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Búsqueda… Science | Book | JX1395 .K37 2002 | 1 | Stacks | Búsqueda… Desconocido | Búsqueda… No disponible |
Búsqueda… Science | Book | 320.019 K141W 2002 | 1 | Stacks | Búsqueda… Desconocido | Búsqueda… No disponible |
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Resumen
Resumen
The author of Balkan Ghosts draws on the historical wisdom of Sun-Tzu, Thucydides, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and other great thinkers to provide valuable guidelines for modern-day world leaders--in both politics and the business environments--confronted with the complex challenges of modern life. 50,000
Reseñas (5)
Reseña de Publisher's Weekly
Years of reporting from combat zones in Bosnia, Uganda, the Sudan, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Eritrea have convinced Kaplan (Balkan Ghosts, The Coming Anarchy) that Thucydides and Sun-Tzu are still right on the money when they wrote that war is not an aberration and that civilization can repress barbarism but cannot eradicate it. Reminding readers that "The greater the disregard of history, the greater the delusions regarding the future," Kaplan conducts a brisk tour through the works of Machiavelli, Malthus and Hobbes, among others, to support his advocacy of foreign policy based on the morality of results rather than good intentions. From those classics, he extracts historical models and rationales for exploiting military might, stealth, cunning and what he dubs "anxious foresight" (which some may regard as pessimism based on disasters past) in order to lead, fight and bring adversaries to their knees should they challenge the prevailing balance of power. He also adapts this model to business, exploring the ways modern-day CEOs can benefit from history's lessons. Kaplan's discussion of the world's breeding grounds for rogue warriors out to disrupt daily life in bizarre new ways will strike a chord with most readers, as will his recounting of the brilliant statesmanship of Churchill and Roosevelt during World War II. Some readers, however, may take exception to the potshots Kaplan aims at (unnamed) media personalities and human rights advocates. This is a provocative, smart and polemical work that will stimulate lively discussion. Agents, Brandt and Brandt. (Jan.) Forecast: Kaplan's credentials, combined with his call for a strong and unambiguous foreign policy, should draw attention. Blurbs from Henry Kissinger and former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry will help. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Just in time for the post-World Trade Center era, a hardheaded, eerily prescient view of American geopolitics in a dangerous century. Journalist Kaplan (Eastward to Tartary, 2000, etc.) is unapologetically conservative in his diagnosis of what has, since he wrote, turned into the country's foreign-policy nightmare: the rise of media-amplified populism, premature and thus unstable democratic movements around the world, and concentrations of citizens in urban areas and economic power in regimes whose abundant targets are an open invitation to the terrorists and cybercriminals our soldiers have never been trained to fight. Looking as far back as Sun-Tzu and Thucydides for parallels and advice, he urges "power politics in the service of patriotic virtue"-a pragmatic choice of Churchill's "moral priorities" over absolutist idealism and of Machiavelli's "anxious foresight" over Marxist or fundamentalist determinism. The main ingredients of this internationalist realism are an old-fashioned sense of national patriotism, an "evolution from religious virtue to secular self-interest," and an acknowledgment that "international relations are governed by different moral principles than domestic politics." Hence, successful geopolitical strategies may require leaders, insulated from the assaults of a powerful multi-media press whose "moral perfectionism is possible only because it is politically unaccountable," to deceive even their own citizenry, as FDR did in piloting the Lend-Lease Act through a reluctant Congress and easing the nation closer to the Grand Alliance. Calling on such thinkers as Livy, Hobbes, Malthus, Kant, and Isaiah Berlin, Kaplan counsels a selective internationalism that never forgets that "even the most dire situations can have better and worse outcomes." A timely brave-new-world primer almost impossibly rich in quotable maxims. Even readers who recoil from Kaplan's prescription for global governance based on a new American imperium will find this empowering instant classic essential ammunition for any debate about what to do next. Author tour
Reseña de Booklist
Kaplan looks to ancient philosophers and military strategists for ageless wisdom that can be applied to modern geopolitics. The end of the cold war and the proliferation of modern technology threaten to create such complacency that world leaders miss the significance of "nasty little wars in anarchic corners of the globe." Indeed, Kaplan mentions the likelihood of expeditions to apprehend the likes of Osama bin Laden. Integrating classic and contemporary scholarship, the author argues that the ills of the twentieth century are "less unique than we think" and draws parallels between the complacency of Rome at its height and that of the U.S. Kaplan argues that power and affluence can blind a nation to the harsh realities of life, the driving force of the pagan notion of self-interest. Citing philosophers from Sun-Tzu to Machiavelli, the author shows the value of ancient insights into human nature in formulating international policy. This insightful, timely book will have broad appeal in the wake of terrorist attacks on the U.S. --Vanessa Bush
Revisar OPCIONES
Kaplan begins by describing a 21st century that will be as barbaric and violent as any in the past, and then insists there is much to be learned from history. He nimbly guides readers through a digest of experts in the dismal science of war and politics, in order "to wrest from the past what we need to arm ourselves for the present." From Thucydides' magnificent History of the Peloponnesian War through Churchill's River War, Kaplan draws immutable lessons that center on the warrior's pagan morality of honor and virtue, values that "secure a stable political community." The pagan morality seeks justice in outcome and is not restricted to religious morality, which requires justice in action. As Kaplan indelibly puts it, "tragedy is not the triumph of good over evil so much as the triumph of one good over another that causes suffering." Diplomats of the next century must be able to subordinate their personal morality to the needs of the state, and with the deft and precision of Machiavelli "justify [their actions] morally after the fact." Warrior Politics is not balanced. It is not subtle. It is as harsh as it is unabashedly pro-American and will roil many who read it. It is, nonetheless, a masterful discourse. Highly recommended at all levels. E. C. Dolman United States Air University
Library Journal Review
Aiming to advise foreign policymakers confronting global capitalism in a politically fragmenting world, Balkan Ghosts author Kaplan surveys the literature of leadership from Herodotus to Gen. George Marshall. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.