ndoubtedly for most readers of the Diplomatic Courier there is a book or two that are formative, books that shaped how they look at the world or memorable for how they challenged preconceived notions—for good or for ill. For me, that book was Robert D. Kaplan’s “The Coming Anarchy,” which was assigned reading for me as an undergraduate at the University of Connecticut.
It will come as no surprise to those who know me that Kaplan’s argument struck a chord. His political analysis may have been debatable, but I found his contrarian argument very appealing, and one with which I found myself agreeing. The world, he argued then, was not a tidy place. Instead, it’s a place where old enmities and geography still matter – and things are not necessarily headed to an interconnected utopia. Hard power and interests continue to matter, especially as the ability of states to affect change is eroding. This view is contrary to that of most authors I read as an undergrad, most of whom seemed to find the world heading inexorably toward a better place – my realist sensibilities marked me out among my college peers, a dour undergrad amongst hopeful idealists.
In a further twist of events, I found myself sharing a car with my favorite professor, Dr. Elizabeth Hanson, and Kaplan - an alumnus of the University of Connecticut- on the way to a small dinner in his honor. Later, I helped facilitate a discussion with him, which was about as “cool” an event as could happen for a nerd like me.
Kaplan occupies an interesting niche which defies categorization. He is a journalist and travel writer, but also a geopolitical commentator who blends art, history, literature, and architecture into a curious mélange. He’s a sort of high-brow intellectual Anthony Bourdain, wearing tweed in lieu of tattoos, although I imagine given their differences in style the two would not have enjoyed sharing a meal with each other. His writing can certainly be an acquired taste, and so it is with his latest book “Adriatic”.
“Adriatic” is in a way the most Kaplan of Kaplan books. It is a weighty tome despite its brevity, exploring art and architecture, poetry and politics, literature and the lives of obscure historical figures. It is said that writers write for themselves and here Kaplan most certainly wrote for himself here.
Starting in Rimini, Kaplan travels clockwise around the titular sea, stopping in Venice, Trieste, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Tirana, and ending in Corfu. As the world slowly finds its feet again, Kaplan is a welcome guide who helps us vicariously experience that slowly returning pleasure of travel.
Kaplan’s sense of place is unique among travel writers. Whereas Erika Fatland very much was an enjoyable active participant in her travels around Russia’s borders and Anthony Bourdain was a semi-detached but intimately connected observer, Kaplan dives deep into history to find the sense of a place. He writes as evocatively of things that happened in the 12th and 13th centuries as he does at the cafe where he savored an espresso.Subtitled “A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age,” the inner flap of Kaplan’s suggests that it contains “profound revelations about the future” as Kaplan the waters between Italy and the Balkans. I suspect that an editor or marketer took some liberties with the dust jacket as that’s not quite what comes across when reading the book. Readers should jettison expectations that Kaplan forecasts the future on his travels. Instead, readers should simply enjoy the history lessons Kaplan weaves into his own travel experiences. While he does have the occasional aside about China, the European Union’s future, authoritarianism, or Middle Eastern politics, these are truly asides. Literal sentences thrown in amongst lengthy disquisitions on a painting or reflections about his hotels and cafes.
This is not to say he ignores geopolitics. Revisiting the Adriatic of his youth, he finds it both changed and unchanged. In passing, he ruminates on the future of China, the U.S., and the EU. He opines about the mixing of cultures in the Adriatic and how the questions of culture and history remain unanswered and due to be affected by the addition of yet another culture and civilization—China. He reflects on the European Union’s experiment, suggesting it is far more about peace than economics. He suggests that Europe’s maturation and unification was borne on the backs of Middle Eastern and North African dictators, who kept their populations down, and the Mediterranean which until recently kept migrant flows from reaching Europe’s shores.
At one point he writes, quite rightly, “Empire, to be successful, requires unquestioned moral legitimacy. America has failed at this, and this is something for the emerging Chinese to keep in mind.” His commentary is, of course, made only in passing. He writes as if he were making an aside in a conversation as much as a full-throated observation; something said over a latte whilst reading the Financial Times.
That passing nature can lead to trouble as an off-handed remark about quite serious matters may sound quippy (prompting murmurs of agreement or snorts of disagreeing derision), but grossly oversimplifies the realities on-the-ground. It is ironic that he reflects on the controversy surrounding his earlier book, “Balkan Ghosts”, noting that he should have read more history as opposed to reporting raw commentary from the field. While he is much more circumspect in “Adriatic,” It would seem he hasn’t quite escaped the pursuit of geopolitical pith.
In the end, Kaplan’s worldview is perhaps more pragmatic or conservative than many will enjoy. It contrasts with the ideals and idealization of the traditional strand of geopolitical liberalism and undoubtedly that makes some uncomfortable. Yet this is not a hopeless or cynical book. Kaplan instead seeks to reflect on the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be. It is nonetheless hopeful in that way—by seeing things as they are and acting accordingly, the possibility of a better future can be realized. In his section on Venice, Kaplan sums it up neatly:
“…Geography matters. … [G]eopolitics—the battle for space and power—is eternal. [S]tates built on realist and pragmatic principles survive longer than states built on idealistic and moralistic ones. Thus, we must think tragically in order to avoid tragedy. This, in turn, means that order comes before freedom and interests come before values, because without order there is no freedom for anybody, and without interests our values cannot follow and operate.”
Reflecting on the world today, I suspect there is much in this with which readers would agree.
As a travel writer, Kaplan can be wonderfully evocative, reminding the reader (as he certainly did for me) why I love to travel. The splendid isolation of encountering new places, and meeting and learning from new people and new places. One of my most enjoyable pursuits is leisurely reading at a café—amongst people, but not with people. As Kaplan writes, “Truly, I travel in order to read. I cannot do one without the other. The weight of clothes in my gear is constraining, the weight of books liberating”.
Such a sentiment speaks directly to me as invariably I spend as much time selecting the books to accompany my travels as I do the clothes I am to wear, whilst leaving space for the books I will inevitably purchase. Kaplan was as much writing about me as he was himself when he said, “Travel is the art of usefully wasting time. I read a good serious book for two hours over a double espresso in a café. I get more out of reading when away from home, where I am less burdened by worries and thus able to concentrate better.”
Can we divine the future from the experiences of countries around the Adriatic? After reading Kaplan, I’m skeptical, but that’s not really why I read “Adriatic”. I read Kaplan, now, not for what his books say about the future, but what they say about the past and present. I’m likely to revisit “Adriatic” again, as I have his other books, to enjoy them for what they are—evocative reflections on places and sensibilities, grounded in history but buoyed by art and architecture.
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A Grand Tour Around the Adriatic
View of the Adriatic, Croatia. Photo via Pixabay.
April 30, 2022
In his latest book "Adriatic," Robert Kaplan reflects on the current and future states of countries bordering the Adriatic Sea through the lens of history and his own travels. Diplomatic Courier's Joshua Huminski says that this "most Kaplan of Kaplan books" is worth reading, then re-reading.
U
ndoubtedly for most readers of the Diplomatic Courier there is a book or two that are formative, books that shaped how they look at the world or memorable for how they challenged preconceived notions—for good or for ill. For me, that book was Robert D. Kaplan’s “The Coming Anarchy,” which was assigned reading for me as an undergraduate at the University of Connecticut.
It will come as no surprise to those who know me that Kaplan’s argument struck a chord. His political analysis may have been debatable, but I found his contrarian argument very appealing, and one with which I found myself agreeing. The world, he argued then, was not a tidy place. Instead, it’s a place where old enmities and geography still matter – and things are not necessarily headed to an interconnected utopia. Hard power and interests continue to matter, especially as the ability of states to affect change is eroding. This view is contrary to that of most authors I read as an undergrad, most of whom seemed to find the world heading inexorably toward a better place – my realist sensibilities marked me out among my college peers, a dour undergrad amongst hopeful idealists.
In a further twist of events, I found myself sharing a car with my favorite professor, Dr. Elizabeth Hanson, and Kaplan - an alumnus of the University of Connecticut- on the way to a small dinner in his honor. Later, I helped facilitate a discussion with him, which was about as “cool” an event as could happen for a nerd like me.
Kaplan occupies an interesting niche which defies categorization. He is a journalist and travel writer, but also a geopolitical commentator who blends art, history, literature, and architecture into a curious mélange. He’s a sort of high-brow intellectual Anthony Bourdain, wearing tweed in lieu of tattoos, although I imagine given their differences in style the two would not have enjoyed sharing a meal with each other. His writing can certainly be an acquired taste, and so it is with his latest book “Adriatic”.
“Adriatic” is in a way the most Kaplan of Kaplan books. It is a weighty tome despite its brevity, exploring art and architecture, poetry and politics, literature and the lives of obscure historical figures. It is said that writers write for themselves and here Kaplan most certainly wrote for himself here.
Starting in Rimini, Kaplan travels clockwise around the titular sea, stopping in Venice, Trieste, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Tirana, and ending in Corfu. As the world slowly finds its feet again, Kaplan is a welcome guide who helps us vicariously experience that slowly returning pleasure of travel.
Kaplan’s sense of place is unique among travel writers. Whereas Erika Fatland very much was an enjoyable active participant in her travels around Russia’s borders and Anthony Bourdain was a semi-detached but intimately connected observer, Kaplan dives deep into history to find the sense of a place. He writes as evocatively of things that happened in the 12th and 13th centuries as he does at the cafe where he savored an espresso.Subtitled “A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age,” the inner flap of Kaplan’s suggests that it contains “profound revelations about the future” as Kaplan the waters between Italy and the Balkans. I suspect that an editor or marketer took some liberties with the dust jacket as that’s not quite what comes across when reading the book. Readers should jettison expectations that Kaplan forecasts the future on his travels. Instead, readers should simply enjoy the history lessons Kaplan weaves into his own travel experiences. While he does have the occasional aside about China, the European Union’s future, authoritarianism, or Middle Eastern politics, these are truly asides. Literal sentences thrown in amongst lengthy disquisitions on a painting or reflections about his hotels and cafes.
This is not to say he ignores geopolitics. Revisiting the Adriatic of his youth, he finds it both changed and unchanged. In passing, he ruminates on the future of China, the U.S., and the EU. He opines about the mixing of cultures in the Adriatic and how the questions of culture and history remain unanswered and due to be affected by the addition of yet another culture and civilization—China. He reflects on the European Union’s experiment, suggesting it is far more about peace than economics. He suggests that Europe’s maturation and unification was borne on the backs of Middle Eastern and North African dictators, who kept their populations down, and the Mediterranean which until recently kept migrant flows from reaching Europe’s shores.
At one point he writes, quite rightly, “Empire, to be successful, requires unquestioned moral legitimacy. America has failed at this, and this is something for the emerging Chinese to keep in mind.” His commentary is, of course, made only in passing. He writes as if he were making an aside in a conversation as much as a full-throated observation; something said over a latte whilst reading the Financial Times.
That passing nature can lead to trouble as an off-handed remark about quite serious matters may sound quippy (prompting murmurs of agreement or snorts of disagreeing derision), but grossly oversimplifies the realities on-the-ground. It is ironic that he reflects on the controversy surrounding his earlier book, “Balkan Ghosts”, noting that he should have read more history as opposed to reporting raw commentary from the field. While he is much more circumspect in “Adriatic,” It would seem he hasn’t quite escaped the pursuit of geopolitical pith.
In the end, Kaplan’s worldview is perhaps more pragmatic or conservative than many will enjoy. It contrasts with the ideals and idealization of the traditional strand of geopolitical liberalism and undoubtedly that makes some uncomfortable. Yet this is not a hopeless or cynical book. Kaplan instead seeks to reflect on the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be. It is nonetheless hopeful in that way—by seeing things as they are and acting accordingly, the possibility of a better future can be realized. In his section on Venice, Kaplan sums it up neatly:
“…Geography matters. … [G]eopolitics—the battle for space and power—is eternal. [S]tates built on realist and pragmatic principles survive longer than states built on idealistic and moralistic ones. Thus, we must think tragically in order to avoid tragedy. This, in turn, means that order comes before freedom and interests come before values, because without order there is no freedom for anybody, and without interests our values cannot follow and operate.”
Reflecting on the world today, I suspect there is much in this with which readers would agree.
As a travel writer, Kaplan can be wonderfully evocative, reminding the reader (as he certainly did for me) why I love to travel. The splendid isolation of encountering new places, and meeting and learning from new people and new places. One of my most enjoyable pursuits is leisurely reading at a café—amongst people, but not with people. As Kaplan writes, “Truly, I travel in order to read. I cannot do one without the other. The weight of clothes in my gear is constraining, the weight of books liberating”.
Such a sentiment speaks directly to me as invariably I spend as much time selecting the books to accompany my travels as I do the clothes I am to wear, whilst leaving space for the books I will inevitably purchase. Kaplan was as much writing about me as he was himself when he said, “Travel is the art of usefully wasting time. I read a good serious book for two hours over a double espresso in a café. I get more out of reading when away from home, where I am less burdened by worries and thus able to concentrate better.”
Can we divine the future from the experiences of countries around the Adriatic? After reading Kaplan, I’m skeptical, but that’s not really why I read “Adriatic”. I read Kaplan, now, not for what his books say about the future, but what they say about the past and present. I’m likely to revisit “Adriatic” again, as I have his other books, to enjoy them for what they are—evocative reflections on places and sensibilities, grounded in history but buoyed by art and architecture.
