Our need to regenerate our appeal to immigrant talent, traditionally a source of vitality for our national innovation engine, has been well documented, yet Zakaria takes up the immigration issue only in the book’s coda.
Nor does Zakaria adequately discuss how rapidly the assets that create innovation-talent, capital, and ideas-can flow across borders these days, and that as a result the United States is at risk of experiencing a brain drain as well as the flight of venture capital.
China, for instance, has taken up a brute force strategy by mass-producing engineers and university campuses. Yet Zakaria mentions innovation only glancingly, never discussing some important points: that right after World War II, the United States was preeminent in the innovation game that in the next 63 years, know-how and resources were redistributed to other parts of the world and that today many countries are adopting distinct strategies to compete in that innovation game. For me, the value countries place on innovation directly relates to their place in the current world order. Not that I always agree with his analysis of globalization. He also entertains his readers: His droll description of Queen Victoria’s jubilee alone is worth the price of admission. He explains, for instance, how globalization’s increasing pace is evident in the growing percentage of non-American players in the U.S. But Zakaria adds much to the discussion with his unique perspective, which is informed by historical events, cultural and political studies, and current affairs-and also with his telling details. His call to action isn’t new it goes back as far as Alice Amsden’s 2001 book, The Rise of “the Rest”: Challenges to the West from Late Industrializing Economies.
In his new book, Fareed Zakaria argues that to stay competitive, America needs to reconsider its global role now that other countries’ growing success is reshaping the world.
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