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Over the last 15 years--writing mostly in the pages of Atlantic Monthly and then turning his essays into full length books--Robert D. Kaplan has developed a richly deserved reputation as one of the foremost advocates of a "realist" foreign policy. One of the things that has really distinguished him from the competition is that he structures his pieces as travelogues, but then uses his experiences and observations, on the ground in some of the modern world's most dangerous nations and regions, to draw out larger lessons that he feels America needs to learn. Among the points that he has repeatedly made, a few stand out and make up his dour vision of the future as a place where : chaos is more the norm than stability, particularly in the Third World; over-population and the resulting scarcity of resources, become the main causes of this near anarchy; the nation-state, even in the West, comes to be replaced by borderless multinational corporations in the international sphere and massive urban corridors in the domestic sphere; and, we in the West find ourselves unable to respond to these various crises because, on the one hand, our citizenry has become too materialistic and self-oriented to much care, while our elites do more damage than good by making a fetish of democracy and human rights, which are of little help to nations that have no stable government to begin with. In this rather too lightweight new book Mr. Kaplan argues that his concerns are nothing new, because for the most part they are problems that are the inevitable result of immutable human nature, that indeed they have been dealt with throughout history by some of our greatest writers and philosophers, and that, therefore, one of the best way to prepare ourselves for the future is to return to the wisdom of our past. Now, no conservative is going to dispute this pessimistic view of human nature, nor the enduring value of reading the authors to whom Mr. Kaplan resorts to try to make his points, but there is much to be wary of in how he uses them and in the end his overall thesis becomes somewhat self-contradictory. To take the last point first, there's something intrinsically odd about a book that seeks to simultaneously argue that we face a bleak future while at the same time maintaining that all of the problems we face have been known and explained for hundreds if not thousands of years, a period during which no one can honestly say that life in the West has not progressed significantly. To take just one illustrative example, Mr. Kaplan has either the courage or the audacity (which description you choose will depend on your own political views) to trot out Thomas Malthus to support his own theory that rising population must eventually lead to material scarcity. One would think that the mere fact that mankind has managed to achieve a point where we actually produce an overabundance of food at the same time as we have arrived at a population of 5 billion (or whatever) people, would at least make someone timid about advancing this theory, but apparently not. Unfortunately, Mr. Kaplan here resembles the notorious fool Paul Ehrlich, whose inane book The Population Bomb (1968) predicted that : The battle to feed all of humanity is over.
In the 1970's the world will undergo famines--hundreds
Mr. Ehrlich's hysteria was most effectively answered by the economist Julian Simon, who made a famous wager with him on the change in the cost of a basket of commodities from 1980 to 1990. Of course, the value of the goods declined by 50% as our capacity to find and develop the necessities of human life grew at a much higher pace than did the population that consumes them. Yet this ugly failure of the Malthusian/Ehrlichian theory has not prevented Western elites from remaining wedded to it, nor has it hindered the career of Mr. Ehrlich. Still it would behoove a "realist' to be a tad more skeptical towards such a shaky theory. This brings us to another overarching problem, the basic claim to realism. As the British historian Herbert Butterfield remarked, to devastating effect, "realism is more often a boast than a philosophy." This truth is on display here in the way that Mr. Kaplan uses, or perhaps it's more accurate to say, misuses history to claim credit for Realists. He is especially infatuated with Winston Churchill, who is admittedly a compelling enough fellow, yet in his zeal to burnish Churchill's reputation, he offers a ridiculously simplistic view of World War Two. Mr. Kaplan wishes to have Churchill represent the value of historical knowledge and imagination, the capacity to see how our situation today is similar to events in the past. In particular, he asserts that Churchill understood the evil of Hitler better than did his contemporaries because he recognized his barbarity more clearly. Mr. Kaplan argues that this gave him the clarity of moral vision to focus himself and his nation on defeating Hitler at all costs. But what of the costs? Looking at the 20th Century from a coldly realistic point of view, with not a little cynicism added to the mix, it seems fair to ask whether fighting Hitler was not a massive mistake for Britain and even more so for America. Suppose for a moment that Britain had gone beyond just appeasement to actual alliance with Hitler. They might have offered him a security guarantee on his Western flank in exchange for his agreement to attack only toward the East. This would have pitted the Nazis against the Soviet Union in a war which, whoever won, would have left both brutal regimes seriously debilitated or even destroyed. Regardless of the outcome, it is hard to imagine that the people of Eastern Europe would have fared any more poorly than they actually did as a result of our collaboration with Stalin. Meanwhile, no Brits would have died. It would also have meant that Britain could have maintained her colonial Empire for at least a little while longer. It is surprising that Mr. Kaplan, who is so attentive to the unstable nature of the modern Third World, fails to consider how much better off these nations might be if they were either still administered by the West or had achieved their independence at a more gradual pace. It can at least be argued that Britain faced some risk to her own national security from Nazi Germany, but the same can not be said for the United States, where Mr. Kaplan cites with approval the deceitful way in which FDR steered an unwilling nation toward war. Neither Germany nor Japan offered any serious threat to our domestic tranquility and our economy had finally revived as we produced the arms with which other countries were shooting it out, so it's even harder to see what we gained by the War. That Mr. Kaplan claims the victory over Hitler as a great success of "Realism" must cast some doubt on just how realistic even he is willing to be. Another example that he refers to repeatedly, perhaps because his own fame is inextricably tied to events there, is that of the American/European intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s. The Clinton administration's early failure to act when the Serbs were committing war crimes comes in for some criticism; while the latter bombing campaign, which brought an end (actually, given the history of the region it can not be more than a temporary halt) to the warfare in the region is hailed as a triumph of clear-sighted Western self-interest. This begs the question though of how our concerns were implicated at all in the conflict and, more importantly, especially in light of the current war against radical Islam, why it was in the West's interest to stop Christians from killing Muslims, and how it helps our geopolitical position to have weakened one of the European states that borders the Islamic world. Obviously there are idealistic, religious, and moral cases to be made in favor of our action, but what is the realist's case? Mr. Kaplan does not bother to enunciate one, apparently feeling that the fact that our effort succeeded in removing Milosevic suffices to justify it. This too facile willingness to call whatever policy he wants to pursue the "realistic" one, unfortunately carries over to his analysis of the great texts that he cites, as he cherry picks these authors and their works for almost absurdly simplistic lessons : Churchill : "seeing how the struggles of today are strikingly similar to those of antiquity" Livy: "[T]he vigor it takes to face our adversaries must ultimately come from pride in our own past and our achievements." Sun-Tzu : the "morality of consequence" Thucydides : "acceptance of a world governed by a pagan notion of self-interest" Machiavelli : "primitive necessity and self-interest drive politics" Hobbes : "Fear of violent death is the cornerstone of enlightened self-interest." And so on... The writings of each of these men may well contain these kernels of wisdom, but to try to reduce their complex, nuanced, and frequently qualified theories to such terse bromides does them a real disservice. One final criticism of the book, that may tie some of the preceding together; as his insistence on the righteousness of the war against Hitler and the intervention in the Balkans demonstrates, we are none of us realists, least of all folks as thoughtful as Mr. Kaplan and the authors he refers us to. At one point he says that : [I]f there is such a thing as progress in politics, it has been the evolution from religious virtue to secular self-interest. This is the kind of thing that goes over well in our demoralized culture, but it is utter nonsense. The liberal philosopher has an apt name for folks like himself who seek to disavow religion and God but want to cling to the morality it has given us : freeloading atheists. Mr. Kaplan seems genuinely unaware of the degree to which his own foreign policy preferences are shaped by the religious values of the culture in which he was raised and educated. This is why he ends up defining as realistic and self-interested those actions--like fighting Nazism--which in truth have no basis in self-interest, only in moral prejudice. And, mind you, I mean moral prejudice to be a compliment. Mr. Kaplan is absolutely correct that we should study the past and read the great authors (particularly these conservative thinkers), that both history and historical philosophy remain relevant to the world today. And he is especially right when he says that this is the case because human nature is essentially unchanging and that it is much darker than the idealists among us are able to admit. But what sound foreign policy requires is that we balance this realization against our legitimate moral concerns, not that we pretend that all failures result from moral qualms, while all victories flow from enlightened self-interest. These authors do have much to teach us about the kind of morality that must prevail in nations where democracy is not yet feasible. Mr. Kaplan is inexplicably hostile toward Augusto Pinochet, yet Chile, where he ruled far more brutally than we would have liked, is today a political and an economic success story, in all likelihood because of his regime. So too have countries like Spain and Singapore benefited from rulers who were more Hobbesian, more Machiavellian than our beau ideal. In his other books Mr. Kaplan has written quite convincingly about the need for the West to be mature enough to allow such countries to progress naturally toward the kind of liberal democracy we hope they will become, rather than try and force them to meet our standards immediately. By reading these authors we can see that at similar moments in our own past our very best minds were able to justify political systems that were far less free and less democratic than the one we enjoy now. Hopefully, as Mr. Kaplan says, they can convince us to accept that such pre-democratic systems serve useful moral purposes, even if they serve a somewhat different morality than our own. (Reviewed:) Grade: (C-) Tweet Websites:-Robert D. Kaplan : Contributor Profile (Atlantic Monthly) -The National Interest -EXCERPT : First Chapter of Warrior Politics -EXCERPT : Chapter One of An Empire Wilderness -ESSAY: A Tale of Two Colonies: Our correspondent travels to Yemen and Eritrea, and finds that the war on terrorism is forcing U.S. involvement with the one country's tribal turbulence and the other's obsessive fear of chaos (Robert D. Kaplan, April 2003, The Atlantic Monthly) -REVIEW: of March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book 3 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Robert D. Kaplan, The Spectator) - -PODCAST: Podcast with Robert D Kaplan, author of “The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China” (Nicholas Gordon 11 April 2024, Asian Review of Books) -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Listen to Correspondent for 'The Atlantic Monthly,' Robert Kaplan (Fresh Air, March 11, 2003, NPR) A Post-Saddam Scenario: Iraq could become America's primary staging ground in the Middle East. And the greatest beneficial effect could come next door, in Iran (Robert D. Kaplan, November 2002, Atlantic Monthly) -PROFILE : Looking the World in the Eye : Samuel Huntington is a mild-mannered man whose sharp opinions-about the collision of Islam and the West, about the role of the military in a liberal society, about what separates countries that work from countries that don't-have proved to be as prescient as they have been controversial. Huntington has been ridiculed and vilified, but in the decades ahead his view of the world will be the way it really looks (Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic Monthly | December 2001) -ESSAY : A who's who for the next Afghan regime (Robert D. Kaplan, 10/17/2001 , Boston Globe) -ESSAY : Stability is more important than democracy in the Mideast. (ROBERT D. KAPLAN , October 2001, Wall Street Journal) -ESSAY : U.S. Foreign Policy, Brought Back Home (Robert D. Kaplan, September 23, 2001, Washington Post) -ESSAY : (Conrad's Secret Agent :) The Little Man's Revenge (Robert D. Kaplan, Thanksgiving 2001, The National Interest) -ESSAY : Where Europe Vanishes : Civilizations have collided in the Caucasus Mountains since the dawn of history, and the region's dozens of ethnic groups have been noted for "obstinacy and ferocity" since ancient times. Stalin was born in these mountains, and it was also here that the Soviet empire began to crumble. The story of the Republic of Georgia illustrates that the peoples of the Caucasus may prove as incapable of self-rule as they were resistant to rule by outsiders (Robert D. Kaplan, November 2000, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : The Lawless Frontier : he tribal lands of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border reveal the future of conflict in the Subcontinent, along with the dark side of globalization (Robert D. Kaplan, September 2000, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : The Return of Ancient Times : Why the warrior politics of the twenty-first century will demand a pagan ethos (Robert D. Kaplan, June 2000, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : What Makes History : The lessons of a New England landscape (Robert D. Kaplan, March 2000, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Israel Now : The author, a former resident of Israel, finds that raw power and economic forces are redrawing the map of the Middle East, and peace talks will merely formalize the emerging reality (Robert D. Kaplan, January 2000, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Four Star Generalists : Military history pierces the philosophical fog that often surrounds the other humanities (Robert D. Kaplan, October 1999, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : China: A World Power Again : It is normal for China to be a significant actor on the world stage. The West-the real newcomer-had better get used to it. (Robert D. Kaplan, August 1999, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Kissinger, Metternich, and Realism : Henry Kissinger's first book, on the Napoleonic Wars, explains Kissinger's foreign policy better than any of his memoirs, and is striking as an early display of brilliance and authority (Robert D. Kaplan, June 1999, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Redrawing the Mideast Map (Robert D. Kaplan, New York Times, February 21, 1999) -ESSAY : Hoods against Democrats : In Bulgaria the distinction between the state and organized crime is clear -- for now (Robert D. Kaplan, December 1998, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : The Fulcrum of Europe : Romania longs for the West, and the West needs Romania more than it knows (Robert D. Kaplan, September 1998, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Travels Into America's Future : A correspondent who has long experience reporting from dimly understood regions of the world reports from his dimly understood native land, and his excursions expose the borderless forces that are pushing America into its next life. Herewith a portion of his travelogue, focusing on the Southwest (Robert D. Kaplan, July 1998, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Night Train to Istanbul (Robert D. Kaplan, July 1998, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Special Intelligence : The roles of the CIA and the military may merge, in the form of "Special Forces," made up of data-analyzing urban commandos (Robert D. Kaplan, February 1998, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Was Democracy Just a Moment? : The global triumph of democracy was to be the glorious climax of the American Century. But democracy may not be the system that will best serve the world -- or even the one that will prevail in places that now consider themselves bastions of freedom. (Robert D. Kaplan, December 1997, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : And Now for the News : The disturbing freshness of Gibbon's Decline and Fall (Robert D. Kaplan (March, 1997, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : History Moving North : As Mexican society fragments, the impact will hit the United States with force -- and U.S. society is likely to fragment in some of the same ways (Robert D. Kaplan, February 1997, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Fort Leavenworth and the Eclipse of Nationhood (Robert D. Kaplan, September 1996, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Proportionalism : What should the United States do in the Third World, where there's too much to do and too much that can't be done? (Robert D. Kaplan, August 1996, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : WEST HAS NO CURE FOR AFRICA'S ILLS (Robert Kaplan, June 1996, The Observer) -ESSAY : War After Peace : The coming Mideast meltdown. (Robert D. Kaplan, 04.29.96, New Republic) -ESSAY : A Bazaari's World : To understand Iran -- and perhaps even the future of other parts of the Islamic world -- one must understand a man like Mohsen Rafiqdoost (Robert D. Kaplan, March 1996, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : The Coming Anarchy : How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet (Robert D. Kaplan, February 1994, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : The Balkans : Europe's Third World : Poverty and ethnic strife in southeastern Europe will give the Russians a headache for years to come. (Robert D. Kaplan, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Syria Identity Crisis : Hafez al-Assad has so far prevented the Balkanization of his country, but he can't last forever (Robert D. Kaplan, February 1993, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Tales from the Bazaar : As individuals, few American diplomats have been as anonymous as the members of the group known as Arabists. And yet as a group, no cadre of diplomats has aroused more suspicion than the Arab experts have. Arabists are frequently accused of romanticism, of having "gone native"--charges brought with a special vehemence as a result of the recent Gulf War and the events leading up to it. Who are the Arabists? Where did they come from? Do they deserve our confidence? (Robert D. Kaplan, August 1992, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Afghanistan Post Mortem : The Russians may have been dealt a setback, but the lessons of the Afghan conflict afford little cause for cheer. (Robert D. Kaplan, April 1989, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Driven Toward God : The eight-year war has transformed and enhanced the role of Islam, but Afghanistan is not another Iran. (Robert D. Kaplan, September 1988, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Sons of Devils : In a turbulent region the stateless Kurds play the role of spoiler (Robert D. Kaplan, November 1987, Atlantic Monthly) -ARCHIVES : Robert D. Kaplan (New America) -LECTURE : Robert Kaplan, The Future of Populist Politics (Colorado College) -AUDIO LECTURE : "The United States is Born to Die" (Robert D. Kaplan, January 1999, Calvin College) -Robert D. Kaplan Index -REVIEW : King of the Mountain: The Nature of Political Leadership' by Arnold M. Ludwig (Robert D. Kaplan, Washington Post) -REVIEW : of 'Beyond the Mountains of the Damned: The War Inside Kosovo' by Matthew McAllester (Robert D. Kaplan, Washington Post) -REVIEW : of 'The Age of Terror: America and the World After September 11' edited by Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda (Robert D. Kaplan, Washington Post) -REVIEW : of TURKEY UNVEILED A History of Modern Turkey. By Nicole Pope and Hugh Pope (Robert D. Kaplan, NY Times Book Review) -LETTER : THE FOUL BALKAN SKY? By Robert D Kaplan, Reply by Timothy Garton Ash : In response to "Bosnia in Our Future" (December 21, 1995) ( The New York Review of Books, March 21, 1996) -BOOK LIST : BreakthroughBooks : WE ASKED EIGHT AUTHORITIES ON THE POSTCOMMUNIST CONDITION TO TELL US WHICH BOOKS SHED THE MOST LIGHT ON THE BEWILDERING AND OFTEN FRIGHTENING NEW WORLD MIDWIFED BY THE END OF THE COLD WAR. (Robert D. Kaplan, Lingua Franca) -DISCUSSION : What does the future hold? Progress or anarchy? with Robert D. Kaplan and Francis Fukuyama (Think Tank, 2/1/02, PBS) -DISCUSSION : The War on Terror by Robert Kaplan and Robert Wright (Slate, Jan 16, 2002) -INTERVIEW: The Hard Edge of American Values: Robert D. Kaplan on how the United States projects power around the worldÑand why it must (Atlantic Unbound, June 18, 2003 ) -AUDIO INTERVIEW : with Robert Kaplan (Dianne Rehm, January 24, 2002) -AUDIO INTERVIEW : Robert Kaplan (Fresh Air, NPR, January 5, 2002) -AUDIO INTERVIEW : Robert D. Kaplan, "The Coming Anarchy" (The Connection, WBUR, March 9, 2000) -AUDIO INTERVIEW : The Third World: A Coming Anarchy? (WBUR, 10.02.2001) -INTERVIEW : The View from Inside : The foreign correspondent Robert D. Kaplan talks about his days among the mujahideen, the killing of Abdul Haq, and why the U.S. must not be afraid to be brutal (November 2, 2001, Atlantic Monthly) -INTERVIEW : "The golden age of intelligence is before us" : Robert Kaplan says fighting terrorism will require new rules for spying, but he predicts that fighting an "almost comic book evil" will lead to a revival. (Laura Rozen, Sept. 20, 2001, Salon) -ROUNDTABLE : Picking a Good Fight : Does humanitarian intervention have a future? (Robert D. Kaplan | Edward Luttwak | David Rieff | Benjamin Schwar, April 2000, Atlantic Monthly) -INTERVIEW : Manifest Destiny : An interview with Robert D. Kaplan, whose new book, An Empire Wilderness, suggests that the future of the United States won't be at all what we expect (September 16, 1998, Atlantic Monthly) -GERGEN DIALOGUE : PERILS OF OVERPOPULATION : David Gergen, editor-at-large of "U.S. News & World Report," engages Robert Kaplan, contributing editor of the "Atlantic Monthly." The author of The Ends of the Earth: The Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century dicusses the themes of his book, the environment and global political stability (Online Newshour, APRIL 5, 1996) -INTERVIEW : The foreign correspondent Robert D. Kaplan talks about his days among the mujahideen, the killing of Abdul Haq, and why the U.S. must not be afraid to be brutal (Katie Bacon , Atlantic Unbound | November 2, 2001) -PROFILE : Tragic realism : Robert D Kaplan's books may be out of print in Britain, but he is emerging as one of the most influential commentators on the new world order. (Parag Khanna, 2/25/02, New Statesman) -PROFILES : Brilliant Careers : Robert Kaplan : The controversial "Balkan Ghosts" put him on the map. His opinionated, darkly seductive reports of an unraveling world have kept him there. (Laura Rozen, April 17, 2001, Salon) -ESSAY : The Way Bush Sees the World (Steven Mufson, February 17, 2002, Washington Post) -ESSAY : End of the lotus-eaters (Tony Blankley, February 6, 2002, Washington Times) -ESSAY : Expecting the Worst (JUDITH SHULEVITZ, December 16, 2001, NY Times) -ESSAY : KAPLAN/COCKBURN ON THE COMING ANARCHY (Ronald Bleier) -ESSAY : Faux Realism : Spin versus substance in the Bush foreign-policy doctrine (Jeffrey W. Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, July/Aug 2001, Foreign Policy) -ARCHIVES : "Robert D. Kaplan" (Find Articles) -REVIEW : of The Coming Anarchy : Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War. By Robert D. Kaplan (2000) (Richard Bernstein, NY Times) -REVIEW : of The Coming Anarchy (Adam Garfinkle, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of The Coming Anarchy (ANTHONY JAFFE, Creative Loafing) -REVIEW : of Coming Anarchy (Mark Fritz, Blue Ear) -REVIEW : of The Coming Anarchy (First Things) -REVIEW : of The Coming Anarchy (Joe Hovish, The American Legion Librarian) -REVIEW : of The Coming Anarchy (Bhupinder, Crosswinds) -REVIEW : of Eastward to Tartary Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. By Robert D. Kaplan (2000) (RICHARD BERNSTEIN, NY Times) -REVIEW : of Eastward to Tartary (Laura Secor, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Eastward to Tartary (Robyn Creswell, Feed) -REVIEW : of Eastward to Tartary (Ophelia Georgiev Roop, The Sun) -REVIEW : of Eastward to Tartary ( Elliot Jager, Jerusalem Post) -REVIEW : of Eastward to Tartary Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. By Robert D. Kaplan (Laura Secor, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Eastward to Tartary (Rick McGinnis, Eye) -REVIEW : of An Empire Wilderness : Travels Into America's Future. By Robert D. Kaplan (1998) (Thurston Clarke, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (David Brooks, Commentary) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Williamson Chilton, Jr., National Review) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Keith Henderson, CS Monitor) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Michael Lind, Wilson Quarterly) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Jesse Walker, Reason) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Suzannah Lessard , Washington Monthly) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Michael Betzold, Blue Ear) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Valerie Zander, regenerator) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Jim Hotep, Tucson Weekly) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Robert Sibley, Alberta Report) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Clint Driscoll, Colorado Central Magazine) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Rex Roberts, Insight on the News) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Demographia) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (Good Reports) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (GRANT COGSWELL, The Stranger) -REVIEW : of Empire Wilderness (LAWRENCE MODISETT, Naval War College ) -REVIEW : of The Ends of the Earth : A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century. By Robert D. Kaplan (1996) (Michael Ignatieff, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of The Ends of the Earth (Ethan Casey, Blue Ear) -REVIEW : of The Ends of the Earth (Emil Franzi, Tucson Weekly) -REVIEW : of The Ends of the Earth (Ann Skea, Eclectica) -REVIEW : of The Ends of the Earth (Scott London) -REVIEW : of The Ends of the Earth (John M. Flanagin , National Strategy Review) -REVIEW : of Balkan Ghosts : A Journey Through History. By Robert D. Kaplan (1993) (Istvan Deak, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite By Robert D. Kaplan (Daniel Pipes, The Wall Street Journal) -REVIEW : of The Arabists (1993) (Richard B. Parker, Tales Magazine) -REVIEW : of The Arabists (Michael Kolodner, Tales) -REVIEW : of Warrior Politics by Robert D. Kaplan (Donald Kagan, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Warrior Politics (Newt Gingrich) -REVIEW : of Warrior Politics (STEVEN E. ALFORD , Houston Chronicle) -REVIEW : of Warrior Politics (KNS Maré, Mountain Area Information Network) -REVIEW: of Warrior Politics (David Gordon, Mises Review) -BOOK LIST : 10 Most Requested Books from the State Department Library : The Arabists by Robert D. Kaplan ( Dan Clemmer, Chief Librarian US State Department) -BOOK LIST : Belliveau's top 12 literary travel books : The Ends of the Earth: Robert D. Kaplan (Beau Monde) Book-related and General Links: GENERAL : -ESSAY : Stability, America's Enemy (Ralph Peters, Parameters, Winter 2001-02) -ESSAY : Jihad vs. McWorld : The two axial principles of our age -- tribalism and globalism -- clash at every point except one: they may both be threatening to democracy (Benjamin Barber, March 1992, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Today's News Quiz (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, November 20, 2001, NY Times) -ESSAY : The Diversity Myth: America's Leading Export : The hortatory version of our history, in which America has long been a land of ethnic tolerance and multicultural harmony, leaves us with nothing useful to say to the failed states and riven polities of the post-Cold War world (Benjamin Schwarz, May 1995, Atlantic Monthly) -ESSAY : Corporate Takeover (Robert Bryce, MARCH 16, 1998, Austin Chronicle) -ESSAY : The Environmental Factor (Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Wilson Quarterly) -ESSAY : BEYOND KOSOVO : Preventive Diplomacy (WILLIAM D. HARTUNG, May 10, 1999, The Nation) -ESSAY : The Fear of Death and the Longing for Immortality: Hobbes and Thucydides on Human Nature and the Problem of Anarchy : Recent challenges to the modern secular state invite us to reexamine the arguments made by its theoretical founders, especially Hobbes. (Peter J. Ahrensdorf, American Political Science Review, October 27 2000) -ESSAY : Sub-saharan Africa in global capitalism (John S. Saul, Monthly Review, July-August, 1999) -Hunting bin Laden (PBS Frontline) -ESSAY : Ned Walker's Wrong Turn : From American ambassador to Arab apologist. (SETH LIPSKY, November 28, 2001, Wall Street Journal) ISAIAH BERLIN (see Brothers Judd's review of The Hedgehog and the Fox by Isaiah Berlin) CHURCHILL : (links follow Brothers Judd's review of Churchill : A Biography by Roy Jenkins) THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679) was born in Westport, Wiltshire, ENG on April 5, 1588 -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : hobbes, thomas -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : your search : hobbes, thomas -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : "thomas hobbes" -Hobbes, Thomas (Catalog of the Scientific Community, Richard S. Westfall Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University) -ESSAY : Four different facets of Hobbes' natural state (Teruhito SAKO, 1997) -REVIEW: of History and Modernity in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes by Robert P. Kraynak (Joshua Mitchell, The American Political Science Review) -REVIEW: of Hobbes on Civil Association by Michael Oakeshott (1978) (Thomas A. Spragens, Jr., The American Political Science Review) -REVIEW: of Hobbes Studies by K. C. Brown (Michael Oakeshott, The English Historical Review) -ESSAY: Oakeshott's Hobbesian Myth: Pride, Character and the Limits of Reason (Bruce P. Frohnen, December 1990, The Western Political Quarterly) -ESSAY: Thomas Hobbes's "Highway to Peace" (Donald W. Hanson, Spring 1984, International Organization) -ESSAY: Hobbes among the Critics (J. B. Stewart, December 1958, Political Science Quarterly) -ESSAY: The Stranger, Prudence, and Trust in Hobbes's Theory (Frederick D. Weil, september 1986, Theory and Society) -ESSAY : Political Liberalism and Universalism: Problems in the Theories of David Gauthier and Richard Rorty -ESSAY : Too Representative Government : Why is Congress held in such low esteem? One reason is that as it has become more truly representative, it has tried to solve more and more problems, including many that no one knows how to solve--thus raising expectations and frequently disappointing them. Quick-fix reforms aren't likely to make the public any happier with the legislative branch (Steven Stark, May 1995, Atlantic Monthly) -ARCHIVES : "thomas hobbes" (Find Articles) RALPH PETERS :
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