golden Triangle" opium trade), spread cholera across South Asia (inspiring the advent of modern medicine), brought summer snow to the East Coast of the United States and the "great panic of 1819" that cause America's first depression, and caused the breaking of Arctic and Greenland glaciers that sparked Arctic sea exploration.' whaaaa? wait!?

[Kalle Wescott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read /Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization/, by Parag Khanna:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/bo...

The NY Times panned the book, but I found it original and intellectually provocative. Parag Khanna discusses the connectivity and flows of goods, services, finance, people, and data, with maps to illustrate.

It's the third of a trilogy on the future world order, started by /The Second World/ and /How to Run the World/. I'm going to read those two and other books by Parag Khanna.

[Stefania Giusti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very intense and insightful. It’d be interesting to read an updated version, post-COVID pandemic

[Fred Cheyunski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Visual Case that Connections Surpass Nations - In this book, the author touts “connectivity”, which transcends traditional borders, as the major factor in global development surpassing the preeminence of nations. That is, a majority of governmental and private entities are investing trillions of dollars for transportation, energy, and communications infrastructure within and between cities in different countries and regions. Such activity has implications that go beyond the usual conceptions of world order which come into relief through the information presented and particularly Khanna’s “Connectography”--- the visual depiction of these connections on geographic maps.

Early on (in the Prologue, page xvii) Khanna relates that this volume is the third in a trilogy after the “The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century” (a tour of the new geopolitical marketplace) and “How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance” (examining the neo-medieval landscape and the mega-diplomatic path needed to move towards a global Renaissance). “Connectography” is said to be about how to get there through the expanding connections occurring.

The book is divided up into four parts: (1) Connectivity as Destiny, (2) Devolution as Destiny, (3) Competitive Connectivity, and (4) From Nations to Nodes. There is also a Conclusion: From Connectivity to Resilience as well as Recommended Sites and Tools for Mapping, Bibliography and Notes.Within the book, there are many different kinds of maps and graphics (some 38) that visually provide the illustrations that are further explained in detail within the text (the color-coded maps are grouped in a couple of sections, rather than appearing at different points as their content is discussed). When reading the book, it important to heed the instructions at the bottom of many of the initial chapter pages to be sure to look at the various maps cited to get the full impact of the text. In this regard, the author and his editors could have referred more specifically in the text to the particular maps in question for more clarity.

Among my favorite parts include the helpful descriptions of flows as being the ecosystem connectors and frictions being the barriers, obstacles and breakdowns that get in the way (see page 31). Discussion of GDP versus other measures such as the McKinsey Global Institute’s Connectedness Index used in the new maps is revealing (see page 43). The critical assessment regarding the United States (see pages 112, 152, 387-388) and the simplistic solutions about trade and bringing jobs back is refreshing. Background and utilization of the team game “tug-of-war” in differentiating economic competition from violent war provides a beneficial analogy for the forces effecting flow and friction (see page 138). Much attention to the expansion of corporate supply chains and globalization as well as the regional alliances and allegiances to insulate and minimize risks highlights the rise of pan regions within the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific (see page 170). Emphasis on major cities as engines of growth such as occurring in Singapore, Dubai, and Lagos (see page 276) lends credence to their increasing importance. Then, there is IT and cyberculture as the most dynamic sector of the global economy that offers another dimension in the rise of connectivity (see page 341). Much information on countries and related topics help illuminate current affairs, such as China’s incursions in the South China Sea and Russia in the Arctic.

While there is more to discern about an emerging global civilization and potential next renaissance, Khanna book begins to make the case with text and visuals that such connectivity will surpass nations.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

– A Word-Dense Review of an Idea-Dense Book
I'm not sure if Khanna's latest book is a futurology tome, a besieging number of examples for the emergence of the supply chain as the organizing principle of civilization, or the most readable macro-economics text I've seen. His arguments are cogent and convincing. If I had to summarize – human interaction, connectedness, and the marketplace will rule the future, enabled by digital technology and the pressing needs of the marketplace. Most of the vices of the political and religious world and the murderous nature of man will be ironed out by interdependence, less reliance on nations and more on financial, service, and manufacturing networks, and the global specialization of labor. He makes the liberal argument compellingly that the single largest reason to do a trade deal is to suppress war and support stability, and the more trade deals, even bad ones, the better. This is a long range view that the 2016 USA presidential race has conveniently forgotten.

Parag doesn't sugar-coat it – the dross that humanity drags with it that truly threatens mankind will take concerted effort to overcome: crisis venues like global warming, ethnic cleansing, rising sea levels, rapidly mutating diseases and epidemics, the interplay of population growth with straitened resources. He also points out over and over that investment in infrastructure is the single greatest payout a city, industrial sector, region, or nation can make. The losers will be the ones who make this investment their goal too late, or who outsource it (like Mongolia has to China) to others without getting a proper ownership stake. He also points out that bad things, like human trafficking, illegally supporting failed or dictatorial states, drug running, and terrorism are also facilitated by interconnectedness.

One area that this convincing book (how many times will I mention that it is convincing?) did not address to my satisfaction is the pinch on the nation states. To stay connected in the midst of globalization, they have increasing pressures on their regulatory environment, on their sovereignty, on their tax rates, on their political devolution to ethnic groups and to the cities. At the same time, he calls upon nations to save the hinterlands, promote infrastructure, presumably maintain military organizations (if nothing else than as shock troops for epidemic response), educate the masses, and most importantly save large disenfranchised classes even as national tax bases fritter away to other political / economic states. It's nice to have the problems pointed out but more difficult to understand next steps. Revolutions show us that the big transitions are the zones of most trauma and human loss.

Khanna has the credentials (look him up) to write a book that shows how the networks and their friction and flow will triumph over borders and parochial political forces in the long term, and I think he's got it right. It's a message that is simple in an incredibly complex world – like Adam Smith's unseen hand of the market, Khanna's Connectography implies that the linkup is the thing, and that interconnection is so rewarding to every player for every reason measurable that it becomes an unstoppable force. Like Smith's unseen hand, its sheer distributed nature means it will defeat hierarchic organized efforts to stem it.

Scott Jones

[Mark Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Connectography” helped me understand, “which lines on the map matter most” in this complicated and ever changing world we live in today. The author explains why the borders we’re used to focusing on have become irrelevant in understanding the new directions foreign trade and foreign affairs are taking. Khanna guides us through emerging global networks in which mega-cities compete for the market share.
A series of innovative maps depict these new trends of connectivity. Maps which go beyond the normal nation-state divisions, but include supply chains and trade linkages which reveal important cultural and economic changes. Maps include a global distribution of total economic wealth by continent, climatic changes and areas where greenhouse gas emissions rise from.
Some of Khanna’s predictions are as bold as they are insightful, “The most significant and geopolitical interventions will prove to be not military but infrastructural.” He points out that the Indian Ocean is the epicenter of competitive connectivity and that Dubai is the “defacto capital” of the Middle East and the epicenter of free zone development.
Khanna also shows the “underbelly” of these impressive trends, which include an estimated forty million people enslaved as bonded laborers around the world, with over half of them in four countries: India, Pakistan, Russia and China. Economic growth and connectivity also leads to more corruption, which rears its ugly head in this more connected world where both India and Russia are crippled by corruption. India loses an estimated $100 billion a year in illicit capital outflows. Africa loses twice as much each year in corruption and tax evasion as it receives in aid.
The author sheds light on the growing disparity between the “haves and have nots” where he indicates that 1 percent at the top are controlling half the total wealth while half the world’s people earn about $2.50 a day or less. He goes on to say that the world economy will continuously struggle to sustain any long-term growth until this pyramid becomes a diamond.
Nation states are seen as “passe”, as a series of other factors is driving the changes in our world, and if we’re to have any control over these changes we’ll need to understand them first and focus on the factors which are driving what and how the world economy and population changes are occurring. One important takeaway is that infrastructure is destiny—follow the supply lines. Coca Cola and DHL are the examples of how all-encompassing these supply lines can be.
The author is a global strategist, world traveler and bestselling author. He’s a CNN Global Contributor and holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand how mankind is reengineering the planet by investing trillions each year on transportation, energy and communications linking the world’s burgeoning megacities together. All of this has profound consequences for geopolitics, economics, demographics, the environment, and social identity. After reading this book we can all appreciate why connectivity, not geography, is our destiny.

[Marty Trujillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization is a huge accomplishment. For the first time that I recall, an author has given us a very clear map of where we need to go in the 21st century. And the answer is relatively simple and unambiguous: connectivity and infrastructure.

Parag Khanna makes it abundantly clear that the U.S. grand strategy of turning every global issue into an opportunity for military intervention is not just failing, it has already failed. He effectively and repeatedly demonstrates that strategies involving nation-state solutions to complicated international problems are not only doomed to failure but are setting the course for future catastrophe. Moreover, he points to China’s example of building infrastructure and offering connectivity — roads, high-speed rail, the Internet, tunnels, bridges, cell phones, ships and ferries — to the countries it engages with as the model for future engagement. (Who knew, for instance, that products manufactured by companies like HP and Intel already contain North Korean raw materials, courtesy of the Chinese? Or that Iran is the most connected nation in the Middle East, with a young population that rolls its eyes at the foibles of its leaders?)

Khanna also persuasively argues that the most effective and workable form of human arrangement is the city. He posits that “super cities” and not nations are most able to create the needed blueprint for civility while also generating real wealth. His notion of “devolution” is equally compelling — that we need to formally recognize cultures bound by ethnicity, language, and custom but which are now trapped within arbitrary national borders set by others: “giving each tribe its own nation is the surest path to international peace.” I also want to praise the book’s generous and glorious maps and cited references (in particular, a listing of websites in the book’s supplement). These resources alone will prove invaluable in attempting to understand the intricacies of global politics and economics.

This well-researched and nuanced book makes it abundantly clear that our 20th century model of political and military engagement is all but worthless in a connected world. “America’s nominal power is unsurpassed,” Khanna writes, “but subtract for deterrence, distance, and competence, and its effective power is less formidable than appears on paper.” In its place, Khanna offers a startling and inspiring game plan for what all of us should be demanding from our communities, companies, cities, and countries: a clear and coherent strategy for assembling the elements necessary to produce a prosperous world at peace with itself.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come for the maps, the infographics. Stay for the text, the story.

This is the story of human geography.

Settlement along rivers, lakes and oceans goes back to early humanity, leading to the dense urban coastal development of today. Today’s coastal megacities have become the key units of human organization, writes Parag Khanna.

Meanwhile, the new generation of maps and models reveal connections rather than boundaries. Functional geography becomes more important than political geography because the lines that connect us supersede the boundaries. For example:

“Midwestern states make no sense as units of government,” said Richard Longworth, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune and described here as an urban expert.

Around here, for example, when we back away from the unproductive parochialism we can easily see the many connections between Milwaukee and Chicago, ignoring that pesky, political state line, which creates much unnecessary angst.

Joel Kotkin, another urbanist quoted here, says that the United States now includes seven nations within, including the Chicago megacity, and, at the next level, three quasi city-states, including New York City. At least forty megacities will exist by twenty twenty-five, where we started in nineteen fifty with two, New York and Tokyo.

Globalization began five thousand years ago, when the city-states of Mesopotamia began trading.

Think of connectivity as infrastructure. Connectivity is the best investment, the author writes. This includes government spending on physical infrastructure as well as social infrastructure, such as education and health care.

Each successive map of the future will reveal more connections and fewer divisions or boundaries, writes Khanna.

Eight pages of notes and a twenty-two page bibliography support the book. The appendix also includes ten pages of mapping tools and sites, including visual literacy.

The New York Times, Sunday Review, April 17, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/opi... The infographic shows a new map for America, organizing the lower forty-eight into seven megaregions.

Megapolitan America: A New Vision for Understanding America’s Metropolitan Geography pairs well with this book.

[Cin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both optimistic and a little nauseating. The central premise—that nation states are unlikely to go to war not because of shared liberally democratic institutions but because of economic connectivity—is repeated almost to a fault, though Khanna provides enough cases studies and evidence to make the thesis convincing. Especially in these times, it almost reads as a plea to avoid the nativism that appears to be surging around the world. Turning inward and shucking off international trade agreements are likely to bring more harm than good for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, Khanna fails to adequately address or ideate the future that might result if economic connectivity is allowed to progress unhindered. He doesn't touch on the tragedy of the commons to any satisfying degree, or on what might happen if and when the world runs out of resources to trade. He briefly discusses climate change and its dual opportunities and threats, but overall the book overwhelmingly focuses on the value of connections created through the extraction of primary resources, particularly oil and gas. With climate, he seems to want to say "the market will take care of it," but that hardly reads like a solution.

Khanna also seems to gloss over the consequences of cities and nation states amassing debt to fund infrastructure projects, instead lauding the efforts of countries to intensively upgrade their facilities. This is all well and good for many, but it's hardly a blanket solution, particularly with the interference of local governments (and voters...dear god, the voters). But maybe that's his point; maybe we need to step aside sometimes and truly get comfortable with the idea of spending money to make money (or with the idea of corporations and foreign countries—ie, China—doing this for us).

Criticisms aside, this was a compelling read and provided fodder for many good conversations with friends and family. I especially appreciated the nonpartisanship of his arguments. In this day and age, the provision of any sort of material to help reach conversational compromise is incredibly welcome.

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Underlying thesis was intriguing, examples and metaphors were either off or overly optimistic. Basically the author is arguing that we have now entered the Supply-Chain Centric era. Where connectivity is driven by supply and demand and is beginning to trump nationalism. While I agree with certain aspects of this, I do find the author to be highly optimistic about how supply-chains will overcome politcal-social unrest. In some cases it could be argued that connectivity might exacerbate that unrest as people / areas feel they are being exploited.

However that being said, I am a huge fan of the power of connecting humans with other humans. The greater the level of connectivity the more rapidly civilization seems to advance. With most of this being built upon transportation infrastructure advancements. Rome utilized roads to control their empire, then European Trading Ships connected Europe to the rest of the world, cannals, then came railroads which facilitated the transport of ever greater tonnage, then the Interstate and National Highway systems, then Air travel and now the internet. The more layered the connectivity the greater the technological advances, financial gains, and upward mobility of individuals and regions.

While the author paints the picture of how these supply-chains could continue to decreaset the likliehood of war, he fails to also note how fragile the system is at the same time. As a system grows more and more complex the chances for castrophic failure only increase. Complexity increases fragility because it creates more "breaking points". Where 'If this' then 'that' will occur. For example a few individuals today can harness much more destructive power than a few individuals could just a hundred years ago, from suicide bombers to chemical/biological weapons. That same connectivity can not only be weaponized for extremists, but it can also be broken by them.