this is a good book. it pulls together economic, social, political, regional, geographic, and environmental happenings in the post cold war era into a stark, and bleak vision of the future.
below is a review posted on amazon.com
(this really doesn't have anything to do with the mayans, but is still an interesting read).
This book collects 9 essays by Kaplan, known for political realism and bold travel writing. The first and last essays are the worst; the middle seven are not so bad.
In the first essay Kaplan argues that the present peace will not last long, that its "degeneration" in places like sub-Saharan Africa will lead to anarchy, with disturbing results even in the first world. His main evidence is environmental change and resource depletion (especially soil and water--his argument would be stronger if he included oil). I don't know what golden age Kaplan is looking back to in sub-Saharan Africa (in Eastern Europe I guess it must be the Ottomans); so anarchy there will be no surprise. But with grand assumptions and meager evidence--surely he has more than he cites, but he has to deal with apparently contrary evidence to be truly convincing--he declares breathtaking conclusions, such as the dissolution of the USA into ethnic warfare. Perhaps he's right, but his analysis is so thin that he's not persuasive.
Yet there are moments of light, as when he describes the historical perspective of the occupants of Ankara's slums, quoting Naipaul. Or when he analyzes the "lies of the mapmaker," more precisely the lies of the post-WWII statesmen who carelessly created the states defined by the lines on the map.
So many people naively believe that the 3rd world will inevitably become like the 1st; but Kaplan believes it will go the other way just as inevitably. His first essay is a polemic for his belief. I'm sorry; it has little useful analysis or insight.
Reading the second essay, "Was Democracy Just a Moment?" is like stepping from darkness into light (of course there are still shadows). If you believe that democracy is always the best government, this essay will be challenging for you.
The third essay, "Idealism Won't Stop Mass Murder," will be interesting for anyone interested in the causes and preventions of genocide and similar massive tragedies.
Let me skip around a bit, for it is no small irony that an author concerned with mass murder would write in defense of Henry Kissinger, yet that is the purpose of the seventh essay. Kaplan defends a man who is perhaps American history's worst criminal against critics by systematically understating everything Kissinger did in Vietnam, Cambodia, (Kaplan doesn't mention Laos), Cyprus, Chile, (and he doesn't mention East Timor). See Christopher Hitchens' "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," to which Kaplan's essay is a weak response.
The fourth essay explains the need for special forces and institutions such as the CIA. He believes--and I agree--that these are the future of warfare.
The fifth essay is a review of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall." If you don't know why that's famous, Kaplan's essay might even inspire you to try reading it. That happened to me.
The eighth essay is another book review, this time of Conrad's "Nostromo." Kaplan compares the book to "Heart of Darkness" and considers its application to the contemporary third world. (A few years ago an edition of "Nostromo" and "Lord Jim" was published with introductions by Kaplan.) Another book was added to my reading list.
The sixth essay advocates "proportional" responses to foreign policy. Few would argue with the vague philosophy Kaplan presents, except those who eagerly throw American troops into murky conflicts with unclear goals (Kissinger?). Of course, practical applications and interpretations are the real problem. Anyway, this essay is solid and concise.
With the ninth essay Kaplan descends again. Nostalgic for the Cold War and MAD--"the Cold War may have been as close to utopia as we are ever likely to get" p. 171--he wants to be sure that the US rather than the UN is the power of the future. He is sure that the UN wouldn't have enough war, so it would be unprincipled. I'm not making this up! "The US should... take over the UN in order to make it a transparent multiplier of American and Western power. That, of course, may not lead to peace, since others might resent it and fight as a result; but such action would fill the [UN]'s insipid ideological vacuum with at least someone's values--indeed ours. Peace should never be an expediency."
Whoa.
Of course he's right that peace won't last forever; he's right that we (whoever we are) should be prepared to protect ourselves from evil; he's right not to trust the UN unconditionally (don't trust anything unconditionally). But he's wrong to believe that America is not capable of evil. In this respect he's as naive as any idealist: "Of course, [America's] post-Cold War mission to spread democracy is partly a pose." (71).
Partly? PARTLY?
This was my first book by Kaplan. I'm going to read another. Perhaps he has written some more well-reasoned arguments elsewhere.
Kaplan is relevant because he understands human ambition; he is wrong because he doesn't believe it can be channeled productively and peacefully. No one should ignore such a voice, but no one should read uncritically.
Just this week, news reports were looking pretty bleak. It seems that prices for rice and other grain staples have doubled and tripled in much of the third world. People are starting to demonstrate and riot because they are having trouble getting enough to eat. In our own country the cost of corn and wheat has skyrocketed. The neighborhood convenience store owner was telling me that the price of bagles and pastry is going to be much higher according to his supplier because of the higher cost of flour. Right now the cost of beef is not bad because farmers are slaughtering their animals because of the high price of feed. Next year the price of meat may be astronomical.
If the world does not wake up, and our political leaders realize that we need to get serious about population control and family planning, we are in for a very nasty century. [and I do not mean abortion, I am talking about contraception and later marriage and childbearing. Meanwhile, the education of women has been found to lead to reduced population, so let’s help educate them.
I wonder if the Mayan’s had some knowledge of a recurring major comet strike phenomenon that would account for a predictable world disaster. It is interesting that the 1st Dynasty in Egypt began about 3,000 years ago. I think there was a significant rise in sea level between eight and nine thousand years ago, and the book “ The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes” by Firestone, et al. details a severe comet strike event that may have occurred about 13,000 years ago, ending the Clovis culture and destroying most of the large northern hemisphere animal species. They point out that many meteor showers may be related to space debris left over from that event. Furthermore, they say, “Clube and Napier (1984) predicted that in the year 2000 and continuing for 400 years, Earth would enter another dangerous time in which the planet’s changing orbit would bring us into a potential collision course with the densest parts of the clouds containing some very large debris.”