Robert D. Kaplan
Author of Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History
About the Author
Journalist Robert D. Kaplan is a contributing editor The Atlantic Monthly. He has traveled extensively, and his journeys through Yugoslavia and America have produced, respectively, Balkan Ghosts (which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize) and An Empire Wilderness. Kapan is also the author of show more Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (Random House, 2010) and The Revenge of Geography (Random House, 2012) Kaplan has lectured at the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon's Joint Staff, major universities, the CIA, and business forums. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Jerry Bauer
Works by Robert D. Kaplan
The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate (2012) 986 copies, 16 reviews
The Ends of the Earth: From Togo to Turkmenistan, from Iran to Cambodia, a Journey to the Frontiers of Anarchy (1996) 749 copies, 8 reviews
Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus (2000) 584 copies, 10 reviews
Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond (2005) 524 copies, 12 reviews
Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and the Peloponnese (2004) 248 copies, 12 reviews
Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts: The American Military in the Air, at Sea, and on the Ground (2007) 214 copies, 7 reviews
In Europe's Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond (2016) 187 copies, 2 reviews
The Return of Marco Polo's World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century (2018) 145 copies, 6 reviews
The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China (2023) 63 copies, 2 reviews
The Good American: The Epic Life of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government's Greatest Humanitarian (2021) 48 copies, 1 review
Foreign Affairs 1 copy
De barmhartige diplomaat 1 copy
Fantomele Balcanilor 1 copy
Associated Works
Writing War: The Best Contemporary Journalism About Warfare and Conflict from Around the World (2003) — Contributor — 15 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Kaplan, Robert David
- Birthdate
- 1952-06-23
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, USA
Vermont, USA
Israel
Portugal
Athens, Greece
Massachusetts, USA - Education
- University of Connecticut (BA ∙ English), (1973)
- Occupations
- journalist
analyst - Organizations
- The Atlantic Monthly
Center for a New American Security
Stratfor - Agent
- Gail Hochman (Brandt & Hochman)
Members
Reviews
Not read, author of “The Loom of Time” 2023 KLib
A little hard to get into if, like me, you didn't already have the vocabulary. But once you get up to speed, it's an excellent discussion of how geography shapes geopolitics. Recommend you read it with a good atlas, you'll never see the maps the same way again.
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Statistics
- Works
- 42
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 8,952
- Popularity
- #2,687
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 183
- ISBNs
- 212
- Languages
- 17
- Favorited
- 24
Kaplan is one of those hard-realist conservative commentators on US foreign policy of the old school. This is a collection of his essays from the first part of this century, so it’s a bit jumbled and in places repetitive. I found myself nodding in agreement about as often as I shook my head in baffled dissent.
My biggest point of dissent came as early as page 5, where he predicts the disintegration of Europe as a result of floods of migrants from North Africa, because the Arab Spring of 2012 has caused the downfall of the neighbouring “Muslim prison states”, meaning Iraq, Syria and Libya. This is simply bonkers. It’s difficult to decide where to start with dismantling it, but migrants are coming from all over Africa and western Asia, and the driving force for migration is economics rather than security; and anyway the migration question is but one of numerous factors contributing to economic inequality, which is the really big stress on European systems. Kaplan’s analysis privileges hard security over dull economics, and is the poorer for it.
The most attractive aspect of the book is Kaplan’s acceptance that he was wrong about the Iraq War, and that it’s not just that the aftermath of the invasion was mishandled (which is a line you will still hear from some apologists) but that the war itself was a bad idea. But this has unfortunately tilted him into a closer analysis of failures than successes, and it is noticeable that (Iraq apart) he is more drawn to analysing failures by Democratic than Republican administrations.
Fundamentally, Kaplan believes that geography is destiny, and self-interest should be coldly calculated. And yet there is clearly some room for values in his analysis; he doesn’t explain why, and you are left with the sense that he thinks human rights matter for white people and less for the rest of the world. And by emphasising geography, he loses the nuance of political choice in the countries that he is looking at; and even that is blinkered, as he considers risks to come only from states currently hostile to the USA.
Still, it’s very informative about the US foreign policy mind-set. I often like to say that the difference between Brussels and Washington as policy cities is that the depth of knowledge is often much greater in Washington, but you are lucky if there is more than one point of view to choose from, while in Brussels there is often diversity of opinion based on less profound analysis. This book is a good illustration.… (more)