Earning The Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role In The World

Features of Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World

An incisive portrait of the American landscape that shows how geography continues to determine Americas role in the worldfrom the bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography and Balkan GhostsAs a boy Robert D Kaplan listened to his truckdriver father tell evocative stories about traveling across America in his youth travels in which he learned to understand the country literally from the ground up There was a specific phrase from Kaplans childhood that captured this perspective A westward traveler must earn the Rockies by drivingnot flyingacross the flat Midwest and Great PlainsIn Earning the Rockies Kaplan undertakes his own crosscountry journey to recapture an appreciation of American geography often lost in the jet age Traveling west in the same direction as the pioneers Kaplan traverses a rich and varied landscape that remains the primary source of American power Along the way he witnesses both prosperity and declineincreasingly cosmopolitan cities that thrive on globalization impoverished towns denuded by the loss of manufacturingand paints a bracingly clear picture of America todayThe history of westward expansion is examined here in a new lightas a story not just of genocide and individualism but also of communalism and a respect for the limits of a waterstarved terrain a frontier experience that bent our national character toward pragmatism Kaplan shows how the great midcentury works of geography and geopolitics by Bernard DeVoto Walter Prescott Webb and Wallace Stegner are more relevant today than ever before Concluding his journey at Naval Base San Diego Kaplan looks out across the Pacific Ocean to the next frontier China India and the emerging nations of Asia And in the final chapter he provides a gripping description of an anarchic world and explains why Americas foreign policy response ought to be rooted in its own geographical situationIn this short intense meditation on the American landscape Robert D Kaplan reminds us of an overlooked source of American strength the fact that we are a nation empire and continent all at once Earning the Rockies is an urgent reminder of how a nations geography still foreshadows its future and how we must reexamine our own landscape in order to confront the challenges that lie before usPraise for Earning the RockiesThere is more insight here into the Age of Trump than in bushels of politicalhorserace journalism Earning the Rockies is a tonic because it brings fundamentals back into viewThe New York Times Book Review Editors ChoiceA sui generis writer Americas East Coast establishment has only one Robert Kaplan someone as fluently knowledgeable about the Balkans Iraq Central Asia and West Africa as he is about Ohio and WyomingFinancial TimesKaplan has pursued stories in places as remote as Yemen and Outer Mongolia In Earning the Rockies he visits a place almost as remote to many Americans these United States The authors point is a good one America is formed in part by a geographic setting that is both sanctuary and watchtowerThe Wall Street JournalA brilliant reminder of the impact of Americas geography on its strategy Kaplans latest contribution should be required readingHenry A KissingerUnflinchingly honest this refreshing approach shows how ideas from outside Washington DC will balance Americas idealism and pragmatism in dealing with a changed worldSecretary of Defense James Mattis