Nathanael73's Full Review: Robert D. Kaplan - The Coming Anarchy: Shattering ...
After reading Kaplan’s brilliant Balkan Ghosts (http://www.epinions.com/book-review-6334-46582E93-3A4E2280-prod3) I sought out The Coming Anarchy: Shattering The Dreams of the Post Cold War, eager to gain more insight into the world’s changing political and cultural landscape. Unlike Balkan Ghosts, The Coming Anarchy is not a history/travel book. Rather, it is a collection of nine essays, all except one previously published (in The Atlantic Monthly, The National Interest, and The Wall Street Journal). The essays were written between 1994 and 1999. The collection itself was published in 2000.
In his preface, Kaplan debunks the myth that the end of the cold war signaled the beginning of a new era of peace. He posits that the opposite is in fact true; we are entering a period of global anarchy as borders disintegrate and ethnic nationalism becomes more widespread. Throughout the nine essays, Kaplan examines the political reality in West Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and North America. According to his thesis, the coming anarchy will impact all but the remotest corners of the globe. Even the prosperous First World will suffer the inevitable consequences of over-population, environmental degradation, nationalism, and ethnic migration.
When I read I often underline sections or phrases that strike me as particularly important or immensely quotable. It is a hangover from my student days. If I were to include here all the passages I have marked in my copy of The Coming Anarchy, this review would run to several thousands of words. Kaplan’s collection contains dozens and dozens of profound observations and downright scary facts. For example, “for every sixty-five dollars earned in rich countries, one dollar is earned in poor ones, and the gap is widening”(p.xiii).
Kaplan paints a vivid picture of the world around us, and it is far from pretty. Millions of our fellow man struggle daily for survival while we debate whether to have steak or salmon for dinner, or weigh up the pros and cons of buying a new SUV. Kaplan uses a striking metaphor to illustrate the division that exists in the world today: a stretch limo with tinted windows racing through the bad part of town. Inside the limo are the people of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Western Europe, Canada and the U.S.; outside are the people who make up the majority of the world’s population. Sooner or later the limo is going to be car-jacked.
Kaplan’s work is a wake-up call to all those who think the world is grand and life is like a box of chocolates. The problem is that most of the people who really need to read this book probably never will. In the final essay, "The Dangers of Peace," Kaplan sends out a wake-up call to his fellow Americans:
…peace, as a primary goal, is dangerous because it implies that you will sacrifice any principle for the sake of it. A long period of peace in an advanced technological society like ours could lead to great evils, and the ideal of a world permanently at peace and governed benignly by a world organization is not an optimistic view of the future but a dark one. (p.169)
The Coming Anarchy is a must-read for anyone with the slightest interest in politics, history, foreign policy, or the future. In a society saturated with doublespeak, spin, and political correctness, it is refreshing to find an author concerned with truth and reality who tells it like it is. Readers will come away from the book with a more enlightened world-view, albeit a darker one.
From the bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts and The Ends of the Earth comes a fascinating new book on the imminent global chaos that is as brilliant ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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