Rating: 
Summary: The Future of Conflict
Review: As a student at the U.S. Naval Academy and future officer in the U.S. Navy I found Mr. Kaplan's insights and experiences very enlightening. I am currently studying the phenomenon of nation-state failure and this book enhanced my understanding of this complex subject. Most of Mr.Kaplan's observations are concurrent with other experts in the field. The style and content of his essays made this book enjoyable and educational. I look forward to his next publication.
Rating:
Summary: Chilling and Fascinating
Review: For anyone familiar with The Ends of the Earth and Balkan Ghosts, Kaplan's dark views on the next century will be familiar. His latest has more of a political edge. The rhetorical questions he poses ask what we can do to intervene and fix social collapse in places like Congo and Pakistan. The answer, coldly logical, is that we can't do much. Techno-optimism (for the most part) seems to rule the day in the West for now. Somehow we've convinced ourselves that because we can use our computers to order merchandise through the mail, the future is inescapably bright and free from the constraints of rainfall, population density and tribal rivalry. This book is a needle which neatly punctures this Panglossian balloon and as such is sorely needed.
Rating: 
Summary: The Sky is Falling?
Review: As I'm sure many readers will agree, this book is indeed disturbing. What is most disturbing to me, however,is that a book based on narrow and limited research has become mandatory reading for US policy makers and diplomats. President Clinton proportedly has a copy of this on his bedside table. The issues that Kaplan addresses are broad and complex. More broad and complex than he presents them. We need to look at what scholars and local citizens have to say about the causes of and solutions to problems in communities. Unlike Kaplan, I don't believe the world is going to hell in a handbasket. I do think, however, that sometimes an uninformed, blanket response to global and national problems often exacerbates them. I also believe when we come to view an area as beyond hope (as Kaplan would have us believe), we are really just making it easier for ourselves to sleep at night when we abandon such an area, whether it be a Sierra Leone rainforest or a Chicago slum.
Rating:
Summary: On par with "Balkan Ghosts"
Review: Kaplan's journalistic skills are matchless in this penetrating anlaysis. Too often, writers fail to persuade bcause they fail to live in their work. "Coming Anarchy" comes to life with a "been there, done that" immediacy that cannot be faked. Another New England author who has captured the essence of the coming anarchy amidst an apparent utopia in the West, is Jerry Furland, author of the powerful and gripping novel "Transfer-the end of the beginning". No one who reads either of these authors will come away unchanged by the experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Some ugly truths about an ugly world
Review: I have enjoyed Kaplan's books over the years primarily because he writes about events and places that never make it to the "mainstream" news markets. "The coming Anarchy" however is more about what is to become of a world where the spread between the haves and have-nots grows every day. It is not some hand-wringing exercise in "do-goodism" however, where the West is lectured on how it needs to spend more to assist the rest of the world join in on Western progress. Kaplan is able to point out the absurdity of a United Nations which collects billions from its member nations yet sits on its hands when it should actually be doing something because its membership is so broad, and so "politically correct" that it is impotent in dealing with those very situations that its charter points to as its reason for being. Having a nation like Libya or Syria sitting on its human rights commission is a joke, but no one laughs because it is just a small example of how the organization has lost its way, led by a small little-minded man called Kofi. The French, Chinese, Russians all have their reasons for opposing action where it needs to be taken, primarily for the same reasons they had in starting WW I and II. Their commercial and parochial interests come ahead of the greater good envisioned by the UN at its founding.
This book is disturbing in its conclusions, but Kaplan has it right when he says that the only possible outcome in the world today is the anarchy he shows exists, and it is the wave of the future.
Rating:
Summary: we are living it.......
Review: ...As a venezuelan I can tell you we are living this hell day after day...this book couldn't describe it better.... !!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Bitter sweet
Review: I enjoyed reading the book for many reasons, I dislike the author for one... he is, as has been stated in other reviews, a true believer in the rightness of US hegemony, and the 'Israel first' philosophy. A faith which brooks no criticism - as if another lesson were really needed that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The stark realities of global markets and local politics are everywhere to be see, for those who wish to look (too few by far, as far as I'm concerned) and Kaplan draws conclusions, which I agree with, on the sad and predictable outcomes we face in the coming 50 years. Globalisation not only empowers capitalism, it re-energises fanaticism, and I mean that on both sides of the ideological fence. Christians are no less delusional in their beliefs than Muslims, often more so in my experience. The current 'Cabbage Patch Christian' fundamentalism that we see spewing out of America really creeps me out!
His later book, "Warrior Politics" shows, in closer detail, how anti-humanitarian some American 'intellectuals' and policy Wonks can become - Absolute Power " etc etc.. but this book is worth reading
Rating:
Summary: Some ugly truths about an ugly world
Review: I have enjoyed Kaplan's books over the years primarily because he writes about events and places that never make it to the "mainstream" news markets. "The coming Anarchy" however is more about what is to become of a world where the spread between the haves and have-nots grows every day. It is not some hand-wringing exercise in "do-goodism" however, where the West is lectured on how it needs to spend more to assist the rest of the world join in on Western progress. Kaplan is able to point out the absurdity of a United Nations which collects billions from its member nations yet sits on its hands when it should actually be doing something because its membership is so broad, and so "politically correct" that it is impotent in dealing with those very situations that its charter points to as its reason for being. Having a nation like Libya or Syria sitting on its human rights commission is a joke, but no one laughs because it is just a small example of how the organization has lost its way, led by a small little-minded man called Kofi. The French, Chinese, Russians all have their reasons for opposing action where it needs to be taken, primarily for the same reasons they had in starting WW I and II. Their commercial and parochial interests come ahead of the greater good envisioned by the UN at its founding.
This book is disturbing in its conclusions, but Kaplan has it right when he says that the only possible outcome in the world today is the anarchy he shows exists, and it is the wave of the future.
Rating:
Summary: Another powerful Kaplan vision.
Review: Another excellent book by Kaplan. He writes two types of books: 1) traveling books with a foreign affair analytical perspective, and 2) books directly about foreign affair analysis. This book belongs to the second type. For my part, I prefer this type; it is so much easier to extract all the information he gives. I love Kaplan's practice of what I call "intellectual aggregation." He does not just tell you what he thinks. He shares with you what all the other luminaries think. Thus, within this book there are some priceless information gathered from references, including: Samuel Huntington, Kissinger, Van Crefeld, Homer-Dixon, Hobbes.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down, read it twice, a little too bleak
Review: This book was written in 1997 and I read it in 2003 and still found it worth reading -- twice. Kaplan is more than a journalist -- he's an important voice for realpolitik in for this century. Dissolution of the nation-state, blurring of the lines between terrorism and crime, and the wisdom of implementing democracy in environments without solid economic foundations are the three key takeaways for me. Kaplan can be a little too bleak in his outlook, however, and it's important to read this in the context of other political and technology books, lest you give up all hope, but I find his writing fascinating and his prose hard to put down. The fact that this is a collection of essays seemed immaterial to me as the threads were all connected and the points complementary.
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