I review two books by Robert Kaplan. They are closely related, one being a partial update of the other.

Link to books:

The Revenge of Geography (2012)

The Loom of Time (2023)

The Revenge of Geography (2012) is the first and larger of the two. It examines the interplay between geography, climate, history, and the worldwide influence of technology. Kaplan addresses every inhabited continent, spending most of his time in the “world island” (the eastern hemisphere) but not neglecting the Americas. In The Loom of Time (2023), he updates the earlier book with particular focus on the territory he considers most pivotal for both world history and the present, the swath of the world island we, today, call the Middle East, roughly across the temperate latitudes from the Balkans, Egypt, and the Horn of Africa in the west to Pakistan in the east.

Kaplan is both wise and experienced, having traveled to numerous nations on six continents over a journalistic and consulting career spanning more than fifty years. People thought well of him. In the later book, ministers and ex (retired) ministers, philosophers, and writers both remember and talk to him; the “thick descriptions” he gives of many varied cultures attest to it. 

Kaplan makes similar points in both books. Geography (and climate) don’t determine history, but they do channel it in observable and patternable ways. Democracy, as the west understands it (and it seems increasingly less so in 2025) is not feasible for historical and cultural reasons in much of the world’s geopolitically pivotal areas. Autocracies run along a continuum from relatively benign to horrific, but except in the worst cases—and sometimes even then—the order they bring to whatever territory they govern is always better for the health and welfare of the people living there than is anarchy. 

Concerning the Americas, he points out that Mexico (and, by extension, Central America) holds more labor potential for the United States than any other region in the world, not only through immigration, but also through acculturation (the Southwest third of the U.S. is effectively Hispanic and bilingual), industrialization, and trade. A proper Mexican foreign and economic policy would invigorate both countries. That book was published in 2012. In 2025, that obviously isn’t happening. Kaplan underestimates the political force of the xenophobic river running through the middle of American culture.

Both of these books make me cry. Such a wise man saying so many wise things well expressed, but no one who matters listens!  To understand the foundations of geopolitics, start with geography. There is much food for thought in either of these books for those who want to understand what could be geopolitically speaking, and put into perspective the insanity of what is