A bracing assessment of U.S. foreign policy and world disorder over the past two decades from your bestselling author of The Revenge of Geography and The Arriving Anarchy

“[Kaplan] has surfaced not only as an eloquent defender of foreign-policy realism but like a grand strategist to whom the Pentagon turns for a tour d’horizon.”-The Wall structure Street Journal

In the late thirteenth century, Marco Polo began a decades-long trek from Venice to China along the trade route between about The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century Europe and Asia known as the Silk Road-a foundation of Kublai Khan’s sprawling empire. Right now, in the early twenty-first century, the Chinese regime has proposed a land-and-maritime Silk Road that duplicates exactly the path Marco Polo traveled.

Sketching on decades of firsthand experience like a foreign correspondent and military embed for The Atlantic, Robert D. Kaplan outlines the timeless concepts that should form America’s role inside a turbulent world that encompasses the Chinese problem. From Kaplan’s immediate thoughts on Leader Trump to a frank examination of what will happen in case of war with North Korea, these essays are a vigorous reckoning using the challenging choices the United States will face in the years forward.

Compliment for The Return of Marco Polo’s World

“Elegant and humane . [a] prophecy from an observer having a depressingly accurate record of predictions.”-Bret Stephens, The New York Situations Book Review

“These essays constitute a pathbreaking, excellent synthesis and analysis of geographic, political, technological, and financial trends with far-reaching consequences. The Return of Marco Polo’s World is another function by Robert D. Kaplan that’ll be seen as a traditional.”-General David Petraeus (U.S. Army, Ret.)

“Thoughtful, unsettling, however, not apocalyptic analyses of world affairs flow steadily off the presses, and this is an excellent example. . . . Offered plenty of verve and understanding to tempt readers to create it apart to reread in a couple of years.”-Kirkus Review (starred review)

“An astute, powerfully stated, and bracing presentation.”-Booklist

“This volume compiles sixteen major essays on America’s foreign policy from national security commentator Kaplan. . . . An overview of thoughtful, multilayered positions and perspectives growing through changing situations.”-Web publishers Weekly