Robert Kaplan is a travel writer, and a good one. And from this – a commentator on world politics, both controversial and astute. His books, Balkan Ghosts, Ends of the Earth, The Coming Anarchy and Warrior Politics (see separate entry), have made him an advisor to the highest levels of the US military and government.

Kaplan’s style angers students of politics and appeals to those who aren’t. He writes what he sees, and what he sees are ugly realities. There are two overriding themes of his writing on travels to difficult and dangerous places – the Balkans, Africa, Central Asia.

First, that much dialog and writing on the third world by western pundits – prattling on about democracy, markets, human rights – is so far removed from third world realities – of tribalism, squalor, gangsters and warlords – as to be completely meaningless. You cannot talk about national policy, says Kaplan, in places where the concept of nationhood is only a fiction conjured by western mapmakers.

And second, that culture determines everything in these dysfunctional places. If it’s not a fantasy of “national politics” that matters, then what does? Culture – “politics is merely the sum of [people’s] cultural experiences at any given moment.”

Kaplan became famous for correctly predicting Yugoslavia’s implosion via arguments along these lines. Kaplan can provoke a knee-jerk rage among political scientists. This is a man who sees the trees in telling detail but not the forest, and certainly not the conditions of water and sunlight that produced it. But Kaplan is still required reading – not least for those who hate him.