Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World - Softcover

Wright, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0449906736 ISBN 13: 9780449906736

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1992

Synopsis

At the dawn of a new political era, the world is witnessing both violent upheaval and new opportunity on a scale unknown since the discovery of the New World. Reporting from all six inhabited continents, with new material on the Soviet Union’s collapse, award-winning journalists Robin Wright and Doyle McManus draw a vivid map of emerging trends that will shape the twenty-first century. It is a world in which:

· Democracy is facing the same challenges socialism did; many new democracies will fail.
· Economic strength is more important than military might; the superpowers are being replaced by “major powers” like Japan and Germany.
· Ethnic and nationalist conflicts are redrawing the world map; dozens of new nations will be born in this decade.
· Weapons of mass destruction are proliferating despite the Cold War’s end; smaller countries now pose the same threat as the bigger powers.
· Migration, at a record high, has become a dangerous political issue dividing the wealthy North from the poorer South.
· The power of the individual is spawning a new generation of unconventional leaders, rising from the masses, not the elite.

Praise for Flashpoints
 
“Alarming . . . intriguing . . . a cogent and thoughtful work . . . [by] two of America’s more accomplished journalists.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A timely and stimulating book.”—Senator Richard G. Lugar, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
 
“A brilliant primer . . . fascinating.”—Walter F. Mondale

About this title

About the Author

Robin Wright is an American journalist currently covering US foreign policy for the Washington Post. She has reported for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, the Sunday Times (London), CBS News and the Christian Science Monitor, and has served as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. She has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune.

Wright received the UN Correspondents Association Gold Medal for coverage of international affairs, the National Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The New Yorker, and the Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative" for coverage of African wars. For coverage of US foreign policy, she was named journalist of the year by the American Academy of Diplomacy for "distinguished reporting and analysis of international affairs" and won the National Press Club Award and the Weintal Prize for diplomatic reporting. Wright has also been the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant.

Wright has been a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Brookings Institution, Yale University, Duke University, Stanford University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Southern California. She also lectures extensively around the United States and has been a television commentator on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC programs, including Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week, Nightline, PBS NewsHour, Frontline, and Larry King Live.

From Publishers Weekly

With the decline of Cold War confrontation, the world is plunging headlong into "an age of galloping localism" even as it becomes more economically interdependent. That paradox runs like a thread through this provocative, sobering, very readable look at our possible future in the '90s and beyond. Wright ( Sacred Rage ) and McManus ( Landslide: The Unmaking of the President, 1984-1988 ) envision a "multipolar" world in which no single power can gain the upper hand. In their scenario, the Soviet Union, China and Canada will each dissolve to form new entities, while Turkestan, a new nation or confederation, could unite millions of Muslims from Europe to China. Ironically, even as the Cold Warriors talk peace, arms proliferation, rising terrorism and a wave of ethnic and nationalistic conflict spell an uncertain future in a world increasingly polarized between the industrialized and underdeveloped nations. The authors interviewed street people and heads of state on six continents for this sweeping probe.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0449906736
• ISBN 13: 9780449906736
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272