The End of the World Is Just the Beginning

The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization is a nonfiction book written by Peter Zeihan, a geopolitical strategist who formerly worked for the geopolitical intelligence firm Stratfor. The book was published by Harper Business in June 2022.

Summary
The book analyzes the elements that lead different nations to succeed or fail, in the author's opinion, focusing on demographic, geographic, and historic factors. It asserts that the period from the 1950s to the 2020s represented a peak period of rapid economic development and innovation; meanwhile, the present (2022) and future would be associated with a rather abrupt slowing of such developments. In this view, deglobalization leads to deindustrialization, deurbanization, and even depopulation.

Reception
The book debuted at number 12 on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list for the week ending June 18, 2022.

Kirkus Reviews acknowledged the book's points, but regarded its forecast as excessively pessimistic:

An early analysis of the book by Liam Denning, from Bloomberg, published in The Washington Post was positive.