The Loom of Time
Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China
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- ¥700
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A 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
“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.”—National Review
FINALIST FOR THE OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB’S CORNELIUS RYAN AWARD
The 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. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored 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. In the Loom of Time, 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.
In The Loom of Time, 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. As 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 practiced today.
To 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 prioritize these facts over ideals on paper. The Loom of Time is a challenging, clear-eyed book that promises to reframe our vision of the global twenty-first century.
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The vast Muslim heartland of Afro-Eurasia is a tumult that might find stability and prosperity but rarely democracy, according to this sweeping geopolitical meditation. Drawing on travelogue, interviews, scholarly literature, and 50 years of reporting on the region, Kaplan (The Coming Anarchy) surveys a "Greater Middle East" stretching from the Nile to the Uyghur community of Xinjiang, China. In Istanbul he ponders President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's turn from secularism toward a reprise of the Ottoman Empire. In Cairo he notes Egyptians' preference for Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's stolid dictatorship over the chaos of the elected Islamist government of Mohammad Morsi. He deplores Iran's "bleak, radical, utterly despised, and dysfunctional" theocracy but holds out hope that the ancient civilization might attain liberal democracy. From these and other examples, Kaplan distills larger themes: geography is destiny; the West's modernizing influence has energized the region's oscillation between secular dictatorship and Islamist reaction; and that "along with empire, monarchy is the most natural form of government," so that a competent, nonideological autocrat may be preferable to an anarchic democracy. (He somewhat credulously paints Saudi crown prince Muhammad bin Salman as a dynamic ruler who is liberalizing Saudi society.) Some may criticize Kaplan's conservative outlook and grand pronouncements, but he offers much provocative food for thought.
