Seeing the Elephant: Understanding Globalization from Trunk to Tail

Praise for Seeing the Elephant

"Creative and accessible . . . Peter Marber has earned his insights into globalization as a practitioner who studied emerging markets long before they became fashionable in the West. An inspiring, terrific book about the most important subject of our era."
Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens

"On the money . . . . If you want to understand globalization′s future, as well as some of the reasons we got into our current financial mess, reading Marber′s Seeing the Elephant is a great place to start."
Craig Karmin, Wall Street Journal reporter and author of Biography of the Dollar: How the Mighty Buck Conquered the World and Why It′s Under Siege

"Peter Marber is an original thinker who has managed to write a genuinely original book about globalization a subject that has been exhausted by far too many more conventional analyses. His ′macro quantum′ perspective on the world spotlights the critical, unavoidable fact of infinite connections among states and people. Those connections, and the uncertainty and unpredictability they bring, also open up a world of infinite possibility."
Anne–Marie Slaughter, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

"At a time when we are witnessing the collapse of just about everything, Seeing the Elephant should be required reading for any American looking for a way forward. Peter Marber unpacks the intricately connected, fast–evolving world we live in with crystal–clear prose, apt metaphors, and hard data.
Seeing the Elephant provides a prototype of the new flight apparatus America needs to navigate our way successfully through the buffeting winds of the twenty–first century."
Mira Kamdar, author of Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World

"Great timing . . . . Seeing the Elephant captures global reality as it is today and where it is heading far more deeply than any framework offered so far. This is the book government and business leaders must read. By cleverly investigating the connections between finance, the environment, security, and poverty, Marber makes all previous writing on globalization redundant."
Parag Khanna, author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xiii

Chapter 1: Seeing the Elephant in the Twenty–First Century 1

Chapter 2: Trade and Finance: Money, Money Everywhere 43

Chapter 3: Energy: Twilight of the Hydrocarbons? 95

Chapter 4: Defense and Security: Preventing the Next War, Not Fighting the Last 137

Chapter 5: Immigration: People, People Anywhere 181

Chapter 6: Promoting Tomorrow s Health Instead of Paying for Yesterday′s Ills 215

Chapter 7: Environment: The Hidden Cost of Everything 249

Chapter 8: Poverty: Remembering the Bottom of the Pyramid 291

Chapter 9: Driving with a New Dashboard in the Macro Quantum World 323

Notes 349

Index 401

Peter Marber (New York, NY) is global head of GEM fixed income and currencies at HSBC Halbis Partners. He was formerly Founding parter and Chief Strategist for the Atlantic Funds LLC, which was acquired by HSBC in 2005. Marber began his career at UBS where he was co–founder and President of the emrgency markets subsidiary. He has been a faculty member at Columbia University since 1993 and has taught at both the Business school and the School of International and Public Affairs. He has also taught at Johns Hopkins University. He is affiliated with theWorld Policy Institute and the New America Foundation.