THE TRAGIC MIND
From Amazon:
A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed
through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy
“Classical drama provides crucial lessons for policymakers. .
. . A road map for effective, well-considered policy.”—Kirkus Reviews
Some books emerge from a lifetime of hard-won knowledge.
Robert D. Kaplan has learned, from a career spent reporting on wars,
revolutions, and international politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East
Asia, that the essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In The Tragic Mind, he
employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German
philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of
international politics: order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family
and state, violence, and the mistakes of power.
The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues, are not posed by good versus evil—a clear and easy choice—but by contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing, incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time.
