Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of sixteen books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including In Europe’s Shadow, Asia’s Cauldron, The Revenge of Geography, Monsoon, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He is senior advisor at Eurasia Group since January 2017. He is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a contributing editor at The Atlantic, where his work has appeared for three decades. He was chief geopolitical analyst at Stratfor, a visiting professor at the United States Naval Academy, and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.”
I have met Robert D. Kaplan in 2011, when he joined Stratfor – the company I have been working with. One year later I started helping him on his latest book “In Europe’s Shadow”, about Romania. This project was probably the most challenging and rewarding that I have worked on so far. The “microcosm of Europe” – Romania, has revealed to us with every new book read, every road taken to discover not only the landscape but also the colors of the Romanian spiritual, cultural life. During the three years I’ve spent helping him on this project, I didn’t only learn much more about my own country and Europe, but also about writing and living through history and geography both.
Back in 2003, studying intellectual history at a Georgetown Institute of Political and Economic Studies, I was overwhelmed and troubled by the fragments from Kaplan’s first book on the region, “Balkan Ghosts”. I later found that the book was obligatory study material in school for most of the South Eastern Europe analysts I met. In 2011 I understood what made it a good book for an analyst: the wondering, the constant questioning for what is relevant. What distinguishes Robert D. Kaplan is his constant search for the meaning of history into the future.
Helping him, discussing and exchanging opinions about the regional geopolitical trends equal to aiming to find answers to most important questions. His guidance and our curiosity are key to better understanding the world we live in. I am happy that the dialogue still continues – and we still find working together and exchanging opinions intellectually rewarding.
