A review by perilevin
Asia's Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific by Robert D. Kaplan

3.0

The author didn’t say who he was or what his stake/ involvement with the South China Sea/ Pacific was but he still included himself as an actor/ observer and it was like what are you doing in this narrative that you’re crafting? On a practical level I actually appreciated Kaplan tying any given event or geographic feature to a Caribbean or middle eastern/west asian conflict. Im much less familiar with dynamics of southeast asia so this was helpful. I thought this was an interesting overview of the geopolitical status quo but I wish it was less judgmental. I’d prefer more just talking about the facts rather than placing moral value on countries based on GDP. It’s on me for reading something that was most likely going to be vaguely paternalistic and more critical of poor countries than of colonialism itself. I should try to find works on this topic by AAPI or non American scholars.