In writing his influential book "The Second World," Parag Khanna visited more countries in the past five years than most of us will visit in our whole lives. The 31-year-old policy wunderkind, who is also director of the Global Governance Initiative and a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, spoke at the Carnegie Middle East Center and Heinrich Boll Careers Foundation's conference on "Emerging Powers and the Middle East," held October 24-25 at the Gefinor Rotana Hotel in Beirut. He sat down with The Daily Star between panels.

Q: How can you claim the whole world - or 55 countries -- as your area of expertise?

A: I don't claim it as an area of expertise. The book isn't about any one country, it's about a typology, it's about a set of countries that all exhibit similar dynamics. So the goal isn't to be a specialist. If you want to read a book about Saudi Arabia, you can read a book about Saudi Arabia, but if you want to read a book about what Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan and Malaysia have in common, then this is the book for you. And it's the only book that really does that. LINK