Since writing Balkan Ghosts — which was reputedly very influential in the Clinton White House during the Balkan conflict — Robert Kaplan has become famous for writing travel literature that is part travelogue and part foreign policy briefing. Most of his books are about parts of the world most Americans couldn’t pick out on a [...]

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Since the first book I read this year is about, among other things, the effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union on former satelittes, I thought I would share this story. I realize it’s a stretch for a blog about books, but I couldn’t resist shining an admittedly small light on the plight of [...]

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Earlier, I handpicked a few quotes from Robert Kaplan’s Eastward to Tartary that offered insight into today’s geopolitical situation, even though they were written nearly a decade ago. I’d like to share one more.
While Israel’s security phobia might at times seem extreme, life in Israel taught me that the liberal-humanist tendancy to see politics primarily [...]

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The book I’m reading at the moment is called Eastward to Tartary. But where the heck is Tartary? It’s certainly not located on any modern map.
According to Wikipedia, “Tartary” was the name used for an area in northern and central Asia. It was inhabited by Turkic and Mongol people who were referrred to as “Tatars” by [...]

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Places Robert Kaplan visited in “Eastward to Tartary”

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One of the interesting things about reading a non-fiction book about current events nearly ten years after the book was originally published is that you have the opportunity to check the author’s analytical ability. Anyone can say anything about the future. But once the future becomes the past, well, then we get to argue about [...]

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Traveling alone is nice, but at first it is also scary and intimidating.

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I have a confession to make. I actually started reading the first book I plan to discuss here in 2008. I’m not sure if a book partially read in 2008 technically counts towards my goal of 25 books about foreign places in 2009, but since I’m in charge, I made the executive decision that it [...]

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