The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century

In The Second World, scholar Parag Khanna, chosen as one of Esquire’s 75 Most Influential People of the Twenty-First Century, reveals how America’s future depends on its ability to compete with the European Union and China to forge relationships with the Second World, the pivotal regions of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, the Middle East, and East Asia that are growing in influence and economic strength.

Informed, witty, and armed with a traveler’s intuition for blending into diverse cultures, Khanna depicts second-world societies from the inside out, observing how globalization divides them into winners and losers–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 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.

Parag Khanna directs the Global Governance Initiative in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation. He has been a fellow at the Brookings Institution and worked for the World Economic Forum and the Council on Foreign Relations. During 2007, he was a senior geopolitical advisor to U.S. Special Operations Command. Born in India, Khanna was raised in the United Arab Emirates, the United States, and Germany. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and is completing his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics. He has written for major global publications such as The New York Times and Financial Times and appeared on CNN and other television media around the world. Having traveled in close to one hundred countries. He is a member of the Explorers Club.