wbur.org
support wbur today!
Listen to this story
The Global Swing Vote
photo

Despite all evidence, for a lot of Americans, the world — or their sense of it — and the American place in it seems frozen in about 1999. The Soviet Union — vanquished. The American economy — number one, of course. American might and influence — unchallenged. The USA — a master superpower.

Scholar Parag Khanna looks around today and sees something very different. Not just China and the EU are challenging U.S. supremacy, but also a raft of rising second-tier nations — Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, and others — coming on strong. They could be a new global swing vote.

This hour, On Point: the “Second World” challenging the “American Way.”

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Parag Khanna, geopolitical scholar and advisor, and author of the new book “The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order.”

Tugba Kalafatoglu, in Istanbul, founder of Tugba Kalafatoglu and Associates, a global management and political consulting firm.

Ricardo Lessa, in Sao Paulo, a journalist with GloboNews.

 

Tags: , ,

 
 

Comments are closed.

Recent Shows
Poker: America’s Game
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Poker and American history. How the game of presidents, cowboys, gangsters, and online gamblers helped shape America.

Comments [10]
 
Google vs. Murdoch
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Rupert Murdoch wants to block the search giant from scooping free content from his newspapers. We’ll look at the staredown.

Comments [132]
On Point Blog
Michael Wolff and Jeff Jarvis on Murdoch v. Google

We had a rousing discussion about Google vs. Murdoch, and what it says about the whole future of news, with Michael Wolff, Jeff Jarvis, and Steven Brill. Here’s what Wolff and Jarvis had to say about the delusions of both Murdoch and Google.

More » | Comments [18]
 
Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Last week, host Tom Ashbrook was on stage with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, asking him about some of the biggest technology and business issues of our time.
It was part of an MIT event held on Thursday, Nov. 5, to commemorate computer science professor Michael Hammer, who died last year. Here’s video of the full interview, courtesy of WBUR.org:

Among other things, Schmidt said the possibilities [...]

More » | Comments [4]
 
California, here we come! And we need your questions!

On Point is headed west!
No, no. Not for good. Only for one show. But it’s a very special show!  The NPR station in Thousand Oaks, California – KCLU – is celebrating their 15th anniversary. We’re lucky to have been on their airwaves for nearly seven years, and they invited us out west to host a live [...]

More » | Comments [10]