The John Adams Institute presented an evening with Robert D. Kaplan, who talked about his book Eastward to Tartary (Oostwaarts, Het Spectrum). Eastward to Tartary is a riveting journey through the wreckage of the old Ottoman empire and into the heart of the oil-rich lands of Central Asia. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, the Great Powers pecked at the Ottoman Empire like vultures circling a wounded prey, nibbling off territories in the Balkans and the Caucasus. This resulted in World War I which changed the map of the Middle East. The collapse of the Soviet Union has brought us back to those years, as the map of Central Asia, the Balkans and the Middle East is once again being radically altered. In his bestseller Balkan Ghosts, Robert Kaplan introduced us to a region in turbulent upheaval and in Eastward to Tartary he fills in the rest of the story.
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