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Summary: One of the best books on public policy in years!
Review: Kaplan is an outstanding writer. Having read his excerpts from this book, which served as two cover stories for The Atlantic, I was eager to read his work. The in depth reporting he does, is so challenging to the conventional view that it's worth reading even if you do not agree with his premise. I would in general consider myself well to the right of Kaplan's apparent politics, and yet I found myself agreeing that the current trends he outlines do present major obstacles for this nation.The portion of the book focussing on the US military, and its challenges - as described from Ft. Leavenworth, are worth picking up the book for alone.
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Summary: American Travel Writing from an Alternate Dimension
Review: While Kaplan keeps to his usual winning combination of travel writing and social science in "Empire Wilderness," he cannot avoid falling prey to the very same flaws that marred his last book, "Ends of the Earth"; namely, a tendency to over-emphasize pervailing social trends until he begins to sound like some kind of prophet of doom, forecasting a world out of control. When writing about the Third World, this is somewhat more forgiveable approach, but when applied to the United States, the reader begins to wonder how Kaplan can, in good conscience, hype and sensationalize some of the trends on which he chooses to focus. In his writings for the "Atlantic Monthly," Kaplan has admitted to a Hobbesian, conservative view of human nature, and this, at times, makes him sound like a rabid elitist frightened by the dark, deprived "mob" seething beneath the shining surface of America. This is a somewhat unfair characterization, however, as most of Kaplan's social observations demonstrate a stunning ability to forecast history and cut to the heart of the most salient political and economic trends facing our nation. The extra hype and generalization are probably just to sell more books, so we can let Kaplan off the hook on this one. Just be prepared to read this book skeptically, and you are in for one hell of a journey.
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Summary: a different prespective from spain
Review: excuse my english: maybe usa not's the ideal country that we seen in the movies? or maybe yes. Kaplan just try know better usa with a great chronogeographical description, great book for geographers.
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Summary: Kaplan is a bit too pessimistic but still Great
Review: Kaplan rules! This guy can write, write well and you can truely learn something from him. Just as he did in Balkan Ghosts and the Ends of the Earth...plenty of food for thought. I disagree with the picture he paints of a Cananda and possibly a US breaking up, but it still makes you think. I think he is right on the money about how the suburbs are so detached from the cities and how some communities are closer to its trading partners overseas than nearby inner cities. So in short, i don't agree with all of this book, but its a great read. Read this book and his other works.
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Summary: An Engrossing and Thought Provoking Book
Review: I saw Robert Kaplan speak at Elliott Bay Books in Seattle just before I began reading this book. He mentioned that most books about the US are expected to be optimistic, but that he wanted to look at our issues critically and speculate about possible futures. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and skipped more than one movie and ball game to keep reading more. His prose is both incisive and insightful, although he does have certain biases that are sometimes annoying. Kaplan is thin as a rail and leads a very active lifestyle, having traveled widely throughout the world. He clearly has a revulsion for people who are overweight, and remarks on it frequently in a very condemnatory tone. At one point he presumes to diagnose the problems of overweight people he sees gambling at a reservation casino: "These people were fat because..." and goes on to suggest that some weakness of character causes both obesity and compulsive gambling. His sweeping statements are jarring, coming from a writer who usually displays the ability to think critically about complex problems and resist easy answers. Despite this offensive bias (which crops up frequently), I enjoyed his observations and descriptions immensely, and therefore I feel this book deserves five stars. As someone who has to struggle with weight, however, I think Mr. Kaplan has spent too much time in countries where steaks are not available, to say nothing of hamburger. One should expect more from a journalist of his caliber.
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Summary: Excessively obsessed with marginal communities
Review: The author offers some interesting vignettes into various Mexican and American communities. However, while relating local color and his reactions, he does the reader a disservice by focusing on the marginal, least representative communities in America. Obsessing over the Mexican-American border, he fails to follow the trail of Mexican Americans who have successfully integrated into the American dream. By interviewing only those at the margins of society, he fails to grasp the whole that is an evolving America. Perhaps, a bit more time spent in the San Fernando Valley would allow him to see how Mexicans and Jews can share a community center; time spent in Phoenix would show how a purely white city actuall worships the five black entertainers of the NBA.
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Summary: Future Forecast? Rain, Rain, Rain (If We're Lucky)
Review: Gloomy perspective on America and where we're going (to hell or gated communities). I don't argue with Kaplan's truth of the way things are or the way he thinks they'll probably be in the very near future. I do think that if the author had written 200, 100, or 50 years ago, he'd have given equally gloomy predictions. All these experts are, I think, not particularly good prognosicators. Rain? Maybe. Drought? Perhaps. Who really knows? Trend-line predictions like Kaplan's are easy to make, hard to verify. Until it's too late, of course.
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Summary: Will govt. really grow smaller?
Review: I liked the book. It had interesting bits of travel through America, but the main premise, that City-States and Regions will grow and the powerful Federal government will shrink does not ring true. As long as the US govt. can run up deficits, its power will remain. What was interesting about the book was considering a future where regionalism grows to the point that it begins to splinter the cohesion of the United States. This, though, remains decades away, if ever.
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Summary: A bleak future of the nation state of America
Review: Mr. Kaplan's travels and views of the evolving future of the American West is acurate and sombering. It also applies to the rest of America. The book is pessimistic in that Kaplan beleives that the future as it is evolving is evitatable with rich enclaves amid a sea of poor cities resembling third world communities with uncontrollable emigration from Asia and South of the border. Is this what the presnt Americans want or should a stringent approach be taken to absorb the huge legal emigration of the last few years, vigorously inhibit illegal emigration, and seriously resrict additional emigraiton? This actually would mimic earlier waves of emigration. If we cannot control our borders and corporations better then we are doing, then we cannot control our future in becoming just another overpopulated disfunctional third world society.
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Summary: Plenty of resonance
Review: It's been several months now since I finished An Empire Wilderness and I find myself reminded of it often as I read the newspaper, watch television news or just look around me. Taken as a composite, Kaplan's writing in this volume rings very true. While not a major part of the book, the first and last chapters regarding the US military and its evolving role seem especially pertinent. Here's hoping that when the paperback version is published that many more people read and ponder An Empire Wilderness. There are important lessons in Kaplan's observations.
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