The Return of History and the End of Dreams |  | Author: Robert Kagan
Publisher: Knopf
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Rating:  41 reviews
Sales Rank: 61054
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Media: Hardcover
Pages: 128
Number Of Items: 1
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Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.6
Dewey Decimal Number: 327.1
ASIN: B002PJ4LA4
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
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Product Description
Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence. Nation-states remain as strong as ever, as do the old, explosive forces of ambitious nationalism. The world remains âunipolar,â but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict. Communism is dead, but a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics. Finally, radical Islamists are waging a violent struggle against the modern secular cultures and powers that, in their view, have dominated, penetrated, and polluted their Islamic world. The grand expectation that after the Cold War the world would enter an era of international geopolitical convergence has proven wrong.
For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
 Good effort, but over simplifies the "new world" we face November 12, 2009
Reader in Palo Alto (Palo Alto, CA, USA)
Much of Mr. Kagan's analysis is correct; however, he still wears the "blinders" of the William Kristol group, and the world-view he is associated with. I will not demean them by referring to them as "neo-cons"--as their opponents do. I think their hearts are in the right place, and that their love for America, and its freedoms, cannot be questioned. However, I feel that Mr. Kagan's analysis over-emphasizes Russia's resources, and its competencies. I think Vladimir Putin is an amazing, and very dangerous leader, and that we should never, ever, take him for granted; however, he rules a dying, tragic Russia, more likely to be engulfed in an Islamic wave than to cause serious problems for the West.
Still, Russia is a great, wounded lion, and it can always decide to take down America with it, in a Slavic version of "Goetterdammerung".
China is as much a foreigner in the Middle East as we are, and, although it has proven itself infinitely more skillful diplomatically than America has (big surprise there, hah!), it still has several enormous--and potentially, insurmountable---problems: first, in its west, it has large muslim provinces that are at various stages of boiling over into open successionist war---how will its killing those people---as it murdered the Tibetans just before the Olympics---look to its muslim prospective oil-generating "partners"? Second, India is its traditional rival--and has fought two losing wars already with China (neither of which India should have lost if it had just used its best (non-politically-connected)officers (India has the best trained large army (and navy) in the world). India must of course oppose further Chinese influence in the region, and must of course oppose any attempts by China to strengthen the already strong muslim influence in the area. A reminder: by 2030, India will be the largest nation in the history of the world.
Then there is Iran; and Israel. These two countries are the monkey-wrenches in the equation. The arab countries would be no real threat to Israel without the money pouring in to them from Iran---which is NOT an arab country! on the other hand, Israel would have had to come to some kind of realistic accommodation with its neighbors were it not for the financial and military support from America.
So, at the end of the day, we now have this crazy situation where the tensions between "Jew" and "Arab" are only being exacerbated by the constant funding (and meddling) by non-Jewish America, and non-Arab Iran! As we say in my homeland (Brooklyn): verkokte!
Still, at least Mr. Kagan deals cogently with the complex Middle East---as opposed to Breszinski's latest drivel.
 Never got it November 2, 2009
D. Lee (England)
I ordered this book on 8 Sep and sent it to an APO AE address. It is 2 Nov and I have not yet received it. The graduate course I needed it for ended yesterday. Needless to say I am not satisfied with this purchase. I suspect the company sent it via media mail so that they saved 1 or 2 dollars, yet I payed the full price for shipping when I purchased the book.
Same Old Drival August 1, 2009
Robert A. Meyer (Los Angeles, CA)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you have read anything by Robert Kagan, don't waste you time or money on this book. Just read your other book again. These neo-con clowns have lost any creditability they may have had at one time. After all, their Godfather was a Marxist and now they preach world domination. Look what that got us with Shrub following their direction.
 Explains 21st century geopolitics in simple language July 22, 2009
Winston (Canada)
This is a very informative and yet easy to read book. Much like a long essay that could have appeared on any major foreign policy journals. Explains the geopolitcs and great powers' story in a very simple and understandable fashion. Its predictions about Russia invading Georgia came to be true with the invasion of Georgia by Russian forces this past August. I wished he had divulged more into the Iranian problem but I guess he said all he could and one expects in 2-3 pages of this small booklet. Also I expected him to at least mention what implications the fall of the current Iranian regime might have for the Chinese or Russian outreach in the world... I found the book to be informative and realistic in its approach to foreign policy and security issues of our world. Though it is concerning to see that China & Russia are rising the way 19th century powers rose to play major roles in world politics and the western/free world seems to be ignoring these threats. Or probably the free world lacks the teeth to bite back as it should. I was fascinated by the comparisons the author provides regarding China and its power hungry system. And also am very glad to find out that a vibrant and democratic (even poor) India is now taking sides with the free world. It's heart warming to know it. This was a fascinating read for me.
Fukuyama vs. Kagan and The Return of Ideology June 22, 2009
John Shannon (Franksville, WI USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Kagan (2008) takes his title from Francis Fukuyama's The End of History (1992).
According to Kagan, the fall of Soviet Communism and the apparent hegemony of the United States lead some thinkers such as F. Fukuyama to believe that history had come to an end, and that specifically the ideal of liberal Western democracy had replaced narrow national interests of the past. But Fukuyama, Kagan says, was dreamy and wrong.
Kagan reminds us, forcefully, that nationalism trumps ideology in the long run, although there may be brief periods, historically speaking, when the flashbulb of ideology blinds us (or a nation's people).
Country-by-country Kagan catalogs the strong, strategic, historical, national focus of Russia, India, Japan, Iran, and the United States. He does not let America off any less than he does, say, China. (In this regard he skips over the nations of Europe, lumping them as one, the EU, naïve nancies.)
At the end of his book Kagan argues for a worldwide association or confederation or - dare it be said - a league of nations, of liberal democracies, counties that embrace democracy, free markets, women's rights (an unexpected tenet for a neo-conservative), and so on. An interesting idea, and maybe a good one, but isn't Kagan at the end of his book guilty of the same ideological naivety as his straw whipping boy, Francis Fukuyama?
By different routes, Fukuyama and Kagan come to the same conclusion: "the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." (Who wrote that? Fukuyama or Kagan (alphabetic order; no hints).
Fukuyama in his 2002 book, Our Posthuman Future, modified his argument (never acknowledge by Kagan), writing that "there can be no end of history without an end of modern natural science and technology". Perhaps Robert Kagan will also sequel his book with something appropriately titled, such as The Return of Ideology.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 41
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