Connectography

Mapping the Future of Global Civilization

By: Parag Khanna

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Length: 16 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

Connectivity is the most revolutionary force of the 21st century. Mankind is reengineering the planet, investing up to 10 trillion dollars per year in transportation, energy, and communications infrastructure linking the world's burgeoning megacities together. This has profound consequences for geopolitics, economics, demographics, the environment, and social identity. Connectivity, not geography, is our destiny.

In Connectography, visionary strategist Parag Khanna travels from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Pakistan to Nigeria, and across the Arctic Circle to explain the unprecedented changes affecting every part of the planet. He shows how militaries are deployed to protect supply chains as much as borders, and how nations are less at war over territory than engaged in tugs-of-war over pipelines, railways, shipping lanes, and Internet cables. The new arms race is to connect to the most markets - a race China is now winning, having launched a wave of infrastructure investments to unite Eurasia around its new Silk Roads. The United States can only regain ground by fusing with its neighbors into a super-continental North American Union of shared resources and prosperity.

©2016 Parag Khanna (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

“Incredible. We don't often question the typical world map that hangs on the walls of classrooms - a patchwork of yellow, pink and green that separates the world into more than two hundred nations. But Parag Khanna, a global strategist, says that this map is, essentially, obsolete.” ( The Washington Post)

Fascinating and very current book

Loved this book. Great narration, story, and content was extremely interesting and well-researched. Never thought of connectivity as networking. Learned so much. The author did an excellent job laying out a lot of information in an organized and thought-provoking way. Very relevant to current events and provides lots of examples of different ways cities, countries, corporations, and people connect to each other. Flew through it - easy listen and well-written.

worth a read

It is worth of a read, for author's strategic ignorance and what he got right/wrong in predictions, if nothing else.

Great book but the narrator is a drag

Would you listen to Connectography again? Why?

It's a great book for understanding the basics of geopolitics and the global economy. He makes some very interesting arguments about the effects of technology, trade, and urban migration on the relevance of political borders in much of the world.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Paul Boehmer?

Just about anyone.

Any additional comments?

It would be interesting to know how many times the word "connectivity" is repeated. Because it happens A LOT.

My favorite book of 2016

Very eye opening book on how global flows of information and trade are driving geopolitics.

The juice for the next generation

I really enjoyed this book. It is dense but the macro concepts are so important. In a nutshell: Man-made borders are not as important as man-made supply chains. Nation building within man-made borders is not as important as group affinity - think along the lines of "I'm a Google'r" vs "I'm Canadian". Overall a really great read to understand how connectivity is the juice for the next generation.

Good

interesting thesis in this book. some parts are glossed over though, if they were expanded it might make an even more illuminating read.

truly connects

crisp and informative, we'll put through. the narrator was a tad too synthetic. the book was part excellent. highly recommended

Listen on X1.25

Good book. Interesting premise with a mile wide of info a little more than an inch deep of backup. Worth exploring.

Almost didn't finish the first chapter because the narrator speaks so slow....X1.25 was perfect.

it's OK

many intersting points and examples but nothing revolutionary. the beginning was very dull and mandane, but became more interesting toward the middle

Takes a Global Commerce Perspective

First, the narration did not click with me - my mind tended to drift away from it's clipped cadence, but then maybe it was the writing's fault itself.

The coverage of the subject matter was very lightweight, though worldly-knowledgeable with details (names, places, events). The author's background is surprising, and accounts for his 'global' view.

The book offers solutions and projections, but into a philosophically clueless world that substitutes commerce for an enlightened philosophy. Therefore, as solutions, his suggestions are clueless and superficial, and tunnel-visioned, and they will fail, as such solutions have always done. See the Philosophy of Broader Survival for the details, and the real solutions).

The book is at its best when covering global commerce, and worst when being prophetic.

I learned bits of potentially-useful trivia, such as what an 'Investor's Visa' was and that 'Futurology' is an academic discipline now.

The author takes the usual cliche (and leftist) potshots at America, making erroneous claims that fashionably besmirch the US (perhaps the author was selling the book to his prospective left-leaning, anti-American readership), such as the claim that the US's rise was due to a 'privilege of geography' over other nations, rather than admitting that it was the American tradesman character that was behind the economic rise of the country. (to note, this is because giving 'American Character' credit is taboo on the Left (remember Obama's 'You (your character) didn't build that, the government did' bungle), and so the author dutifully avoids giving American character credit, to the point of offering absurd counterclaims, in this case born of the views of Guns, Germs, and Steel.