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Famine in the Horn is both a tool and an aspect of ethnic conflict,
with the Ethiopian Amharas of the central highlands pitted against
the Eritreans and Tigreans of the north. The overwhelming majority
of U.S. journalists have reported on Ethiopia from one side
only-that of the Amharas in Addis Ababa. The author wants to show
the story from the other side, in order to redress a grievous
imbalance in news coverage. To get people excited, you sometimes
have to light a fire, and that was the author's intention. This
book covers the period from late 1984 to the early part of 1987. In
late 1987, the famine returned, mainly for the very reasons cited
inside.
Famine in the Horn is both a tool and an aspect of ethnic conflict,
with the Ethiopian Amharas of the central highlands pitted against
the Eritreans and Tigreans of the north. The overwhelming majority
of U.S. journalists have reported on Ethiopia from one side
only-that of the Amharas in Addis Ababa. The author wants to show
the story from the other side, in order to redress a grievous
imbalance in news coverage. To get people excited, you sometimes
have to light a fire, and that was the author's intention. This
book covers the period from late 1984 to the early part of 1987. In
late 1987, the famine returned, mainly for the very reasons cited
inside.
A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through
the lens of ancient and modern tragedy "Classical drama provides
crucial lessons for policymakers. . . . A road map for effective,
well-considered policy."-Kirkus Reviews Some books emerge from a
lifetime of hard-won knowledge. Robert D. Kaplan has learned, from
a career spent reporting on wars, revolutions, and international
politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, that the
essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In The Tragic Mind, he employs
the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German
philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central
subjects of international politics: order, disorder, rebellion,
ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes
of power. The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues,
are not posed by good versus evil-a clear and easy choice-but by
contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing,
incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and
deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in
conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who
wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time.
This work is a summation of all of Robert D. Kaplan's provocative
work and travel over the decades. It brings to life the great
geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past,
explaining their theories, and then applying them to the present
crises in Europe, Russia, China, and the Arab Middle East.
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The Centurions (Paperback)
Jean Larteguy; Translated by Xan Fielding; Introduction by Robert D. Kaplan
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R412
R338
Discovery Miles 3 380
Save R74 (18%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were
riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival
in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the
chilling moral question the novel posed: how to fight when the "age
of heroics is over." As relevant today as it was half a century
ago,The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended
symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential
investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency. Featuring a
foreword by renowned military expert Robert D. Kaplan, this
important wartime novel will again spark debate about controversial
tactics in hot spots around the world.
On the world maps common in America, the Western Hemisphere lies
front and center, while the Indian Ocean region all but disappears.
This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed
twentieth century, but in the twenty-first century that focus will
fundamentally change. In this pivotal examination of the countries
known as "Monsoon Asia"--which include India, Pakistan, China,
Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and
Tanzania--bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan shows how crucial
this dynamic area has become to American power. It is here that the
fight for democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom
will be lost or won, and it is here that American foreign policy
must concentrate if the United States is to remain relevant in an
ever-changing world. From the Horn of Africa to the Indonesian
archipelago and beyond, Kaplan exposes the effects of population
growth, climate change, and extremist politics on this unstable
region, demonstrating why Americans can no longer afford to ignore
this important area of the world.
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 as it is necessary, as original as it is controversial.
The end of the Cold War has not ushered in the global peace and prosperity that many had anticipated. Environmental degradation is causing the rampant spread of famine and disease, and a rising number of nations are being torn by violent wars of fierce tribalism and trenchant regionalism. Our newest democracies, such as Russia and Venezuela, are bloody maelstroms of violence and crime, while America is beset with an alarmingly high number of apathetic citizens content to concern themselves with matters of entertainment and convenience. Bold, erudite, and profoundly important, The Coming Anarchy is a compelling must-read by one of today's most penetrating writers and provocative minds.
"Analytically daring.... Informed by a rock-solid, unwavering realism and an utter absence of sentimentality.... Kaplan is a knowledgeable and forceful polemicist who mixes the attributes of journalist and visionary." —The New York Times
"Ambitiously eclectic.... [Kaplan] is one of America's most engaging writers on contemporary international affairs." —The New York Times Book Review
From the foreword by Robert D. Kaplan:
"No one is more qualified to talk about the history of Nepal
than Colonel John Philip Cross.... In his book, The Call of Nepal,
Cross portrays his profoundly personal journal, as he terms it,
rooted not only in the physical - but deeply in the mental,
emotional and spiritual.
During his lifetime Cross has long practiced linguistic and
cultural immersion in Nepal both personally, and in the context of
his time with the Gurkhas in what today's military analysts must
clearly see as an integral component of military success. But with
today's military pace, the time to achieve the depth of Cross's
insight is not always affordable.
A pioneer in many respects, Cross saw fluency and correct use of
language not only as a tactical weapon but also as a vital,
literally, element of command. It is this depth of knowledge, which
also comes from understanding, living, and being part of Nepalese
history that makes him and his writing such an invaluable
resource."
"Artful and intelligent . . . . Kaplan's book has made its own
mark. . . I am able to feel the sense of an exotic and timeless
part of the world."
-- Bob Hoover, "Pittsburg Post-Gazette"
"[Kaplan] helps the distant past resonate today. . . . [He] teaches
lessons that are informative and concise." -"The Washington Post
Book World"
"A writer of extraordinary intellect and passion . . . with a
wonderfully lucid way of relating history as a living thing." -"San
Francisco Chronicle"
"Erudite and intrepid. . . . [Kaplan] is a deft guide to wherever
he chooses to lead you." -"The New York Times"
WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT D. KAPLAN COMMENTARY BY VIRGINIA WOOLF, HAROLD BLOOM, EDWARD SAID, F. R. LEAVIS, AND ROBERT PENN WARREN
" Never were Mr. Conrad's felicity of phrase and charm of atmosphere more obvious. . . . A book of the rare literary quality of Lord Jim is something to receive with gratitude and joy."--The New York Times
Originally published in 1900, Lord Jim is one of Joseph Conrad's most complex literary masterpieces. The story of a young sailor whose moment of cowardice haunts him for the rest of his life, Lord Jim explores Conrad's lifelong obsessions with the nature of guilt and the possibility of redemption. Nostromo is considered by many to be Conrad's supreme achievement, and Conrad himself referred to Nostromo as his "widest canvas." Set in the fictitious South American republic of Costaguana, Nostromo reveals the effects that misguided idealism, unparalleled greed, and imperialist interests can have on a fledging nation. V. S. Pritchett wrote: "Nostromo is the most strikingly modern of Conrad's novels. It is pervaded by a profound, even morbid sense of insecurity which is the very spirit of our age." Robert D. Kaplan's Introduction explains why the two novels together form Conrad's darkest glimpse into the flawed nature of humankind.
JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924) grew up amid political unrest in Russian-occupied Poland. After twenty years at sea in the French and British merchant navies, he settled in England in 1894. Over the next three decades, he revolutionized the English novel with works such as Youth (1902), Heart of Darkness (1902), Typhoon (1903), The Secret Agent (1907), Under Western Eyes (1911), Chance (1913), and Victory (1915).
ROBERT D. KAPLAN is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and the author of seven books of travel and foreign affairs that have been translated into a dozen languages, including Balkan Ghosts, The Ends of the Earth, and An Empire Wilderness, all bestsellers, and a collection of essays, The Coming Anarchy. He lectures frequently to the U.S. military.
A bracing assessment of U.S. foreign policy and world disorder over the past two decades from the bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography and The Coming Anarchy
"[Kaplan] has emerged not only as an eloquent defender of foreign-policy realism but as a grand strategist to whom the Pentagon turns for a tour d'horizon."--The Wall Street Journal
In the late thirteenth century, Marco Polo began a decades-long trek from Venice to China along the trade route between Europe and Asia known as the Silk Road--a foundation of Kublai Khan's sprawling empire. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the Chinese regime has proposed a land-and-maritime Silk Road that duplicates exactly the route Marco Polo traveled.
Drawing on decades of firsthand experience as a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, Robert D. Kaplan outlines the timeless principles that should shape America's role in a turbulent world that encompasses the Chinese challenge. From Kaplan's immediate thoughts on President Trump to a frank examination of what will happen in the event of war with North Korea, these essays are a vigorous reckoning with the difficult choices the United States will face in the years ahead.
Robert D. Kaplan is one of our leading international journalists, someone who can explain the most complicated and volatile regions and show why they’re relevant to our world. In Surrender or Starve, Kaplan illuminates the fault lines in the Horn of Africa, which is emerging as a crucial region for America’s ongoing war on terrorism.
Reporting from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, Kaplan examines the factors behind the famine that ravaged the region in the 1980s, exploring the ethnic, religious, and class conflicts that are crucial for understanding the region today. He offers a new foreword and afterword that show how the nations have developed since the famine, and why this region will only grow more important to the United States. Wielding his trademark ability to blend on-the-ground reporting and cogent analysis, Robert D. Kaplan introduces us to a fascinating part of the world, one that it would behoove all of us to know more about.
From Robert D. Kaplan, named one of the world's Top 100 Global
Thinkers by "Foreign Policy" magazine, comes a penetrating look at
the volatile region that will dominate the future of geopolitical
conflict.
Over the last decade, the center of world power has been quietly
shifting from Europe to Asia. With oil reserves of several billion
barrels, an estimated nine hundred trillion cubic feet of natural
gas, and several centuries' worth of competing territorial claims,
the South China Sea in particular is a simmering pot of potential
conflict. The underreported military buildup in the area where the
Western Pacific meets the Indian Ocean means that it will likely be
a hinge point for global war and peace for the foreseeable future.
In "Asia's Cauldron," Robert D. Kaplan offers up a vivid snapshot
of the nations surrounding the South China Sea, the conflicts
brewing in the region at the dawn of the twenty-first century, and
their implications for global peace and stability. One of the
world's most perceptive foreign policy experts, Kaplan interprets
America's interests in Asia in the context of an increasingly
assertive China. He explains how the region's unique geography
fosters the growth of navies but also impedes aggression. And he
draws a striking parallel between China's quest for hegemony in the
South China Sea and the United States' imperial adventure in the
Caribbean more than a century ago.
To understand the future of conflict in East Asia, Kaplan argues,
one must understand the goals and motivations of its leaders and
its people. Part travelogue, part geopolitical primer, "Asia's
Cauldron" takes us on a journey through the region's boom cities
and ramshackle slums: from Vietnam, where the superfueled
capitalism of the erstwhile colonial capital, Saigon, inspires the
geostrategic pretensions of the official seat of government in
Hanoi, to Malaysia, where a unique mix of authoritarian Islam and
Western-style consumerism creates quite possibly the ultimate
postmodern society; and from Singapore, whose "benevolent
autocracy" helped foster an economic miracle, to the Philippines,
where a different brand of authoritarianism under Ferdinand Marcos
led not to economic growth but to decades of corruption and crime.
At a time when every day's news seems to contain some new
story--large or small--that directly relates to conflicts over the
South China Sea, "Asia's Cauldron" is an indispensable guide to a
corner of the globe that will affect all of our lives for years to
come.
Advance praise for "Asia's Cauldron"
"This is the latest in a series of insightful books . . . in which
Robert D. Kaplan . . . tries to explain how geography determines
destiny--and what we should be doing about it. "Asia's Cauldron" is
a short book with a powerful thesis, and it stands out for its
clarity and good sense from the great mass of Western writing on
what Chinese politicians have taken to calling their 'peaceful
development.' If you are doing business in China, traveling in
Southeast Asia or just obsessing about geopolitics, you will want
to read it. . . . Throughout the book, Kaplan tempers hard-nose
geopolitics with an engaging mix of history and travelogue."--"The
New York Times Book Review"
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"An excellent primer to the conflicting ambitions, fears, and
futures of the nations bordering this vital sea-lane, which will
remain one of the most dangerous flashpoints of the coming
decade."--"New York Journal of Books"
"From the Hardcover edition."
A fascinating, unprecedented first-hand look at the soldiers on the
front lines on the Global War on Terror.
Plunging deep into midst of some of the hottest conflicts on the
globe, Robert D. Kaplan takes us through mud and jungle, desert and
dirt to the men and women on the ground who are leading the charge
against threats to American security. These soldiers, fighting in
thick Colombian jungles or on dusty Afghani plains, are the
forefront of the new American foreign policy, a policy being
implemented one soldier at a time. As Kaplan brings us inside their
thoughts, feelings, and operations, these modern grunts provide
insight and understanding into the War on Terror, bringing the war,
which sometimes seems so distant, vividly to life.
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Taras Bulba (Paperback, New Ed)
Nikolai Gogol; Translated by Peter Constantine; Introduction by Robert D. Kaplan
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R394
R343
Discovery Miles 3 430
Save R51 (13%)
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The First New Translation in Forty Years
Set sometime between the mid-sixteenth and early-seventeenth
century, Gogol's epic tale recounts both a bloody Cossack revolt
against the Poles (led by the bold Taras Bulba of Ukrainian folk
mythology) and the trials of Taras Bulba's two sons.
As Robert Kaplan writes in his Introduction, " "Taras Bulba"] has a
Kiplingesque gusto . . . that makes it a pleasure to read, but
central to its theme is an unredemptive, darkly evil violence that
is far beyond anything that Kipling ever touched on. We need more
works like "Taras Bulba" to better understand the emotional
wellsprings of the threat we face today in places like the Middle
East and Central Asia." And the critic John Cournos has noted, "A
clue to all Russian realism may be found in a Russian critic's
observation about Gogol: 'Seldom has nature created a man so
romantic in bent, yet so masterly in portraying all that is
unromantic in life.' But this statement does not cover the whole
ground, for it is easy to see in almost all of Gogol's work his
'free Cossack soul' trying to break through the shell of sordid
today like some ancient demon, essentially Dionysian. So that his
works, true though they are to our life, are at once a reproach, a
protest, and a challenge, ever calling for joy, ancient joy, that
is no more with us. And they have all the joy and sadness of the
Ukrainian songs he loved so much."
"From the Hardcover edition."
A tight-knit group closely linked by intermarriage as well as class
and old school ties, the "Arabists" were men and women who spent
much of their lives living and working in the Arab world as
diplomats, military attaches, intelligence agents,
scholar-adventurers, and teachers. As such, the Arabists exerted
considerable influence both as career diplomats and as bureaucrats
within the State Department from the early 19th century to the
present. But over time, as this work shows, the group increasingly
lost touch with a rapidly changing American society, growing both
more insular and headstrong and showing a marked tendency to assert
the Arab point of view. Drawing on interviews, memoirs, and other
official and private sources, Kaplan reconstructs the 100-year
history of the Arabist elite, demonstrating their profound
influence on American attitudes toward the Middle East, and tracing
their decline as an influx of ethnic and regional specialists has
transformed the State Department and challenged the power of the
old elite.
Edited and with Notes by Peter Lancelot Mallios
Introduction by Robert D. Kaplan
In reexamining "The Secret Agent in a post-9/11 world, Robert D.
Kaplan praises Joseph Conrad's "surgical insight into the mechanics
of terrorism," calling the book "a fine example of how a savvy
novelist may detect the future long before a social scientist
does."
This intense 1907 thriller-a precursor to works by Graham Greene
and John le Carre-concerns a British double agent who infiltrates a
cabal of anarchists. Conrad explores political and criminal
intrigue in a modern society, building to a climax that the critic
F. R. Leavis deemed "one of the most astonishing triumphs of genius
in fiction."
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