In The Ends of the Earth, Robert D. Kaplan travels from the devastated
countries of West Africa and the fundamentalist enclaves of Egypt and
Iran to the culturally explosive lands of Central Asia, India, Pakistan,
and Southeast Asia with hardly more than a notebook and a backpack.
Kaplan's intention was to investigate firsthand the effect of population
explosion and environmental degradation in these countries and to see
how the various cultures he encountered responded to them. But as he
traveled, talking to gun smugglers and government ministers, warlords
and shantytown dwellers, he discovered that the real problem, in places
as far afield as Sierra Leone and western China, was the reemergence of
longstanding cultural rivalries and the dissolution of national
boundaries as regions redefine themselves along ethnic and historic
lines. Kaplan's ground-level experiences allow him to avoid grandiose
generalizations about the clash of civilizations and to replace them
with intimate portraits of the men and women he encounters: Rafighdoost,
Khomeini's fiercely loyal chauffeur; Ali Abdel Razag, keeper of the
Aswan High Dam; and Ayshe Tanrikulu, a squatter on Golden Mountain, a
shantytown on the outskirts of Ankara, who hopes that her sons will one
day be doctors or engineers. It is in the squalor of daily existence and
in people's fears, frustrations, and dreams that Kaplan looks for the
key to a country's future. The Ends of the Earth offers an intimate
portrait of the devastated parts of the world, whose cultural
disasters - like those in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Rwanda today - will
dominate our attention and remake the world of tomorrow.
