Adriatic

Never does Europe s pagan inheritance seem so sure of itself as at the entrance to this Christian church. The piazza, polished and lonely in the downpour, is dramatically reduced by a line of other buildings directly at my back. The longer I look, the more extraordinary the church becomes. Between the massive columns mounted on a high stylobate ledge are blind arcades guarding, in turn, a confidently deep triangular pediment. And within that triangular pediment is a lintel that anchors the whole facade. Form and proportion take over. In classical architecture, beauty is mathematical and equates with perfection.

Passing through the door, rather than a warm and embracing candlelit darkness, there is a shivery, pounding silence and the perpetual late afternoon light of an overcast day. I feel like ducking under the clouds. The loud echo of another pair of footsteps every few minutes reinforces my loneliness. A yawning marble floor overwhelms the meager rows of benches approaching the apse (rebuilt after the World War II bombing). The longer I sit here, the more vast and spare the marble becomes. The iron cold begins its assault.

Instead of experiencing the splendor of egg tempera and oil, I am aware of the white limestone clarity of an archaeological ruin: one reconstructed by the early Renaissance. Rather than color, force and volume emanate from the flattened and compressed reliefs. The feast of limestone sculptures in the side chapels takes possession of me. Because of the limestone, these crowded and intricate figures, despite their energy, expressiveness, and flowing movement, achieve an abstract and theoretical intensity. This is art that makes you think as well as feel. I am not seeing just the art I am seeing a path back to antiquity by way of late medieval city-states, in which communal survival left little room for conventional morality. For beauty can often emerge from the celebration of power, making it a register of Europe s past, present, and

Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of twenty books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including Adriatic, The Good American, The Revenge of Geography, Asia’s Cauldron, Monsoon, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He was a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and the U.S. Navy’s Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.”

An excellent exploration of the Adriatic s intriguing geographic and intellectual landscapes . . . The historical scope of Kaplan s canvas is vast, yet he works hard to bring to it the fruits of modern historical scholarship. That is rare among popular authors, and deserves much praise. The New York Times

Kaplan is one of the leading geopolitical thinkers of our age. . . . Scattered throughout the narrative are gems of historical and geopolitical insight. New York Journal of Books

[Kaplan] is America s geopolitical star. . . . For more than a decade, he has used his keen analytical skills to explain the world s power relationships. The American Spectator

[An] elegantly layered exploration of Europe s past and future . . . Like the best European travelogues the wandering, inquisitive weavings of Rebecca West s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) or Patrick Leigh Fermor s Between the Woods and the Water (1986) Adriatic mimics the layered complexity of its subject. This is a multifaceted masterpiece, a glittering excavation of the glories and rubbish heaps of Europe s past, a meditation on history and the inner journey of traveling with books in mind, a traveler s elegy for paths taken and not taken, and a conditionally hopeful reflection on Europe s emerging future. The Wall Street Journal

A marvelous mix of history, literature, atmospherics, and personal insight . . . [Kaplan] travels to learn rather than to simply confirm, which makes him the ideal guide for readers interested in expanding their understanding rather than reinforcing their assumptions. . . . Europe is back, and Kaplan s erudite and humane study offers an exemplary guide to it. The National Interest

Reading his book leaves one wanting to read it all over again while retracing the steps of his voyage. His palpable thirst for knowledge about human cultures and his tireless effort to wrest new insights from a life of travel and reading