Publisher's Synopsis
A vital, deeply personal exploration of a historically volatile region that is once again a global crossroads-the Adriatic Sea, including Italy, Croatia, Albania, and Greece-from the bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts and The Revenge of Geography. In this insightful travelogue, geopolitical expert Robert D. Kaplan turns his perceptive eye to the Adriatic Sea, a region that has always been a crossroads in trade, culture, and ideas. Kaplan journeys through Italy and the Balkan countries lining the Adriatic to reveal much more to the region than news stories let on. Often overlooked, the Adriatic is in fact at the center of the most significant challenges of our time, including the rise of populist politics, the refugee crisis, and battles over the control of energy resources. Kaplan explores how the region has changed over his three decades of observing it as a journalist. He finds that to understand the Adriatic is to see the future of Europe as a whole, and he unearths a stark truth: The era of populism is an epiphenomenon-a sign of the age of nationalism coming to an end. Instead, the continent is returning to alignments of the early modern era as distinctions between East and West meet and break down within the Adriatic countries and ultimately throughout Europe. With a brilliant cross-pollination of history, literature, art, architecture, and current events, in Adriatic, Kaplan shows that this region that exists at the intersection of civilizations holds revelatory truths for the future of global affairs.
