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| The Return of History and the End of Dreams | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Kagan
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 1263
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 128
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 030726923X
Dewey Decimal Number: 909.82
EAN: 9780307269232
ASIN: 030726923X
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
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Product Description
Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities: Great powers are once again competing for honor and influence. Nation-states remain as strong as ever, as do the old, explosive forces of ambitious nationalism. The world remains “unipolar,” but international competition among the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raise new threats of regional conflict. Communism is dead, but a new contest between western liberalism and the great eastern autocracies of Russia and China has reinjected ideology into geopolitics. Finally, radical Islamists are waging a violent struggle against the modern secular cultures and powers that, in their view, have dominated, penetrated, and polluted their Islamic world. The grand expectation that after the Cold War the world would enter an era of international geopolitical convergence has proven wrong.
For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. Now, in The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the most important questions facing the liberal democratic countries, challenging them to choose whether they want to shape history or let others shape it for them.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 "Back To The Future" May 2, 2008
57 out of 63 found this review helpful
Robert Kagan's "The Return of History And The End Of Dreams" is a sobering, trenchantly written analysis of contemporary international affairs. In it, Kagan takes aim at the largely unwarranted optimism widespread in western democracies following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many at that time thought the world had arrived at "the end of history," that the future would be confined to one inevitable shape (liberal democracy), that nations in the wake of a new geo-economics and globalization would now just peacefully engage in commerce, with nationalism and geo-political confrontation things of the past.
Kagan looks at the current scene without such blinkers, reminding his readers of the competitive nature of human beings and of the "stubborn traditions" now once again clearly resurgent in many nation states. Far from presenting a world in which the triumph of liberal democracy is inevitable, he draws attention to the resurgence of its increasingly powerful rivals, autocracy (in Russia and China principally) and to a lesser degree Islamist radicalism (in the Middle East). In short, Kagan reveals the allegedly post-modern world to be a place where power politics still obtains and war is not out of court. The post-Cold War world, then, should be understood as one containing a large measure of "backward-looking" geo-political competition, and that the great conflict now taking shape within it, if one has the courage to see, is the one between democracy and autocracy.
Following his demolition of the simple faith in a new international liberal order presumably automatic upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kagan goes on to call the western democracies to a new vigilance. As he puts it, "the future international order will be shaped by those who have the power and the collective will to shape it. The question is whether the world's democracies will again rise to that challenge."
Liberal Democracy vs Autocracy May 16, 2008
22 out of 25 found this review helpful
During the 1990s, after the fall of communism, it appeared that democratic capitalism had triumphed with no serious ideological challengers on the horizon. It was famously designated by Francis Fukuyama as "the end of history." Enlightenment had reached its final stage, there was no longer any beyond toward which progress marched. Most of the pundit class believed that China and Russia were well on their way to becoming liberal democracies. The theory was that once their respective middle classes reached a certain level of wealth they would be demanding the legal and political rights that are required of constitutional liberalism.
Robert Kagan does not believe this will happen. Autocracies such as China and Russia will not make the transition to liberal democracy on their own, nor will they change if they are safely embedded in the international liberal order. Kagan argues that the Chinese and the Russians do not view democracy as competitive elections, rather elections are something that asserts the popular will, which becomes the will of the ruling class. The ruling classes are not so much concerned with human rights as they are with satisfying public needs. In both countries a relatively small ruling class controls all the levers of power. Even though they line their own pockets, they have served their populations rather well, compared to the kleptocrats of smaller autocracies. The majorities of their populations actually seem content with this "style" of democracy.
Fareed Zakaria has argued in The Post-American World that autocracies do not hold beliefs other than becoming part of the global economy. They are simply pragmatists who will eventually become stakeholders in the system. Kagan begs to differ: He writes that autocrats believe in autocracy and will continue to reject the demands of meddlesome Western governments and NGOs. The higher cause they believe in is that they are providing economic success for their people and by extension getting international respect.
Autocracies seek to make the world safe for other autocracies as well. Their so-called respect for other nations' sovereignty and policy of noninterference sits well with lesser dictatorships such as Myanmar and North Korea. Autocrats prefer to do business with each other. After the successes of democracy in the 1990s, Russia and China would like to roll back those advances by promoting thier own successes. Kagan thinks that only dreamers would believe that China and Russia could become part of the liberal international order.
Interestingly enough, one of the most provocative and consequential foreign policy statements made by John McCain was in Kagan's neoconservative mold. McCain proposed that international organizations should only allow democracies as its members, as in a league of democracies, setting themselves against such countries as China and Russia. This would be the end of dreams and possibly the beginning of a nightmare. Although Kagan's point is well argued, I am more inclined the agree with Zakaria in that greater efforts should be made to make these important players part of the system rather than enemies of the system. The ideology of autocracy is inherently weak because power is too concentrated. Better to weaken it from within.
 KAGAN IS THE PATRON SAINT OF NEO-CONS May 27, 2008
19 out of 50 found this review helpful
Robert Kagan is trying to sell books by playing off the title of Fukuyama's End of History. He does not rise to the intellect of Fukuyama nor does he make any reasonable argument in support of his contention that, indeed, the ideological struggle has returned. For reasons set forth below, authors like Robert Kagan, funded by think tanks funded by defense contractors, should be avoided. His misjudgments in the Iraq context has caused the death of thousands of Americans and it is simply inappropriate for Knopf to give a book contract to someone so silly so soon. He regurgitates some of the great lines of political economy, so if you want to collect quotes, the book may be worth it for that.
Yes Russia, China and India have increased their defense budget, and are all nuclear. Yes also, countries which grow economically independent tend to become more assertive upon doing so. Yes also, that humans have foibles and ego and all that. So what is the point writing a book telling us about it. Well, the author thinks all that points to the resurgence of new challenges, and although he does not say so, probably means a bigger defense budget and more surveilance stateside, all the things he has argued for as a leading neo-con.
Unfornately what neo-cons have never understood is why the world seems to be moving away from the goodwill of the early nineties and toward more tension. First, it is because neo-cons overestimated the positive vibes then, just as they overestimate the negative vibes now. When Bush and Bill kristol and Robert Kagan were trumping the new relationship with Russia and Putin, he was in China and India openly talking about a strategic alliance against the US. So Kagan missed that then, and now he is crying foul when the reality of Putin has come through.
Two, Kagan misses in his book the single biggest irritant in international relations. Yes, I do not mean to beat up the US, but it is neo-con foreign policy. You have put American soldiers in Afgahnistan and Iraq, so Iran now is surrounded on both sides by them. If it seems to be upping the ante, it is because its own survival is at stake.
Then there is Russian. Neo-cons have put NATO right on the Russian border and want to put all manner of surveilance equipment right there. There is no reason why Russians should be expected to put up with it, especially since conservatives came up with the idea of auctioning off the assets of the Soviet Union and thus turned over the patrimony of 200 million people into the hands of 20 oligarchs. No, it is not the free market way. Capitalism means taking a pick ax to Montana and digging your silver mine. What happened in Russia was the oligarchs, conservative professors from the US and neo-con strategists turned over for 2 cents a dollar those assets already developed.
Three, men like Robert Kagan should leave political economy to Gilpin and Fukuyama who although not private sector people, so at least have some handle on the 'geoeconomics' Robert Kagan was trying to write about.
Finally, Robert Kagan most reminds me of the Iraq War. And it is simply inappropriate that a man of his strategic ineptitude should continue to find space on bookstore shelves.
Chaos rules, democracy survives, all the rest cause trouble May 24, 2008
17 out of 22 found this review helpful
Brilliant; history has not ended, it is alive and well and in most part ignoring and even rejecting the "exceptionalism" of America and writers such as Fukuyama.
In brief, Kagan presents the logical facts about why international turmoil will continue unabated. Yet, he's still stuck in the idealism of Kant and Montesquieu who argued, "The natural effect of commerce is to lead toward peace."
But, commerce is competition which becomes riddled with cheating and bullying. From steroids in sports to bribes in business, competition leads to cheating which leads to fisticuffs and, when enough people are involved, to war. Kagan astutely recognizes the ills of the last century; he doesn't sumble until he gets to the future.
This may be the most relevant book issued this election year. One of it's central ideas is already part of Sen. John McCain's campaign platform, and an issue for discussion in the Financial Times. Ignore Kagan's sense of reality and Bush's blundering bozos will look like picnickers playing in the park compared to what comes next.
"In a world increasingly divided among democratic and autocratic lines, the world's democrats will have to stick together," Kagan advises. It's a proposal McCain has voiced with his 'League of Democracies'. Kagan likely originated it; McCain copied, which at least shows he's capable of recognizing good ideas.
Yet, there's another "reality". At this point (May 2008), Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can't form a 'League of Two Democrats' let alone two democracies. Many Republicans have a similar problem in forming a "league" to elect McCain.
What does it prove? It proves life is challenged more by chaos than by all the clever philosophies from Plato to Kagan, who writes, ". . . they regarded democracy as the rule of the licentious, greedy, and ignorant mob".
They were right. Now it's called chaos. Success is the ability to recognize useful patterns within chaos. The world is not an orderly formula which everyone obeys, like some "Universal Theory" Albert Einstein sought so vainly. It's chaos, confusion, conflict and contusion which the wise learn to analyze and the foolish continue to lament.
Aye, there's the rub. How do you implement perceptive insights and good ideas in a world of chaos?
Kagan goes right up to this point, then hesitates rather than plunge into uncertainty. He's an American idealist, ready to build the 'city on a hill' as the perfect answer, a man governed by reason, inspired by perfection but somewhat above reality.
It is a brilliant essay. It's as current as this year's U.S. elections, as timeless as history itself and as relevant as anything else you may read this year.
But, chaos rules. You'll understand after reading this book.
Poorly-written, historically weak - and, worst of all, yet more warmongering June 6, 2008
10 out of 37 found this review helpful
Robert Kagan worked in the US State Department from 1984 to 1998, and was a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He has written this little book in reply to Francis Fukuyama, also of the State Department and of PNAC, who in 1992 wrote `The End Of History And The Last Man'.
This book may be Kagan's application for the post of foreign policy advisor to Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain. Among other brilliant ideas, McCain wants Britain to invade Sudan, just like we did in the 1880s. Remember what happened to General Gordon? And to the government that sent him?
Kagan wants whatever he calls democracies to unite against what he calls autocracies, especially China and Russia. But actually he wants empires, US and EU alike, to unite against national sovereignty.
He defines democracy as having competitive elections. But in the USA, the electoral choice is between two wings of the Property Party, two multi-millionaires, equally pro-capital, equally pro-empire (witness Obama's pledges, like McCain's, to back whatever the Israeli state does, to eliminate the so-called threat from Iran and to tighten the USA's illegal blockade of Cuba). Are Russia's elections, or Iran's, or Venezuela's, significantly less democratic that the USA's? Yet Kagan calls these countries autocracies.
Kagan notes that the American people want the USA to play a less prominent world role, but he doesn't let that stop him calling for more globalisation, more capitalism. But the peoples of the world need to determine their own countries' futures, free from outside interference.
He approvingly quotes Blair's adviser Robert Cooper, who says that the EU is a `cooperative empire ... dedicated to liberty and democracy' - so free and so democratic that it refuses its citizens a vote on its treaties. Not surprising, given that Cooper believes, "The challenge to the postmodern world is to get used to the idea of double standards."
Remember that in 1914, Germany's franchise was wider than Britain's, yet the British and US states called the First World War a war for democracy against German autocracy. Kagan, as a servant of his empire, says that it must fight and defeat the `autocracies' - he is just another warmonger. Here he continues his ten-year campaign for attacking Iraq, claiming that Iraq may join a bloc of pro-US democracies in the Middle East. The end of dreams?
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