JM Book Blog
2/21/2006
Kaplan: America's Future
Robert D. Kaplan: An Empire Wilderness, Travels into America's Future
Hardcover: 375 pages
Publisher: Random House 1998
ISBN: 0679776877
Kaplan - one of my favorite authors - writes with enviable ease; gliding through history, connecting historical places and actors, combining everything into a constantly evolving continuum that seems rational yet simultaneously he neglects not the babel character of our shared reality.
Kaplan writes about the contemporary sole superpower but connects features of it's development to places like Afghanistan and Bosnia. He benchmarks contemporary US to ancient Rome, travels in the Midwest, yet talks about Central Asia.
Kaplan's fast thinking makes the reading experience highly entertaining and informative. He underlines the power of ideas and the power of geography in shaping the US and the world. Geopolitical and geoeconomical trends are tilting the US focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the east-west horizon to the north-west unite creating areas and regions (such as Cascadia) and undermining the federal power.
Political travelogue is my preferred style of literature.
Second opinion: Thurston Clarke / NY Times (requires registration) ¶ 2/21/2006 12:40:00 ap.
Robert D. Kaplan: An Empire Wilderness, Travels into America's FutureHardcover: 375 pages
Publisher: Random House 1998
ISBN: 0679776877
Kaplan - one of my favorite authors - writes with enviable ease; gliding through history, connecting historical places and actors, combining everything into a constantly evolving continuum that seems rational yet simultaneously he neglects not the babel character of our shared reality.
Kaplan writes about the contemporary sole superpower but connects features of it's development to places like Afghanistan and Bosnia. He benchmarks contemporary US to ancient Rome, travels in the Midwest, yet talks about Central Asia.
Kaplan's fast thinking makes the reading experience highly entertaining and informative. He underlines the power of ideas and the power of geography in shaping the US and the world. Geopolitical and geoeconomical trends are tilting the US focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the east-west horizon to the north-west unite creating areas and regions (such as Cascadia) and undermining the federal power.
"...economic optimism is the closest thing America has ever had to a real ideology..."Kaplan feels that while America had the tabula rasa in lacking the tragic history of the Old World, it's power in shaping the world is also fundamentally changing itself. USA is a creature constantly undergoing transformation, Kaplan shows where it might be heading.
Political travelogue is my preferred style of literature.
Second opinion: Thurston Clarke / NY Times (requires registration) ¶ 2/21/2006 12:40:00 ap.
2/08/2006
Lebow: Tragedy
Richard Ned Lebow: The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and Orders
Paperback: 424 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press 2003
ISBN: 0521534852
Political realism is usually viewed as an unethical discipline contrasting idealism. Lebow argues that the wisdom of classical realism - it's understanding of tragedy - makes realism in essence an ethical approach to international relations.
Beside the everpowerful descriptive element of realism, it's holistic, normative element is even more important in understanding the complex world of IR.
Lebow uses works of Thucydides, von Clausewitz and Hans J. Morgenthau in showing the symbiotic relation between power and justice, interests and ethics. Lebow criticizes the overemphasis of rationalism and positivism by contemporary realists and stresses the conventions of the epoch, morality of the age, sense of community, in which motives such as fear and honor (emotions) dominate the formulation of state actor interests.
It is impossible to define national interests without values. Justice provides a sensible framework for formulating interests.
Lebow analyzes the texts with admirable prudence and relates the old answers to new questions. Lebow argues for a more humane US foreign policy. In his opinion the worst enemy of the sole superpower lies in itself.
Richard Ned Lebow: The Tragic Vision of Politics: Ethics, Interests and OrdersPaperback: 424 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press 2003
ISBN: 0521534852
Political realism is usually viewed as an unethical discipline contrasting idealism. Lebow argues that the wisdom of classical realism - it's understanding of tragedy - makes realism in essence an ethical approach to international relations.
Beside the everpowerful descriptive element of realism, it's holistic, normative element is even more important in understanding the complex world of IR.
Lebow uses works of Thucydides, von Clausewitz and Hans J. Morgenthau in showing the symbiotic relation between power and justice, interests and ethics. Lebow criticizes the overemphasis of rationalism and positivism by contemporary realists and stresses the conventions of the epoch, morality of the age, sense of community, in which motives such as fear and honor (emotions) dominate the formulation of state actor interests.
It is impossible to define national interests without values. Justice provides a sensible framework for formulating interests.
Lebow analyzes the texts with admirable prudence and relates the old answers to new questions. Lebow argues for a more humane US foreign policy. In his opinion the worst enemy of the sole superpower lies in itself.
"Classical realism is an expression of the tragic understanding of politics, and of life more generally." (p.63)Second opinion: Catherine Lu / Carnegie Council ¶ 2/08/2006 09:00:00 ip.
