Earning the Rockies

Resumen del libro

An incisive portrait of the American landscape that shows how geography continues to determine America s role in the world from bestselling author of The Revenge of Geographyand Balkan Ghosts
As a boy, Robert D. Kaplan listened to his truck-driver father tell evocative stories about traveling across America in his youth, travels in which he learned to understand the country literally from the ground up. There was a specific phrase from Kaplan s childhood that captured this perspective: A westward traveler must earn the Rockies by driving not flying across the flat Midwest and Great Plains.
In Earning the Rockies, Kaplan undertakes his own cross-country journey to recapture an appreciation of American geography often lost in the jet age. Traveling west, in the same direction as the pioneers, Kaplan traverses a rich and varied landscape that remains the primary source of American power. Along the way, he witnesses both prosperity and decline increasingly cosmopolitan cities that thrive on globalization, impoverished towns denuded by the loss of manufacturing and paints a bracingly clear picture of America today.
The history of westward expansion is examined here in a new light as a story not just of genocide and individualism, but also of communalism and a respect for the limits of a water-starved terrain, a frontier experience that bent our national character toward pragmatism. Kaplan shows how the great midcentury works of geography and geopolitics by Bernard DeVoto, Walter Prescott Webb, and Wallace Stegner are more relevant today than ever before. Concluding his journey at Naval Base San Diego, Kaplan looks out across the Pacific Ocean to the next frontier: China, India, and the emerging nations of Asia. And in the final chapter, he provides a gripping description of an anarchic world and explains why America s foreign policy response ought to be rooted in its own geographical situation.
In this short, intense meditation on the American landscape, Robert D. Kaplan reminds us of an overlooked source of American strength: the fact that we are a nation, empire, and continent all at once. Earning the Rockies is an urgent reminder of how a nation s geography still foreshadows its future, and how we must reexamine our own landscape in order to confront the challenges that lie before us.
Advance praise for Earning the Rockies
Earning the Rockiesis a thoughtful, engrossing, eloquent reflection on the United States westward expansion to fill our continent and on the implications of the resulting national character for the current debate about the proper role of America in the world. Here s another masterpiece by Robert D. Kaplan. General (Ret.) David Petraeus
Kaplan has given us a great gift in this intelligent, engaging, and memorable book about America at home and abroad. Jefferson believed our national fate inextricably linked to the West; Kaplan shows us how true that remains all these years distant. Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofAmerican Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
Earning the Rockies is a brilliant reminder of the impact of America s geography on its strategy. An essential complement to his previous work on the subject of geostrategy, Kaplan s latest contribution should be required reading. Henry A. Kissinger"

Biografía del autor

ROBERT D. KAPLAN (Nueva York, 1952) es periodista, analista geopolítico, viajero y escritor. Redactor y colaborador habitual en prensa especializada y otros medios, ha trabajado como corresponsal en diversos países durante más de dos décadas, ha sido profesor de Seguridad Nacional en la Academia Naval de Annapolis y miembro del consejo asesor del Departamento de Defensa estadounidense. Gracias a sus ensayos sobre relaciones internacionales y el poder en Estados Unidos, la revista x{0026}lt;i Foreign Policyx{0026}lt;/i lo ha incluido en la lista de los Top 100 Global Thinkers en dos ocasiones. Entre sus obras destacan x{0026}lt;i Fantasmas balcánicosx{0026}lt;/i , x{0026}lt;i La anarquía que vienex{0026}lt;/i y x{0026}lt;i El retorno de la antigüedadx{0026}lt;/i , así como x{0026}lt;i El retorno del mundo de Marco Polox{0026}lt;/i y su fundamental x{0026}lt;i La venganza de la geografíax{0026}lt;/i , estas dos últimas publicadas por RBA.