The Jungle Grows Back
America and Our Imperiled World
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group · Print & ebook · August 6, 2019
A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world—and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward.
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- Who it’s for
- A geopolitics-minded look at America’s place in a less forgiving world.
- Genres
- Security Studies, Geopolitics, Political Commentary
- Published
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, August 6, 2019
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Start with this bookAbout this book
A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world—and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward. Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray.
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In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would be the worst possible response, based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse. Kagan makes clear how the “realist” impulse to recognize our limitations and focus on our failures misunderstands the essential role America has played for decades in keeping the world's worst instability in check. A true realism, he argues, is based on the understanding that the historical norm has always been toward chaos—that the jungle will grow back, if we let it.
Worldview Check
A geopolitics-minded look at America’s place in a less forgiving world.
Come here for
- cultural literacy, with a geopolitics lens
- a sustained, explanatory read
Expect
- clear-worldview framing
- history used as argument, not backdrop
Where it sits
| Security Studies | 42% |
|---|---|
| Geopolitics | 37% |
| Political Commentary | 29% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- 20th-Century America
- Modern History
- International Relations
- Authors
- Robert Kagan
- Publisher
- Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- Published
- August 6, 2019
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- 20th-Century America