ABSTRACT
Zakaria's book does not say much about the Americas: a few remarks on Brazil, fewer still on Mexico's regional assertiveness, a dismissive reference to Hugo Chavez's rants, and, peppered here and there, brief allusions to some of the smaller countries of the region. 2 Why say more? The fate of American power was not played out in the western hemisphere and nothing that happened there over the last 20 years weakens his general thesis: US influence is declining and challengers are more assertive while, on the whole, and sometimes slowly but without much prodding, market economies and democracy consolidate their hold on politics and state policy, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. This, however, does not tell us much about what those post-American Americas will look like, which is what this short piece is about: how does the global lessening of America's power leave the rest of the hemisphere?
