Peter Zeihan, in his 2022 book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, offers an insightful and credible explanation for the globalization process that affects us all, and is becoming increasingly relevant because of global economic, political and environmental factors. Although his book might exaggerate the importance of America, his ideas deserve our attention because they provide a framework for illuminating other related subjects.

At the end of World War II, in 1945, the world was in a political and economic mess. Although Germany and Japan had been defeated, most of the rest of the world had been heavily damaged by the conflict. In the East, an imperial Japan was in ruin, as was China after the Japanese invasion of its northern territories. In Europe, Germany, too, was in ruin. Great Britain, Italy, France, Russia and their many adjacent countries had been heavily damaged.