Product Description

Author of Balkan Ghosts, Robert D. Kaplan now travels from West Africa to Southeast Asia to report on a world of disintegrating nation-states, warring nationalities, metastasizing populations, and dwindling resources. He emerges with a gritty tour de force of travel writing and political journalism. Whether he is walking through a shantytown in the Ivory Coast or a death camp in Cambodia, talking with refugees, border guards, or Iranian revolutionaries, Kaplan travels under the most arduous conditions and purveys the most startling truths. Intimate and intrepid, erudite and visceral, The Ends of the Earth is an unflinching look at the places and peoples that will make tomorrow's headlines--and the history of the next millennium.

"Kaplan is an American master of...travel writing  from hell...Pertinent and compelling."--New York Times Book Review

"An impressive work. Most travel books seem trivial beside it."--Washington Post Book World

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #248735 in Books
• Published on: 1997-01-28
• Released on: 1997-01-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 496 pages

Amazon.com Review
"The future here could be sadder than the present," writes Robert Kaplan in a chapter about the African nation of Sierra Leone. From Kaplan's perspective, the same could be said of virtually the entire Third World, which he spends the bulk of this book visiting and describing. Kaplan, an acclaimed foreign correspondent and author of Balkan Ghosts, is congenitally pessimistic about the developmental prospects of West Africa, the Nile Valley, and much of Asia. This traveler's tale offers dire warnings about overpopulation, environmental degradation, and social chaos. We should all hope that Kaplan's forecast is wrong, but we ignore him at our peril.

From Scientific American
Kaplan is a superb reporter, expertly weaving his precise, vivid observation of facts at hand into a larger context of global social change.

From the Inside Flap
Author of Balkan Ghosts, Robert D. Kaplan now travels from West Africa to Southeast Asia to report on a world of disintegrating nation-states, warring nationalities, metastasizing populations, and dwindling resources. He emerges with a gritty tour de force of travel writing and political journalism. Whether he is walking through a shantytown in the Ivory Coast or a death camp in Cambodia, talking with refugees, border guards, or Iranian revolutionaries, Kaplan travels under the most arduous conditions and purveys the most startling truths. Intimate and intrepid, erudite and visceral, The Ends of the Earth is an unflinching look at the places and peoples that will make tomorrow's headlines--and the history of the next millennium.

"Kaplan is an American master of...travel writing  from hell...Pertinent and compelling."--New York Times Book Review

"An impressive work. Most travel books seem trivial beside it."--Washington Post Book World

Customer Reviews

Book about trouble spots in the world could have been better
In this book, written some 15 years ago as huge parts of the world were coming out of decades of communism, US journalist Kaplan tells of his travels to some of the more troubled spots in the world: West Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Indochina. His thesis is that huge parts of the world are going through a period of anarchy, or, to put it in another words, they are going to hell. The chapters about Iran and Turkey are surprisingly good (Kaplan bothered himself into learning about the history and politics of these places before going there, and his impressions are reasoned and intelligent); the material about Central Asia is by comparison, extremely poor (he doesn't seem to say there anything except that these countries reeks). The other countries covered are in between in terms of the quality of his comments. Overall, and given the fact that Kaplan has the opportunity to travel that few other people have, this book could have been far better. Despite the huge bibliography in the back, the research into it seemed particularly poor.

Not Kaplan's best but well worth while
First a few criticisms: Kaplan covers a monster amount of ground in this book without developing a cohesive narrative element. For instance a journey along the Silk Road would have an obvious narrative element. He could have developed even a contrived means of guiding the reader along. Perhaps he could have matched the footsteps of Alexander the Great, or used geology or some common element to give continutuity and guidance to the reader. Some might argue he uses the common travails of the developing world to link his travels but instead he spent most of his time explaining how Iran wasn't Turkey for example. I think this lack of cohesion can confuse the reader. But ultimately, Kaplan is not for light reading. He is not intent on amusing. And he is very interested in giving the reader the unvarnished world as he sees it.

So while I criticize Kaplan for not being Thoreaux of some other great travel writer it may also be his greatest strength. Kaplan is his own State Department, CIA and Assocaited Press. He gives background derived from copious research. He offers experiential comparisons. He draws on local sources. All balanced with what can almost be called objectivity.

At times, Kaplans near love fest with Iran annoyed. But it is hard to fault someone with experience well beyond that of any diplomat or common reporter.

All in all, this is not his best book but still extremely enjoyable and worth reading.

No need to write a long review
Because all I have to say is that this is an outstanding book. Incredibly in depth, the bibliography itself is worth reading if only to garner more reading materials. Made me wish I had Lexis at home, to access some of the older articles he references. Kaplan won me over completely when he exhibited reverence for Kapuscinski in the section on Iran.

Read one of Kaplan's books, you won't regret it.