Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus FROM THE PUBLISHER
In Eastward to Tartary, Robert D. Kaplan takes us on a spellbinding journey into the heart of a little-known but volatile region, stretching from Romania and Bulgaria to the far shores of the oil-rich Caspian Sea. As in Kaplan's bestselling Balkan Ghosts, it is a journey over land and through history, an introduction to an important and potentially explosive part of the world that is destined to be the new fault line between East and West.
Through dramatic stories of unforgettable characters past and present, Kaplan illuminates the tragic history of this unstable region that he describes as the Balkans of the future. He ventures from Turkey, Syria, and Israel to the turbulent countries of the Caucasus, from the newly rich city of Baku to the deserts of Turkmenistan and the killing fields of Armenia. Kaplan's flair for historical insight, coupled with vivid observations from his travels through this mysterious land of toppled regimes and ancient feuds, makes fascinating reading for anyone concerned about the state of our world in the decades to come.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
In 1993, as the blood-letting in Yugoslavia's ethnic civil war entered its fifth year, Kaplan, a foreign correspondent, wrote a history of that tragic region that became an instant bestseller. The war and its elements of genocide paved the way for popular reception of Balkan Ghosts, but it is Kaplan's name that will secure readers for his newest travelogue. In many ways, this book is the sequel to Balkan Ghosts, telling the story of those other orphans of the Ottoman Empire--the lands of the Middle and Near East. Kaplan's intention is to introduce Tartary (known today as Central Asia) as a place that has more in common with the Western Balkan countries than with the Oriental images conjured up by its exotic name. Walking the streets of Baku in Azerbaijan, he sees images of the Romanian capital, Bucharest; both reside in the 100-year-old shadows of a cosmopolitan Ottoman boomtown, and in the more obvious decay and disenchantment that is the legacy of the shorter-lived Soviet empire. In relating his travels through Syria, Israel and Lebanon, Kaplan focuses less on the effects of communism and more on the way Turkey remains a historical link between Arab and European powers. Whether he is analyzing the basis for Turko-Israeli alliances or pondering the likelihood of an ethnic "Balkanization" of the Middle East, Kaplan is thinking in terms of a new "seismograph of world politics in the twenty-first century." His readers will be left with a rich supply of historic, geographic and cultural cross-references to apply when they read the news about some of today's most strategic hot spots. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
This perceptive travelog, which takes its title from journalist Kaplan's 11-country trip from the Balkans to "Tartary" (modern-day Turkmenistan), offers lyrical descriptions of the landscapes and insightful vignettes of uncommon clarity. As in his Balkan Ghosts, the author interprets present-day politics through the lens of "national character" and historical simile. In the earlier book, this approach yielded the often-discredited "ancient hatreds" thesis of conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Here Kaplan is more cautious, although he is likely to provoke controversy in asserting that Israel's right-wing parties "eerily resemble" the actions of Jewish zealots of the Roman era or that the Western promotion of democracy in the post-Soviet periphery amounts to an evasion, not a policy. Kaplan's strength lies in the quality of his interviews, which produce such surprises as the perceived importance of Israel's military alliance with Turkey. No single work can provide an understanding of so vast a political and cultural m lange, but Kaplan's book stimulates interest as few books can. Recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/00.] Zachary T. Irwin, Behrend Coll., Pennsylvania State Univ., Erie Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Richard Bernstein - New York Times
President-elect George W. Bush could do a lot worse in preparing for the foreign affairs part of his job than to read Eastward to Tartary by Robert D. Kaplan, a scholarly and adventurous journalist who roams the less-traveled regions of the globe and writes about them knowledgeably and with sophistication...This entire book is illuminated by an unillusioned intelligence and a steady sort of attention to deeper, longer-range trends rather than what might be called headline-news ephemera... If there is a better, more sophisticated and informed primer to the emerging powers and problems of the Greater Middle East, I don't know what it is.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
David Landes
Kaplan is one of the two or three top travel writers of our day. He chooses important places (not merely pretty); he studies up on history, geography, and societies; and he tells wonderful stories about people. I'm a great believer in the power of anecdote, and Kaplan is a master of anecdote—not simply to entertain but to instruct. Even when I disagree, I come away wiser. — author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations
Jane Fletcher Geniesse
Writing in the glorious tradition of great Western travelers to the East in the last 150 years, Robert Kaplan belongs in the company of giants like Sir Richard Burton, Charles Montagu Doughty, and Dame Freya Stark. He is a national resource. Traveler, political observer, historian, modern-day Marco Polo, he reports with a novelist's flair on the Gordian knots of the future. — author of Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark
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