In The Ends of the Earth, Robert D. Kaplan travels from the devastated countries of West Africa and the fundamentalist enclaves of Egypt and Iran to the culturally explosive lands of Central Asia, India, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia with hardly more than a notebook and a backpack. Kaplan's intention was to investigate firsthand the effect of population explosion and environmental degradation in these countries and to see how the various cultures he encountered responded to them. But as he traveled, talking to gun smugglers and government ministers, warlords and shantytown dwellers, he discovered that the real problem, in places as far afield as Sierra Leone and western China, was the reemergence of longstanding cultural rivalries and the dissolution of national boundaries as regions redefine themselves along ethnic and historic lines. Kaplan's ground-level experiences allow him to avoid grandiose generalizations about the clash of civilizations and to replace them with intimate portraits of the men and women he encounters: Rafighdoost, Khomeini's fiercely loyal chauffeur; Ali Abdel Razag, keeper of the Aswan High Dam; and Ayshe Tanrikulu, a squatter on Golden Mountain, a shantytown on the outskirts of Ankara, who hopes that her sons will one day be doctors or engineers. It is in the squalor of daily existence and in people's fears, frustrations, and dreams that Kaplan looks for the key to a country's future. The Ends of the Earth offers an intimate portrait of the devastated parts of the world, whose cultural disasters - like those in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Rwanda today - will dominate our attention and remake the world of tomorrow.


在《世界的盡頭》一書裡，羅柏‧D‧卡普蘭只帶上他的後背包和一本筆記本，就挺進西非殘破不堪的國家，行經埃及和伊朗的基本教義派地區，進入中亞、印度、巴基斯坦和東南亞一帶文化衝突嚴重的地區，一窺其樣貌。卡普蘭之所以選擇這麼做，是想親臨現場得到第一手資料，深入探討人口爆炸和環境惡化所帶來的的危機，了解這些有著相異文化的國家如何因應這些挑戰。旅途中他訪問槍枝走私販、政府官員、軍閥以及貧民窟居民，發現像獅子山共和國與中國西部這些偏遠地區真正面臨的問題，是自古以來不斷上演的文化衝突，以及種族與歷史的演進之下，逐漸模糊的國界。卡普蘭實地考察當地所獲得的珍貴經驗，讓他的書紀錄下旅途中遇到的人之真實寫照，來反映當地文明的衝突：對前伊朗最高領袖霍梅尼誓死效忠的司機瑞菲杜斯特（Rafighdoost）；阿斯旺水壩的守護者阿里（Ali Abdel Razag）；和住在金山違建的居民艾許（AysheTanrikulu），金山位於安卡拉的郊區，是一個貧民區，艾許希望她的兒子們未來能當醫生或工程師。卡普蘭走訪這些條件惡劣的地區，紀錄居民的恐懼、挫折和希望，為的就是想從中找到解決辦法，解救國家的未來。本書將世界殘破的一面寫實呈現，波斯尼亞、車臣共和國和盧安達等地今日所面臨的文化災難將佔據世人焦點，並改變明日的世界。