"The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World" by Peter Frankopan - audiobook review

This is a sequel to The Silk Roads - an extended epilogue - focusing on contemporary economic and military developments in China, Asia, and the Middle East up to 2018. Much of the focus is on China's Belt and Road Initiative: a series of infrastructure projects designed to improve trade and access to natural resources. On the surface, these plans seem like a good thing: helping to improve the economies of under-developed countries and join them together to share resources. But Frankopan acknowledges that sometimes the huge loans cause fiscal problems in the recipient countries and the projects don't live up to their initial promise. (What also goes unsaid is the impact that this exploitation of fossil fuels will have on climate change.) In the beginning of the book, Frankopan argues that economic power has shifted to the east, which becomes strikingly obvious when he lists the foreign owners of English Premier League football clubs. The military build-up is also alarming. I'm admittedly not a regular consumer of the news, but much of these developments were new to me: I don't think our western media pays enough attention. These two books together have changed how I see the world.