It was good to see on TV the other day that Barack Obama has apparently read and appreciated Doris Kearns Goodwin's outstanding book on Lincoln and his cabinet, Team of Rivals.  I just hope that book does not inspire Mr. Obama, if he gets elected president, to have Hillary Clinton as a direct part of his administration. 

I have just finished another excellent book (and a shorter one this time).  This is The Post-American World by Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria.  The central theme of the book is that the U.S. is losing its relative dominance in the world, as many other countries in all parts of the world experience rapid economic growth, and that the challenge for our country is to make the right adjustments to the changing world.  The tone of the book is not pessimistic, but it does suggest that many of America's past approaches to international relations are no longer appropriate.  I can understand if Senator Obama may be a little too busy to read books these days, but I highly recommend it.  In particular, I recommend the final chapter of that book, which discusses several common sense approaches for America in dealing with the rest of the world. 

I hope that Mr. Obama, and his top foreign affairs advisors, will read this book.  In case anybody is wondering, I have no personal stake in how many copies of this book are sold, but I mention it here because I believe it contains many valuable insights, and I hope that our next president - and secretaries of state, defense, and treasury - will at least take these insights into consideration.  For an except, check out this link:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/135380

Hey, this a message on behalf of Karal:

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to pass on re: a book recommendation that I read an article that Barack is reading, and was shown reading the Zaccharia book while he was on a plane....Great book!!

Karal

I read the excerpt in Newsweek and need to get the full book, the article itself was outstanding. Zakaria's commentary on foreign affairs is one of the reasons I keep up my Newsweek subscription, his insights are deep and he's got a good grasp on the subject at hand. I've found some of his articles over the past several years eerily prescient in regards to Iraq, Iran, China, Pakistan, Russia, et. al.