Return of History and the End of Dreams

'Robert Kagan is the reigning pundit of great power politics.' Alex Danchev, TLS

Hopes for a new peaceful international order after the end of the Cold War have been dashed by sobering realities. Great powers are once again competing for geopolitical influence. International competition between the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, and Iran raises new threats of regional conflict. The expectation that after the Cold War the world had entered an era of international convergence has proved wrong. We have entered an age of divergence.

In The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan masterfully poses the questions facing the liberal democratic world today. For the past few years, the liberal world has been internally divided and distracted by issues both profound and petty. But now History has returned, and the peoples of the liberal world need to choose whether they want to shape it – or let others shape it for them.

'Kagan's book reflects the dawning realisation in Washington in the wake of the Iraq debacle that it now has to operate in a world where autocratic China, Russia and Iran are not going to play ball with what Kagan dubs the big benign American dog thrashing its tail around in the global room.' Michael Burleigh, Literary Review

'Important, timely, and superbly written . . . Today's global challenges pose a stern test for the world's democracies. This book is a wakeup-call and should be read by policymakers, politicians, pundits and all who want a guide to the dangerous waters of the 21st-century geopolitics.' Senator John McCain