Adriatic
A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age
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4.3 • 9개의 평가
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- US$10.99
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“[An] elegantly layered exploration of Europe’s past and future . . . a multifaceted masterpiece.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A lovely, personal journey around the Adriatic, in which Robert Kaplan revisits places and peoples he first encountered decades ago.”—Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker
In this insightful travelogue, Robert D. Kaplan, geopolitical expert and bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts and The Revenge of Geography, turns his perceptive eye to a region that for centuries has been a meeting point of cultures, trade, and ideas. He undertakes a journey around the Adriatic Sea, through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece, to reveal that far more is happening in the region than most news stories let on. Often overlooked, the Adriatic is in fact at the center of the most significant challenges of our time, including the rise of populist politics, the refugee crisis, and battles over the control of energy resources. And it is once again becoming a global trading hub that will determine Europe’s relationship with the rest of the world as China and Russia compete for dominance in its ports.
Kaplan explores how the region has changed over his three decades of observing it as a journalist. He finds that to understand both the historical and contemporary Adriatic is to gain a window on the future of Europe as a whole, and he unearths a stark truth: The era of populism is an epiphenomenon—a symptom of the age of nationalism coming to an end. Instead, the continent is returning to alignments of the early modern era as distinctions between East and West meet and break down within the Adriatic countries and ultimately throughout Europe.
With a brilliant cross-pollination of history, literature, art, architecture, and current events, in Adriatic, Kaplan demonstrates that this unique region that exists at the intersection of civilizations holds revelatory truths for the future of global affairs.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A trip around the Adriatic Sea opens a window onto Europe's evolving consciousness, argues this labyrinthine political travelogue. Foreign affairs analyst Kaplan (Balkan Ghosts) travels along the Adriatic coast from Italy through Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece, visiting locales from Venice to Corfu, touring churches, ruminating on 3,000 years of history, conferring with intellectuals and perusing Dante, Ezra Pound, and other poets for clues to the region's character. He contends that the area's mash-up of cultures—East and West; Byzantine, Ottoman, and Hapsburg; Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Muslim—provides a promising model of "fluid and multiple" identities for a Europe inundated by migrants. Kaplan serves up his trademark mix of grand geopolitical themes and evocative sightseeing—"Ravenna is a Byzantine jewel of barrel-vaulted brick bearing all the subtle and complex hues of a dying autumn leaf"—in prose that brings to mind a freewheeling, movable seminar. Unfortunately, the resulting lessons tend toward trite truisms—"Europe must aspire to universal values, and yet be anchored to its local beliefs and cultures"—rather than substantive insights. This tour through modern Europe is more diverting than essential.
