September 11, 2012

The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate

By Robert D. Kaplan

In The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, CNAS Non-Resident Senior Fellow and Stratfor Chief Geopolitical Analyst Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographiesand proximities to other embattled lands. Kaplan then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Iran and the Arab Middle East. The result is a holistic interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia. Kaplan shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century's looming cataclysms.

Robert D. Kaplan is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at CNAS and Chief Geopolitical Analyst at Stratfor. He has authored 14 books on foreign affairs, including Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power. Kaplan's essays have appeared inThe New York TimesThe Washington PostThe Atlantic , the Financial TimesThe Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times, as well as in all the major foreign affairs journals. In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine named Kaplan among the world's "Top 100 Global Thinkers." In 2009, he was appointed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and served until 2011. New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman calls Kaplan among the "most widely read" authors defining the post-Cold War.