Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck don’t usually like the same people, but both of them fawned over author Fareed Zakaria in recent interviews. Zakaria, Newsweek’s international edition editor and a really smart guy, is coming to Houston to talk about his new book, The Post-American World. According to the book, for the first time ever, the world is unipolar, meaning that we’re in an era with only one global power — us (woo hoo!). “America’s position today is unprecedented,” he says. “The U.S. economy is as large as the next three — Japan, Germany and Britain — put together.” But Zakaria says that as India and China grow their economic and power bases, we will move into a “post-American world, one defined and directed from many places and many people.” (Bummer.) In other words, we’ve seen “the rise of the West” and now we’ll see “the rise of the rest.” It’s our own fault, too, Zakaria says. We’ve been extolling the virtues of democracy for the last 60 years, and it seems Russia, China and India were listening. 7 p.m. Westin Galleria Hotel, 5060 West Alabama. For information, call 713-522-7811 or visit www.houstonworldaffairs.org. Free (reservations required).

Thu., Aug. 28, 7 p.m., 2008

This article appears in May 22-28, 2008.