Recommended: Disunited Nations

Peter Zeihan's new book Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an ungoverned world is a graduate-level course on geopolitics crammed into 429 pages. Zeihan examines the major nations of the world in terms of their geography, history, culture, economies, resources, trading patterns, demographics, politics, and the constraints that shape their likely futures. The conclusions he draws from these factors about who will do well and who will do poorly in the coming decades is often at odds with the "conventional wisdom" of the media pundits, but are more convincing because he backs up his predictions with a wealth of facts.

Written with his characteristic humor, this is quite a readable book, but exceedingly important for those trying to understand the underlying forces driving world affairs today.