re: #116 EastSider

I haven’t read the book, what does the term mean in context? Is it something like living in a world post American unilateral hegemony?

Zakaria’s point in using that phrase is that because of America’s spread of liberal democracy around the world, we’ve now got competition on the world stage in terms of economic, industrial, and cultural power. We’re not the only game in town anymore. IIRC, he makes the case that while we have reason to be optimistic, the world is changing around us, and that the balance of power is shifting:

“The world is moving from anger to indifference, from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism. The fact that new powers are more strongly asserting their interests is the reality of the post-American world. It also raises the political conundrum of how to achieve international objectives in a world of many actors, state and nonstate.”