What made, and still makes, America great.

First and foremost, I’m sorry for the sensationalized header. I hope I didn’t make your eyes twitch but I think it is an accurate title independent of the political climate.

Back in February, I had the opportunity to ask a question to a Two-star Army General and I asked him what books he recommended.  He said this was the most recent book he finished and that he highly recommended it so it entered the queue.  A few months later, the Army Chief of Staff added this book to his Army Reading List, a biannual list of books recommended for members of the military.  With two recommendations, I borrowed it as soon as it became available.  Side note: the Army has a MASSIVE digital library for service members.  It’s bigger than any other digital library to which I’ve had access and it rocks.  If you want to know about it, let me know!

This book discusses many of the factors that led to America becoming a superpower after WWII.  Peter Zeihan describes numerous reasons the United States was destined for success then and in the future.  The factors include the U.S. being between two oceans, the demographics of the population, the natural resources it possesses encompassing topics like human geography, political science, earth science, and economics.  I was pleasantly surprised by the range of topics the book covered.  In that sense, I found it similar to A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

The downside to the book is that it paints a very optimistic outlook for the U.S. and given the means by which I learned about the book, I find some of the conclusions a little too rosy. That may be a poor assumption on my part but I’m willing to accept the risk.  Regardless of the potentially optimistic bias, the book is a very level-headed look at the future United States, in spite of everything going on around us.