November 23, 2001
Robert D. Kaplan
This will not be a long review. There is a similarity to Robert Kaplan's books, and my reviews of his other books will suffice for additional detail.Having said that, I will also say that this book continues an excellent pattern of combining prior reading of history, a solid understanding of geography, and a gift for drawing out from an astonishing diversity of individuals, those little details that may bore in the aggregate but are priceless when endured and absorbed.
He seems to have missed the genocide against the Tatars, but perhaps that was hidden from him.
There is one huge gem, at least for me, in this book, and that is his assessment of the potential for a new schism between Western and Eastern Christianity, and how that must be avoided at all costs. This one sentence and the surrounding text is alone worth the price of the book.
