Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus - Hardcover

Kaplan, Robert D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375502726 ISBN 13: 9780375502729

Publisher: Random House Trade, 2000

Synopsis

At its peak, the Ottoman empire stretched from Hungary to the Gulf of Aden to the Caspian Sea. Informed by a lifetime of travel and exploration, Eastward to Tartary takes you on a spellbinding journey into the heart of that still-unsettled region, a journey over land and through history.

Seven years ago, Robert Kaplan published a book on an obscure corner of Eastern Europe that many Americans had never heard of. That book, Balkan Ghosts, became a classic of travel writing, a landmark work whose eloquence is matched by its influence. Eastward to Tartary is in part a sequel. Kaplan takes us through Turkey, across the Fertile Crescent, and into the volatile, oil-rich lands of the Caucasus and Central Asia, a region he describes as the Balkans of the future--explosive, strategically important, the new fault line between East and West.

Through dramatic stories of unforgettable characters past and present, Kaplan illuminates the tragic history of the lands in which he travels. He ventures from the famed archaeological ruins of Syria to the markets of Lebanon to the military outposts of Turkey and Israel; from Baku, capital of new business and new oil, across the Caspian Sea to the deserts of Turkmenistan and back to the killing fields of Armenia.

Eastward to Tartary is Kaplan's first book since Balkan Ghosts to focus on a single region--one that is as mystifying as it is mysterious. This enthralling book will introduce Americans to countries as unfamiliar to them now as the Balkans once were, as dangerous, and as important.

About this title

Review:

"Erudite and intrepid... [Kaplan] is a deft guide to wherever he chooses to lead you."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Packed with provocative insights."
--Washington Monthly

"A graceful writer... Providing historical (and cultural and religious) context is what Kaplan does best."
--Los Angeles Times

About the Author:

Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of sixteen books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including Asia's Cauldron, The Revenge of Geography, Monsoon, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a contributing editor at The Atlantic, where his work has appeared for three decades. He was chief geopolitical analyst at Stratfor, a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, and a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. Foreign Policy magazine has twice named him one of the world's Top 100 Global Thinkers.

From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0375502726
• ISBN 13: 9780375502729
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384
• Editor: Epstein Jason