The Loom of Time - Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China

A stunning exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach but may hold the key to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century

“Continuing Robert D. Kaplan’s work as the premier American scholar of geopolitics . . . a book that everyone who wants to understand the real forces that decide war and peace should read.”—John Gray, author of The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism
 
The Greater Middle East, which Robert D. Kaplan defines as the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia, existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire: Macedonian, Roman, Persian, Mongol, Ottoman, British, Soviet, American. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability in the face of power struggles between factions, leadership vacuu