The Return of History and the End of Dreams

The title of this book refers to the belief that the new century would bring world order and an end to hostile competition. What this book posits is that this dream was short lived and unrealistic. Indeed, what has emerged is a return to global politics on the scale of nineteenth-century Europe, rather than the idealism of the late twentieth century. What is needed, Kagan says, is a more equitably shared global balance of power and a U.S. foreign policy that recognizes that balance. Holter Graham narrates with authority but without artifice or too much gravitas, which would be all too easy. He varies his cadence to emphasize points and to allow the listener to catch up with the concepts. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

April 28, 2008
Scholar and Washington Post columnist Kagan (author of Dangerous Nation, co-founder of neoconservative think-tank Project for the New American Century) delivers a brief but stirring treatise on post-Cold War politics, warning that the world's nations have again plunged into the dangers of geo-politics: "the old competition between liberalism and autocracy" is back. Writing with authority and clear-eyed passion, Kagan explains how the end of the Cold War (the fabled "End of History") failed to prime the international demand for democracy, as the democratic world had hoped, yielding instead emerging autocracies in Russia, China and elsewhere, as well as the increasingly dangerous and virulent ideology of militant Islam. In dense but thoughtful prose, Kagan scrutinizes the patterns of history, and predicts a grim political future: "International order does not rest on ideas and institutions alone. It is shaped by configurations of power." Kagan's well-considered message will resonate with history buffs and current-affairs junkies looking for the latest in neocon thought.