Earning the Rockies - by Robert D Kaplan (Paperback)

Number of Pages: 224
Genre: Social Science
Sub-Genre: Anthropology
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Trade
Age Range: Adult
Book theme: Cultural & Social
Author: Robert D Kaplan
Language: English

About the Book

"As a boy, Robert 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. In Earning the Rockies, Kaplan undertakes his own cross-country journey to recapture an appreciation of American geography often lost in the jet age. 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. Kaplan lays bare the roots of American greatness--the fact that we are a nation, empire, and continent all at once--and how westward expansion shaped our national character, and should shape our foreign policy"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

An incisive portrait of the American landscape that shows how geography continues to determine America's role in the world

Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times - "There is more insight here into the Age of Trump than in bushels of political-horse-race journalism."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

At a time when there is little consensus about who we are and what we should be doing with our power overseas, a return to the elemental truths of the American landscape is urgently needed. In Earning the Rockies, New York Times bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan undertakes a cross-country journey, traversing a rich and varied landscape that still remains the primary source of American power. Traveling west, in the same direction as the pioneers, Kaplan witnesses both prosperity and decline, and reexamines the history of westward expansion 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. Concluding at the edge of the Pacific Ocean with a gripping description of an anarchic world, Earning the Rockies shows how America's foreign policy response ought to be rooted in its own geographical situation.

Praise for Earning the Rockies

"Unflinchingly honest . . . a lens-changing vision of America's role in the world . . . a jewel of a book that lights the path ahead."--Secretary of Defense James Mattis

"A sui generis writer . . . America's East Coast establishment has only one Robert Kaplan, someone as fluently knowledgeable about the Balkans, Iraq, Central Asia and West Africa as he is about Ohio and Wyoming."--Financial Times

"Kaplan has pursued stories in places as remote as Yemen and Outer Mongolia. In Earning the Rockies, he visits a place almost as remote to many Americans: these United States. . . . The author's point is a good one: America is formed, in part, by a geographic setting that is both sanctuary and watchtower."--The Wall Street Journal

"A brilliant reminder of the impact of America's geography on its strategy. . . . Kaplan's latest contribution should be required reading."--Henry A. Kissinger

"A text both evocative and provocative for readers who like to think ... In his final sections, Kaplan discusses in scholarly but accessible detail the significant role that America has played and must play in this shuddering world."--Kirkus Reviews

Review Quotes

"There is more insight here into the Age of Trump than in bushels of political-horse-race journalism. . . . Earning the Rockies is a tonic, because it brings fundamentals back into view."--The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"A sui generis writer . . . America's East Coast establishment has only one Robert Kaplan, someone as fluently knowledgeable about the Balkans, Iraq, Central Asia and West Africa as he is about Ohio and Wyoming."--Financial Times

"In his long career as a foreign correspondent, Robert Kaplan has pursued stories in places as remote as Yemen and Outer Mongolia. In Earning the Rockies, he visits a place almost as remote to many Americans: these United States. . . . The author's point is a good one: America is formed, in part, by a geographic setting that is both sanctuary and watchtower."--The Wall Street Journal

"A text both evocative and provocative for readers who like to think ... In his final sections, Kaplan discusses in scholarly but accessible detail the significant role that America has played and must play in this shuddering world."--Kirkus Reviews

"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

"Robert D. Kaplan uses America's unique geography and frontier experience to provide a lens-changing vision of America's role in the world, one that will capture your imagination. Unflinchingly honest, this refreshing approach shows how ideas from outside Washington, D.C., will balance America's idealism and pragmatism in dealing with a changed world. A jewel of a book, Earning the Rockies lights the path ahead."--Secretary of Defense James Mattis

"Earning the Rockies is 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

"Robert D. 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 of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

"Any Robert D. Kaplan road trip is bound to be compelling, but Earning the Rockies is all the more so for crossing America. Like Kerouac and Tocqueville, Kaplan makes us see the country in a wholly new way. This concise classic is highly recommended."--John Lewis Gaddis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of George F. Kennan: An American Life

"What a fine, stimulating, energizing, and thoroughly original book . . . All diplomats and soldiers--indeed, all Americans with power or the hope of power--should read Robert D. Kaplan generally, and this slim volume particularly."--Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of Pacific: The Ocean of the Future

About the Author

Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of nineteen books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including The Good American, The Revenge of Geography Asia's Cauldron, Monsoon, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupe Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He was a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world's Top 100 Global Thinkers.