The Dust Of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland (Century Foundation Book) - Softcover

Meyer, .

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586482416 ISBN 13: 9781586482411

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2004

Synopsis

When Charles de Gaulle learned that France's former colonies in Africa had chosen independence, the great general shrugged dismissively, "They are the dust of empire." But as Americans have learned, particles of dust from remote and seemingly medieval countries can, at great human and material cost, jam the gears of a superpower. In The Dust of Empire, Karl E. Meyer examines the present and past of the Asian heartland in a book that blends scholarship with reportage, providing fascinating detail about regions and peoples now of urgent concern to America: the five Central Asian republics, the Caspian and the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and long-dominant Russia. He provides the context for America's war on terrorism, for Washington's search for friends and allies in an Islamic world rife with extremism, and for the new politics of pipelines and human rights in an area richer in the former than the latter. He offers a rich and complicated tapestry of a region where empires have so often come to grief--a cautionary tale.

About this title

Review:

"As a volume of history about the dangers ahead, in Iraq and elsewhere, The Dust of Empire deserves to be read in the White House.... Scholarly and expertly told."

About the Author:

Karl E. Meyer was a longtime member of The New York Times editorial board, a former foreign correspondent for The Washington Post and is currently the editor of World Policy Journal. He holds a doctorate from Princeton University and has taught at Princeton, Yale, and Oxford Universities. He lives in Weston, Connecticut.

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1586482416
• ISBN 13: 9781586482411
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288