The Loom of Time

A stunning exploration of the Greater Middle East, where lasting stability has often seemed just out of reach but may hold the key to the shifting world order of the twenty-first century“Engaging . . . Even those who resist Kaplan’s tragic sensibility have much to learn from his look at the emerging Middle East and its recent history.”—National ReviewFINALIST FOR THE OVERSEAS PRESS CLUB’S CORNELIUS RYAN AWARDThe Greater Middle East, which Robert D. Kaplan defines as the vast region between the Mediterranean and China, encompassing much of the Arab world, parts of northern Africa, and Asia, existed for millennia as the crossroads of empire: Macedonian, Roman, Persian, Mongol, Ottoman, British, Soviet, American. But with the dissolution of empires in the twentieth century, postcolonial states have endeavored to maintain stability in the face of power struggles between factions, leadership vacuums, and the arbitrary borders drawn by exiting imperial rulers with little regard for geog