The Loom of Time

Informationen zum Autor Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of twenty-two books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including Adriatic , The Good American , The Revenge of Geography , Asia's Cauldron , Monsoon , The Coming Anarchy , and Balkan Ghosts . He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He was a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel. Foreign Policy twice named him one of the world's Top 100 Global Thinkers. Klappentext "The Greater Middle East, the vast region between the Mediterranean and China encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia, existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire: Macedonian, Mongol, Ottoman, Russian, British. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have struggled to maintain stability in the face of power struggles between factions, leadership vaccuums, and the fact of arbitrary borders drawn by exiting imperial rulers with little regard for geography or political groups on the ground. In the Loom of Time, Robert Kaplan explores this broad, fraught space to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance. In The Loom of Time, Kaplan makes an excellent case for realism the world over, but especially for it as an approach to the Greater Middle East. Just as Western attempts as democracy promotion across the Middle East have failed, a new form of economic imperialism is emerging today as China's ambitions fall squarely within the region as the key link between Europe and East Asia. As in the past, the Greater Middle East will be a register of future great power struggles across the globe. And like in the past, thousands of years of imperial rule will continue to cast a long shadow on politics as it is practiced today"-- Leseprobe Chapter 1 Time and Terrain Between Europe and the great, mature civilizations of China and India lies a belt of over three thousand miles, dominated by desert and stony tableland, where rainfall is relatively little, frontiers are contested, political unity has rarely existed, and where, as the late Princeton historian Bernard Lewis claimed, there has been no historical pattern of authority. Lewis's generalization is imperfect, to be sure. Egypt and Iran, it could well be argued, were mature civilizations for thousands of years, as were Iraq and Turkey. Nevertheless, there is a point to be made regarding the general aridity, sheer variety, and political tumult in the lands between the Mediterranean and China. It is this austere landscape that constitutes the Land of Insolence, declared mid-twentieth-century American anthropologist Carleton Coon, referring to the rebellious nature of modern Middle Eastern politics, with its tradition of pride and independence that combines with tribalism and ethnic and sectarian tensions. Coon's phraseology is especially quaint and deterministic, particularly since tribalism has kept the peace within large groups, and in other ways is not the altogether divisive factor the West thinks it is. Nevertheless, Coon's phrase has an undeniable resonance, owing to the indisputably high level of violence and political instability in this yawning region compared to other parts of the globe. For example, a significant part of the population of the Arab world has experienced violent anarchy in recent decades, and according to a U.N. report, though Arabs account for only 5 percent of humanity, they have generated 58 percent of the world's refugees and 68 percent of its battle-related deaths in the second decade of the twenty-firs...

Auteur

Robert D. Kaplan

Texte du rabat

**A stunning exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach but may hold the key to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century

“Continuing Robert D. Kaplan’s work as the premier American scholar of geopolitics . . . a book that everyone who wants to understand the real forces that decide war and peace should read.”—John Gray, author of The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism
 
The Greater Middle East, which Robert D. Kaplan defines as the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia, existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire: Macedonian, Roman, Persian, Mongol, Ottoman, British, Soviet, American. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability in the face of power struggles between factions, leadership vacuums, and the arbitrary borders drawn by exiting imperial rulers with little regard for geography or political groups on the ground. In the Loom of Time, Kaplan explores this broad, fraught space through reporting and travel writing to reveal deeper truths about the impacts of history on the present and how the requirements of stability over anarchy are often in conflict with the ideals of democratic governance. 

In The Loom of Time, Kaplan makes the case for realism as an approach to the Greater Middle East. Just as Western attempts at democracy promotion across the Middle East have failed, a new form of economic imperialism is emerging today as China's ambitions fall squarely within the region as the key link between Europe and East Asia. As in the past, the Greater Middle East will be a register of future great power struggles across the globe. And like in the past, thousands of years of imperial rule will continue to cast a long shadow on politics as it is practiced today. 

To piece together the history of this remarkable place and what it suggests for the future, Kaplan weaves together classic texts, immersive travel writing, and a great variety of voices from every country that all compel the reader to look closely at the realities on the ground and to prioritize these facts over ideals on paper. The Loom of Time is a challenging, clear-eyed book that promises to reframe our vision of the global twenty-first century.

Échantillon de lecture
**Chapter 1

Time and Terrain

Between Europe and the great, mature civilizations of China and India lies a belt of over three thousand miles, dominated by desert and stony tableland, where rainfall is relatively little, frontiers are contested, political unity has rarely existed, and where, as the late Princeton historian Bernard Lewis claimed, there has been no historical pattern of authority. Lewis’s generalization is imperfect, to be sure. Egypt and Iran, it could well be argued, were mature civilizations for thousands of years, as were Iraq and Turkey. Nevertheless, there is a point to be made regarding the general aridity, sheer variety, and political tumult in the lands between the Mediterranean and China. It is this austere landscape that constitutes the “Land of Insolence,” declared mid-twentieth-century American anthropologist Carleton Coon, referring to the rebellious nature of modern Middle Eastern politics, with its tradition of pride and independence that combines with tribalism and ethnic and sectarian tensions. Coon’s phraseology is especially quaint and deterministic, particularly since tribalism has kept the peace within large groups, and in other ways is not the altogether divisive factor the West thinks it is. Nevertheless, Coon’s phrase has an undeniable resonance, owing to the indisputably high level of violence and political instability in this yawning region compared to other parts of the globe. For example, a significant part of the population of the…