Earning The Rockies, Kaplan, Robert D.

At a time when there is little consensus about who we are and what we should be doing with our power overseas, a return to the elemental truths of the American landscape is urgently needed. In Earning the Rockies, New York Times bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan undertakes a cross-country journey, traversing a rich and varied landscape that still remains the primary source of American power. Traveling west, in the same direction as the pioneers, Kaplan witnesses both prosperity and decline, and reexamines the history of westward expansion in a new light: as a story not just of genocide and individualism but also of communalism and a respect for the limits of a water-starved terrain. Concluding at the edge of the Pacific Ocean with a gripping description of an anarchic world, Earning the Rockies shows how Americas foreign policy response ought to be rooted in its own geographical situation.

Praise for Earning the Rockies

Unflinchingly honest . . . a lens-changing vision of Americas role in the world . . . a jewel of a book that lights the path ahead.--Secretary of Defense James Mattis

A sui generis writer . . . Americas East Coast establishment has only one Robert Kaplan, someone as fluently knowledgeable about the Balkans, Iraq, Central Asia and West Africa as he is about Ohio and Wyoming.--Financial Times

Kaplan has pursued stories in places as remote as Yemen and Outer Mongolia. In Earning the Rockies, he visits a place almost as remote to many Americans: these United States. . . . The authors point is a good one: America is formed, in part, by a geographic setting that is both sanctuary and watchtower.--The Wall Street Journal

A brilliant reminder of the impact of Americas geography on its strategy. . . . Kaplans latest contribution should be required reading.--Henry A. Kissinger