{"title":"Robert D. Kaplan","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRobert D. Kaplan\u003c\/strong\u003e offers a compelling exploration of global politics, history, and military strategy. His works combine sharp analysis with vivid storytelling, delving into the complexities of power, culture, and conflict across different regions and eras.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders can expect thought-provoking narratives that illuminate the forces shaping our world, from the intricate dynamics of the Adriatic to the shifting landscapes of China and beyond. Kaplan’s writing challenges conventional perspectives, making his books essential for those interested in understanding contemporary and historical geopolitical realities.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"adriatic-by-robert-d-kaplan-9780399591051","title":"Adriatic","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA vital, deeply personal exploration of a historically volatile region that is once again a global crossroads—the Adriatic Sea, including Italy, Croatia, Albania, and Greece—from the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eBalkan Ghosts\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Revenge of Geography\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"An elegantly layered exploration of Europe's past and future... a multifaceted masterpiece, a glittering excavation.\" — \u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"A lovely, personal journey around the Adriatic, in which Robert Kaplan revisits places and peoples he first encountered decades ago.\" — Peter Frankopan, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Silk Roads\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the best books of the year — \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this insightful travelogue, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eBalkan Ghosts\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Revenge of Geography\u003c\/i\u003e, turns his perceptive eye to a region that for centuries has been a meeting point of cultures, trade, and ideas. He undertakes a journey around the Adriatic Sea, through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece, to reveal that far more is happening in the region than most news stories let on. Often overlooked, the Adriatic is in fact at the center of the most significant challenges of our time, including the rise of populist politics, the refugee crisis, and battles over the control of energy resources. And it is once again becoming a global trading hub that will determine Europe's relationship with the rest of the world as China and Russia compete for dominance in its ports.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKaplan explores how the region has changed over his three decades of observing it as a journalist. He finds that to understand both the historical and contemporary Adriatic is to gain a window on the future of Europe as a whole, and he unearths a stark truth: The era of populism is an epiphenomenon—a symptom of the age of nationalism coming to an end. Instead, the continent is returning to alignments of the early modern era as distinctions between East and West meet and break down within the Adriatic countries and ultimately throughout Europe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a brilliant cross-pollination of history, literature, art, architecture, and current events, in \u003ci\u003eAdriatic\u003c\/i\u003e, Kaplan demonstrates that this unique region that exists at the intersection of civilizations holds revelatory truths for the future of global affairs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46506284548332,"sku":"9780399591051","price":53.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/6819813482330.jpg?v=1748693037"},{"product_id":"the-loom-of-time-by-robert-d-kaplan-9780593242797","title":"The Loom of Time","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA sweeping exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach and which may hold the key to the shifting world order of the 21st century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Engaging . . . Even those who resist Kaplan's tragic sensibility have much to learn from his look at the emerging Middle East and its recent history.\"\u003c\/em\u003e - National Review\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFINALIST FOR THE OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB'S CORNELIUS RYAN AWARD\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavoured 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Loom of Time\u003c\/em\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eThe Loom of Time\u003c\/em\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs 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 practised today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTo 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 prioritise these facts over ideals on paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Loom of Time\u003c\/em\u003e is a challenging, clear-eyed book that promises to reframe our vision of the global twenty-first century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46655263047916,"sku":"9780593242797","price":59.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/5417763482399.jpg?v=1752466028"},{"product_id":"the-tragic-mind-by-robert-d-kaplan-9780300276770","title":"The Tragic Mind","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"Spare, elegant and poignant... If there is a single contemporary book that should be pressed into the hands of those who decide issues of war and peace, this is it.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e—John Gray, \u003cem\u003eNew Statesman\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"It is tragic that Robert D. Kaplan's luminous \u003cem\u003eThe Tragic Mind\u003c\/em\u003e is so urgently needed.\"\u003c\/strong\u003e—George F. Will\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSome 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 \u003cem\u003eThe Tragic Mind\u003c\/em\u003e, 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46796903842028,"sku":"9780300276770","price":30.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/24765443482294.jpg?v=1757115554"},{"product_id":"waste-land-by-robert-d-kaplan-9781911723493","title":"Waste Land","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA darkly brilliant, wide-angled vision of our chaotic, globalised world, where present crises resonate with past tyrannies, from a bestselling geopolitical expert.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe are entering a new era of global cataclysm; a deadly mix of war, climate change, great-power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, and the end of empire. In \u003ci\u003eWaste Land\u003c\/i\u003e, renowned world affairs author Robert D. Kaplan explains incisively how we got here and where we are going.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eKaplan's trademark sweep of history, literature, politics, and philosophy draws parallels between today's challenges and those of Germany's interwar Weimar Republic. Today, too, every national disaster could spread across the world, given this century's singular dilemmas: pandemics, recessions; urbanisation, mass migration; destabilisation under large-scale democracy and great-power conflict; and the intimate bonds forged by digital media. Could stability and historic liberalism, rather than mass democracy per se, save world populations from anarchic breakdown?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWaste Land\u003c\/i\u003e is a bracing glimpse into a future defined by twenty-first-century technology, but remarkably resonant with the past. The situation may be spiralling out of our control—unless our leaders act first.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47487753912556,"sku":"9781911723493","price":44.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/694e4a0564efa406071c9477970b6d2c.jpg?v=1775769281"},{"product_id":"china-whisperers-by-robert-d-kaplan-9781668264140","title":"China Whisperers","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom one of the most prominent post-Cold War geopolitics experts, an “illuminating, insightful, and essential” (Chris Miller, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eChip War\u003c\/i\u003e) look at US-China relations and the China experts who have influenced—and continue to influence—America’s policy toward its greatest rival.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFew countries or civilizations are as big or as old as China. In the minds of Americans whose job it is to contemplate international affairs, the present-day superpower has always been more than just the “ultimate place”: quite simply, it is the essential foreign policy challenge—one frequently thought incapable of being solved.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEnter the China Whisperers—those of the past \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e the present. A hundred years ago, they were American missionaries, travellers, journalists, linguists, and foreign service officers who were on the ground, fluent in Mandarin, and enamoured of the culture. They were the true China experts, and over a period of a few transformative decades they had front-row seats to the formation of both the Nationalist and Communist parties; crossed the Gobi Desert; searched out the young Mao Zedong in the wilds of Yen'an province; provided visionary analysis on the American predicament in Asia; bore witness to China’s World War II; and made invaluable contributions to journalism, diplomacy, and American foreign policy in East Asia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe China Whisperers’ ranks have been filled more recently not so much by nomadic journalists and explorers as by multi-lingual policy experts who’ve had the ear of the person occupying the Oval Office. Often, their voices have proved critical, counselling engagement over precipitous moves. Across the decades, \u003ci\u003eChina Whisperers\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of how Americans interpreting China have both succeeded and failed—for while some proved prophetic others were shown to be dupes. The book paints a full-bodied portrait of the drama of trying to understand a radically different and age-old culture—and of the US-China rivalry that constitutes the most dangerous element of geopolitics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67633414177004,"sku":"9781668264140","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781668264140-china-whisperers-1.jpg?v=1791162572"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/robert-d-kaplan.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}