tamzy6's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating! Despite the subject, it didn't feel too heavy-handed and Zakaria managed to weave in dry humour and other witticisms - I found myself chuckling at some parts (which is saying a lot considering we're talking about a pandemic). Fans of Harari, I think this is a great post-Sapiens read.
craigmaxwell's review against another edition
5.0
“When everything can be bought, every aspect of life becomes unequal” My favourite quote from this book. It can be implied to so many parts of life and culture.
It made me think about Pride in the LGBTQ+ landscape. How pride was once a statement and a protest that was free to celebrate and make a statement. It’s now became a marketing money making machine highlighting the inequalities in our community.
This book is more than just a commentary on the pandemic it is a holistic view of influencing factors around it.
I really enjoyed it and appreciated the insights.
It made me think about Pride in the LGBTQ+ landscape. How pride was once a statement and a protest that was free to celebrate and make a statement. It’s now became a marketing money making machine highlighting the inequalities in our community.
This book is more than just a commentary on the pandemic it is a holistic view of influencing factors around it.
I really enjoyed it and appreciated the insights.
rick2's review against another edition
2.0
This is an aggregation book. Fared doesn’t say anything that’s going to shock anyone who’s been paying attention to the world. But he does a pretty good job of aggregating a lot of decent writers and thinkers on various topics. I agree with most of what he has to say. His global view of things is refreshing to someone who has been in a very US centric bubble the last year. He’s definitely not global in a robust way, but I thought his derivations into his experiences in India were some of the highlights of the book.
I think as a summary of and analysis of where the United States is at currently this is a really good book.
I thought most of his points were well founded, With the caveat that every time someone says we are “just a few years away from Artificial general intelligence” I melt a PS5 down in front of a child. We are not “just a few years away” we are probably not even several decades away. The absolute gulf of how far we are away from AGI is vast. We will continue to have super impressive feats of seeming pseudo intelligence from computers, and we will continue to say “we’re just a couple years away“ late into the second half of the century.
And I think you can draw this example into further criticism of the book in that vast majority of this future looking statements have been stolen and pretty blatantly copied from other books by People who are equally as clueless about what the future may bring. Fareed doesn’t really take any risks in this book. He has a very well educated old-school liberal approach to a lot of things. But that involves parroting whatever trendy idea is in the public ethos about things like UBI, AI, Automation, Trade, and Covid.
Worth a read if you want to refresh and distill the commonly accepted knowledge around liberal thought.
I think as a summary of and analysis of where the United States is at currently this is a really good book.
I thought most of his points were well founded, With the caveat that every time someone says we are “just a few years away from Artificial general intelligence” I melt a PS5 down in front of a child. We are not “just a few years away” we are probably not even several decades away. The absolute gulf of how far we are away from AGI is vast. We will continue to have super impressive feats of seeming pseudo intelligence from computers, and we will continue to say “we’re just a couple years away“ late into the second half of the century.
And I think you can draw this example into further criticism of the book in that vast majority of this future looking statements have been stolen and pretty blatantly copied from other books by People who are equally as clueless about what the future may bring. Fareed doesn’t really take any risks in this book. He has a very well educated old-school liberal approach to a lot of things. But that involves parroting whatever trendy idea is in the public ethos about things like UBI, AI, Automation, Trade, and Covid.
Worth a read if you want to refresh and distill the commonly accepted knowledge around liberal thought.
aizataffendi's review against another edition
4.0
A contemporary read on the lessons that the COVID-19 pandemic had taught us. One salient lesson which hits close to home is the need of an effective government to curb the ongoing pandemic as well as future ones. While Malaysia's COVID-19 disaster response was lauded as one of the best in the world during the first half of 2020, there was a bitter twist towards the end of the year as political infighting in one of its states led to a spike in cases after a state election was held without proper planning in place. The political crisis which continued to happen at state and federal levels afterwards, would drag Malaysia even further down in terms of its response to the disease - although the timely and swift rollout of the vaccines did help to improve the situation a little.
The lesson on inequality was also spot on, I feel. What was supposed to be the great equalizer, the pandemic had instead promoted a greater divide between the rich and the poor. Take the vaccines, for example. World leaders, especially that of developed countries seemed to be nonchalant to the fact that with pandemics like this, no one is truly safe until everyone is! The lack of distribution and rollout of the vaccines in Africa has now led to the creation of a new variant, the Omnicron - which has forced countries to shut its doors once again despite their efforts to return to normalcy. For this, Fareed aptly mentioned the saying "History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes".
The lesson on inequality was also spot on, I feel. What was supposed to be the great equalizer, the pandemic had instead promoted a greater divide between the rich and the poor. Take the vaccines, for example. World leaders, especially that of developed countries seemed to be nonchalant to the fact that with pandemics like this, no one is truly safe until everyone is! The lack of distribution and rollout of the vaccines in Africa has now led to the creation of a new variant, the Omnicron - which has forced countries to shut its doors once again despite their efforts to return to normalcy. For this, Fareed aptly mentioned the saying "History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes".
ckwartler's review against another edition
4.0
3 1/2 stars rounded up. I enjoyed it til the last hour and then it just got tedious. I found most of it interesting and I learned something.
bloodyfool0's review against another edition
4.0
Zakaria makes the world so easy to understand. There are issues facing us post-pandemic and I do hope his optimism brings the world closer. We have plenty of autocrats out there and if there's a strong enough leader in the US to bring us closer and lessen its hegemony, all the better. China unfortunately, does not fill the bill. They have no soft power to convince the world that it is working for their benefit.
bethgiven's review against another edition
4.0
These past twelve months or so, I've spent a lot of time reading; I find myself seeking out the relevant reads (my booklist is heavy on the political and social justice books lately). I heard about this book on NPR, so I decided to check it out. It's a little crazy to think we've been dealing with a pandemic long enough that we can now read published books about that very pandemic, but here we are.
Some will describe this pandemic as a "hinge-point" of history, but the author argues that the pandemic will not reshape our future so much as accelerate it. There are "decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen," and I think we can agree that we've had plenty of decade-long weeks lately.
Here are the ten lessons the author details in the book:
1. BUCKLE UP. We can only have two out of the three characteristics of society: open, fast, and stable. Since we are not going to give up being open and fast, we're not going to have the stability we crave. But while we may not be not stable, we are resilient, and we are capable of learning from our mistakes (the Dust Bowl is as a historical example). We need to prepare for another outbreak, because while outbreaks are inevitable, pandemics are optional.
2. WHAT MATTERS IS NOT THE QUANTITY OF GOVERNMENT BUT THE QUALITY. So often, liberals and conservatives argue about the size of government, particularly in America. But we saw during the pandemic that both liberal and conservative governments were capable of controlling the spread of COVID-19 in their countries. We don't necessarily need more government or less government; we need GOOD government.
3. MARKETS ARE NOT ENOUGH. Even while we praised "essential workers" during the early days of the pandemic, we punished them through our capitalistic habits: poor and marginalized people would suffer the greatest from COVID-19. So many Americans are afraid of socialism, but perhaps integrating a few more socialistic policies (as many European countries do) would be beneficial.
4. PEOPLE NEED TO LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS, AND EXPERTS NEED TO LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE. Somewhere in the middle of this messy pandemic, "trusting your gut" seemed to overrule trusting science and medicine. The people need to learn to trust the experts. And, as part of gaining that trust, the experts need to tell it to us straight. On the flip side, experts need to realize that many less-educated people resent being told what to do, and treat them with empathy rather than disdain. Also: "listening to the experts" includes trusting experts in many fields, not just scientific; we will benefit from the wisdom of economic experts, as well, before we go shutting down businesses.
5. LIFE IS DIGITAL. We have seen a "new normal" emerge this past year: tele-health visits, streaming entertainment, working from home, distance learning. We have seen a blending of home and work life before the pandemic, and they will be even more intertwined in the future.
6. WE ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS. While technology is a wonderful tool, we've also learned that it is not a satisfactory substitute for in-person social interaction. Though large cities were hardest hit in the early stages of the pandemic because of how easily the virus was transmitted, cities will recover from this crisis to be stronger than ever, because cities are a place where social needs are most easily met.
7. INEQUALITIES WILL GET WORSE. While we wanted to think of the pandemic as a great equalizer -- a virus can infect anyone, regardless of class or race -- COVID-19 effected marginalized populations in greater proportion. We continue to see an economic disparity, as well, as big companies got even bigger (e.g. Amazon, Home Depot).
8. GLOBALIZATION IS NOT DEAD. There are some who decry globalization, but it's here to stay. "We are all connected, and no one is in control."
9. THE WORLD IS BIPOLAR. America and China have emerged as the two economic superpowers of the world; other countries don't even come close. We may be entering a "second Cold War" with China, but while tension is inevitable, hostilities are not. We need smart political leadership to manage our relationship with China.
10. SOMETIMES THE GREATEST REALISTS ARE THE IDEALISTS. The pandemic was a global problem that, ironically, prompted nations to turn inward -- but our greatest strength comes when we cooperate with each other. Cooperation is not just the ideal way forward; it's the common-sense answer to our problems. We need to cooperate with one another to solve problems like pandemics and climate change.
---
Overall this book was grim but still optimistic. I did find it a little dry in some places (probably because I am so ignorant regarding foreign policy; I pretty much know nothing about our relationship with China except that Trump spent a lot of time and energy blustering about it, but it turns out that there's actually some reason for attention). On the whole, I feel like I learned a lot from this book, and am feeling cautiously optimistic that we can emerge from our current crisis better for it.
Some will describe this pandemic as a "hinge-point" of history, but the author argues that the pandemic will not reshape our future so much as accelerate it. There are "decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen," and I think we can agree that we've had plenty of decade-long weeks lately.
Here are the ten lessons the author details in the book:
1. BUCKLE UP. We can only have two out of the three characteristics of society: open, fast, and stable. Since we are not going to give up being open and fast, we're not going to have the stability we crave. But while we may not be not stable, we are resilient, and we are capable of learning from our mistakes (the Dust Bowl is as a historical example). We need to prepare for another outbreak, because while outbreaks are inevitable, pandemics are optional.
2. WHAT MATTERS IS NOT THE QUANTITY OF GOVERNMENT BUT THE QUALITY. So often, liberals and conservatives argue about the size of government, particularly in America. But we saw during the pandemic that both liberal and conservative governments were capable of controlling the spread of COVID-19 in their countries. We don't necessarily need more government or less government; we need GOOD government.
3. MARKETS ARE NOT ENOUGH. Even while we praised "essential workers" during the early days of the pandemic, we punished them through our capitalistic habits: poor and marginalized people would suffer the greatest from COVID-19. So many Americans are afraid of socialism, but perhaps integrating a few more socialistic policies (as many European countries do) would be beneficial.
4. PEOPLE NEED TO LISTEN TO THE EXPERTS, AND EXPERTS NEED TO LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE. Somewhere in the middle of this messy pandemic, "trusting your gut" seemed to overrule trusting science and medicine. The people need to learn to trust the experts. And, as part of gaining that trust, the experts need to tell it to us straight. On the flip side, experts need to realize that many less-educated people resent being told what to do, and treat them with empathy rather than disdain. Also: "listening to the experts" includes trusting experts in many fields, not just scientific; we will benefit from the wisdom of economic experts, as well, before we go shutting down businesses.
5. LIFE IS DIGITAL. We have seen a "new normal" emerge this past year: tele-health visits, streaming entertainment, working from home, distance learning. We have seen a blending of home and work life before the pandemic, and they will be even more intertwined in the future.
6. WE ARE SOCIAL ANIMALS. While technology is a wonderful tool, we've also learned that it is not a satisfactory substitute for in-person social interaction. Though large cities were hardest hit in the early stages of the pandemic because of how easily the virus was transmitted, cities will recover from this crisis to be stronger than ever, because cities are a place where social needs are most easily met.
7. INEQUALITIES WILL GET WORSE. While we wanted to think of the pandemic as a great equalizer -- a virus can infect anyone, regardless of class or race -- COVID-19 effected marginalized populations in greater proportion. We continue to see an economic disparity, as well, as big companies got even bigger (e.g. Amazon, Home Depot).
8. GLOBALIZATION IS NOT DEAD. There are some who decry globalization, but it's here to stay. "We are all connected, and no one is in control."
9. THE WORLD IS BIPOLAR. America and China have emerged as the two economic superpowers of the world; other countries don't even come close. We may be entering a "second Cold War" with China, but while tension is inevitable, hostilities are not. We need smart political leadership to manage our relationship with China.
10. SOMETIMES THE GREATEST REALISTS ARE THE IDEALISTS. The pandemic was a global problem that, ironically, prompted nations to turn inward -- but our greatest strength comes when we cooperate with each other. Cooperation is not just the ideal way forward; it's the common-sense answer to our problems. We need to cooperate with one another to solve problems like pandemics and climate change.
---
Overall this book was grim but still optimistic. I did find it a little dry in some places (probably because I am so ignorant regarding foreign policy; I pretty much know nothing about our relationship with China except that Trump spent a lot of time and energy blustering about it, but it turns out that there's actually some reason for attention). On the whole, I feel like I learned a lot from this book, and am feeling cautiously optimistic that we can emerge from our current crisis better for it.