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A bracing assessment of U.S. foreign policy and world disorder over the past two decades from the bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography and The Coming Anarchy

"[Kaplan] has emerged not only as an eloquent defender of foreign-policy realism but as a grand strategist to whom the Pentagon turns for a tour d´horizon."-The Wall Street Journal

In the late thirteenth century, Marco Polo began a decades-long trek from Venice to China along the trade route between Europe and Asia known as the Silk Road-a foundation of Kublai Khan´s sprawling empire. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the Chinese regime has proposed a land-and-maritime Silk Road that duplicates exactly the route Marco Polo traveled.

Drawing on decades of firsthand experience as a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, Robert D. Kaplan outlines the timeless principles that should shape America´s role in a turbulent world that encompasses the Chinese challenge. From Kaplan´s immediate thoughts on President Trump to a frank examination of what will happen in the event of war with North Korea, these essays are a vigorous reckoning with the difficult choices the United States will face in the years ahead.

Praise for The Return of Marco Polo´s World

"Elegant and humane . . . [a] prophecy from an observer with a depressingly accurate record of predictions."-Bret Stephens, The New York Times Book Review

"These essays constitute a truly pathbreaking, brilliant synthesis and analysis of geographic, political, technological, and economic trends with far-reaching consequences. The Return of Marco Polo´s World is another work by Robert D. Kaplan that will be regarded as a classic."-General David Petraeus (U.S. Army, Ret.)

"Thoughtful, unsettling, but not apocalyptic analyses of world affairs flow steadily off the presses, and this is a superior example. . . . Presented with enough verve and insight to tempt readers to set it aside to reread in a few years."-Kirkus Review (starred review)

"An astute, powerfully stated, and bracing presentation."-Booklist

"This volume compiles sixteen major essays on America´s foreign policy from national security commentator Kaplan. . . . An overview of thoughtful, multilayered positions and perspectives evolving through changing circumstances."-Publishers Weekly

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Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of eighteen books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including The Return of Marco Polo´s World, Earning the Rockies, In Europe´s Shadow, 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 senior advisor at Eurasia Group. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He held the national security chair at the United States Naval Academy and was a member of the Pentagon´s Defense Policy Board. He is currently a member of the U.S. Navy´s Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world´s Top 100 Global Thinkers.

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