1. What does the author mean by "the rise of the rest"?
2. The author described three main power shifts in the last 500 years. What are they?
3. What does this last shift mean for the U.S.?
4. Multiple disasters unfolded in the first decade of this century. What happened to the growth of the global economy?
5. Zakaria argues that some of our most important problems are the result of successes, rather than failures. What would be some examples of these kinds of problems?
6. In recent years, attitudes toward free trade, open markets, and democracy have been changing--including here in the U.S. How is the change in U.S. opinion similar or different from opinion change elsewhere?
7. Zakaria discusses the world before 1500 and the world after 1500. In comparing East and West, what changed? What is Zakaria's hypothesis about why the change occurred? If the explanation is not "culture," what is it?
8. As trade and political interactions have increased along with globalization, what has happened to the structure of governments around the world?
9. Zakaria observes that McDonalds and Starbucks are "everywhere" now. What is happening to "local" identities as reflected in movies, news sources, and architecture as globalization continues to develop?