Adam Tooze | September 15 | New York Times
In the 1990s Daniel Yergin emerged as one of the great chroniclers of our day. Both “The Prize,” his epic history of oil (which won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction), and “The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy,” written with Joseph Stanislaw, were turned into blockbuster television series. “The New Map” is Yergin’s effort to chart the world of 2020.
The challenge is enormous. Familiar schemes for understanding international politics and power are in flux. Even before Covid, market-driven globalization, under the sign of Western hegemony, was in question.
A sense of increasing disorder and multipolarity pervades “The New Map.” Indeed, it is implied in the book’s organizing idea — the map. Maps are ordering devices. But they are also perspectival. There are as many maps as there are mapmakers. What Yergin offers us is not one map, but an overview of the many maps contending for influence in the world today.
Originally published in the New York Times. Read the full article here.