"[N]ationalism brings a measure of cohesion to societies threatening to fragment. Thus, the elegance in [their] current form of aggression may wear off and be replaced by cruder, more impulsive actions. This process is insidious and may have already begun. The more active [they are,] ... the more is at stake concerning [their] domestic economic turmoil." p.158

"Instead of ground troops, the new face of Russian imperialism consists of intelligence operations, subversion, pipeline routes, and corruption. Now and in the future, the United States will lead the NATO response: employing a suite of assets from information operations to cyberattacks to economic sanctions against Russia." p. 158-159

"Progress is inevitable in the Western mind, and particularly in the American one, which believes history moves toward an intelligible conclusion." p. 170

"[W]hat form does [American] conquest take now? It takes the form of trying to export our civic religion: representative democracy, human rights, rule of law, and so forth. But this assumes that no history anywhere matters except our own. It assumes that the very different historical experiences of other peoples around the globe and the conclusions that they draw from them do not count." p. 170 ( )

This is a great travel book for a trip to understand US West

Have gotten this book 3 times from Overdrive and finally got to read it this time. The book is more about the author's travel across the country and how different attitudes of the poplulation shape the country depending on where you are. It mentioned some other interesting books and I have now gotten one of those books from amazon just because they sound interesting. I really enjoyed this book and finally glad to get the time to read it. Really rather agree with the author's thesis and enjoyed reading about other historians who talked about his theme in earlier times of America. Highly recommend this book. ( )

Hoe komt het dat de Verenigde Staten van Amerika de rol van supermacht kreeg? In De verovering van de Rockies betoogt Robert D. Kaplan, dat de geografie van de continent allesbepalend is geweest. De unieke landsgrenzen - van kust tot kust op een continent - en de frontier mentaliteit, waarbij de westwaartse beweging van pioniers oorspronkelijke bevolking nagenoeg wegvaagde en landjepik deed, vormden de Staten. Waar de economische modellen van katoenteelt op voldoende vochtige of te irrigeren gronden in de zuidelijke staten en de landbouw in de noordelijke staten ook een gegeven zijn, en de uitbreiding westwaarts in het voordeel van de noordelijke staten was. Wie uiteindelijk ook de Rocky Mountains veroverde kon over land van Atlantische Oceaan tot Stille Oceaan haar recht doen gelden. Democratie - uiteraard de eigen invulling ervan door de Amerikanen - werd een exportproduct. Denk terug aan Zuid-Korea, de Golfoorlog, de verdrijving van Saddam Hoessein of Khadaffi, en ook de her en der jammerlijk gefaalde pogingen als Afghanistan, grofweg de rest van het midden-Oosten.

Militair overwicht, een buitenproportioneel grote marine, maakten de Amerikanen tot heerser over de wereldzeeën. In het boek volgt Kaplan de route die zijn vader als vrachtwagenchauffeur ook nam door de staten helemaal naar San Diego. Het is een herwaardering van de landschappen, de verschillen tussen de staten, maar ook de lokale bevolking als de auteur z'n waarnemingen noteert, in restauants en motels verblijft en leert begrijpen wat Amerika maakte wat het nu is. Een eigen insteek, goed verteld en overtuigend gebracht, al vind ik de laatste hoofdstukken langdradig en komen de Rockies zelf er bekaaid van af, in tegenstelling tot wat de boektitel doet vermoeden. ( )

Conservative historian Robert Kaplan roadtripped across America to demonstrate the regionality of our history and geography, which both divide and unite the citizens of the US. He based his meditations on what he could observe, his experience and knowledge of the history of the regions, and overheard conversations in rest stops and cafes to understand what the so-called average person living in the area was discussing.

I came away with an appreciation that the modern wealth of the country as shown by dollars, new ideas and even fine arts, is often concentrated in the cities along either ocean. However, even this wealth has been created by the vast farmlands, rivers and other natural resources, and secondarily the manufacturing centers that are now often in decline. It is this broad basis of geographical richness that has made the US the nation what it is – and now many of the heartland's fundamental areas of wealth-creation are the very geography and people that are unrecognized by the urban dwellers.

I also enjoyed reading a viewpoint that often 'leaned right' as I unabashedly lean left.

“There are miles of ribboned ground bearing corn and soybeans, punctuated by wide, circular metal silos. The native grasses and black earth alleviate the loneliness of the landscape, reminding you just how wealthy it is. Because this production and fecundity will go on for hundreds and hundreds of mile, both north and south and east and west, it constitutes the basis of continental wealth that, in turn, permits an approach to the world so ambitious – marked as it is every few decades by an epic, bloody disaster—that the human and material costs are easily absorbed by the very wealth and sheer size of the land that began it in the first place. It is these Illinois cornfields that ultimately allow elites in Washington to contemplate action even as others my suffer or be sustained by the consequences.” p 76.

“Meanwhile, our expanding urban areas are becoming global city-states, with increasingly dense and meaningful connections with the outside world. But the weakness of global culture is that, having psychologically disconnected itself from any specific homeland, it has no terrain to defend or fight for,and therefore no anchoring beliefs beyond the latest fashion or media craze. So we unravel into the world. And the more disconnected we become from our territorial roots- the more urbanized and globalized we become- the greater the danger of artificially reconstructing American identity in more severe and ideological form, so that we risk radicalization at home.” 176-177

It was a hard book for me to read, as Kaplan's style can be rather ponderous, and for me it was slow-going. Nevertheless, I found myself jotting down many quotes from the book.

Here are a couple more:

“The American narrative is morally unresolvable because the society that saved humanity in the great conflicts of the twentieth century was also a society built on enormous crimes – slavery and the extinction of the native inhabitants… History, though, can also be the story of ideas – and the more useful the idea, the greater the history. America’s was an anti-idea: philosophers generally know less than the masses, which, left alone to seek their own interests, often know best. Such democratic populism tempts narrow-mindedness, cruelty, and barbarism, and it cannot be successfully applied everywhere, even if Americans…believe otherwise.” (p. 42-43)

“And what form does that conquest take now? It takes the form of trying to export our civic religion: representative democracy, human rights, rule of law, and so forth. But this assumes that no history anywhere matters except our own. It assumes that the very different historical experience of other peoples around the globe and the conclusions that they draw from them do not count. While democracy, human rights and the rest are self-evidently good, that doe not mean other peoples will arrive at them-or even variations of them- through the processes we demand. And this is to say nothing of the fact that such tenets as democracy and human rights are themselves not always in harmony:for in a number of places, minority rights are better protected by monarchies and dictatorships than by tyrannies of the majority or by outright chaos-which ill-conceived experiments in democracy often bring about.” p171

I read this as part of the PBS/NYT Now Read This Book Club. ( )