The End of the World Is Just the Beginning

Reviewed by Diario de un Inversor · UpdatedJune 13, 2026

Our review

Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical analyst who has built his reputation on a single premise: the post-World War II world order — free trade, global supply chains, US-guaranteed security — was a historical accident, not a permanent condition. In this 2022 book he argues that the accident is ending. Demographic aging in Asia and Europe, US strategic withdrawal, and the fragmentation of global value chains are going to reshape the world economy in ways most analysts underestimate. Zeihan is a first-rate communicator: the book is agile, concrete, and packed with sector-by-sector examples (energy, food, manufacturing, finance). The most legitimate criticism is that his geographic and demographic determinism tends to underestimate the adaptive capacity of economic and political actors. His time horizons are also imprecise: he speaks in decades, but the urgency of the narrative implies imminence. Even so, as a framework for thinking about deglobalization and its sectoral consequences, it is one of the most stimulating books published in the last decade.

Key takeaways

• Global free trade was a historical anomaly sustained by US hegemony, not a natural state of affairs.
• Demographic aging in Asia and Europe will structurally reduce labor supply and demand.
• Deglobalization will favor countries with energy and food self-sufficiency, the United States above all.
• Long supply chains are more fragile than conventional business thinking acknowledges.

Fact

Published in 2022, the book dedicates specific chapters to the impact of deglobalization on twelve industrial sectors, from semiconductors to basic foodstuffs.