The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria

I have been meaning to write about this book for a while. It is one of the most insightful books that I've ever read. I read it through in May of this year and read it again last month.
Zakaria discusses democracies around the world and asserts that unregulated democracy is a threat to both law and liberty. The Bush talking points often include "building a democracy in the Middle East." This book looks at how democracies have formed over time and the lessons we can learn from them. There is a discussion about California's direct initiative process, which enables voters to bypass the Legislature and have an issue of concern put directly on the ballot. Singapore is mentioned as an example of a democratic nation with limited freedom of the press. Most interesting to me about the book though was the discussion of the tenuous balancing act in the Middle East. How do you create democracy and ensure that radicle fundamentlist forces aren't voted into public office? Read the book... It's worth your time.
One of the interesting statistics in the book relates to a pole done by the Arab arm of CNN. People in 9 Muslim countries were asked about 911. Only 18 % of respondents thought that the attacks on 911 were carried out by Arabs.


"Zakaria forces us to think in new ways about values that Americans take for granted." -Ambassador Richard Holbrooke