...short but profound ... The Tragic Mind may be Kaplan’s shortest book but in one sense it is a synthesis of what he has learned from seeing war up close, studying how statesmen have approached the knowns and unknowns of global politics, and his appreciation of the tragedies that fill the pages of history from ancient times to the present.
The Tragic Mind is Mr. Kaplan’s 21st book and the only one he has written as an act of self-flagellation ... The Tragic Mind” is really an extended essay that can be read in a sitting by someone passionate about the Greeks. Mr. Kaplan appeals to the ancient playwrights—Euripides in particular, but also Aeschylus and Sophocles—in support of his argument that 'an orderly universe' is 'always a virtue.' Chaos is anathema. But Mr. Kaplan’s contention that this position, rooted as it is in prophetic (and thus pre-scientific) times, holds true for the 21st-century world is more than a little baffling. It’s enough, in fact, to make a reader mutinous, unconvinced as he will be by Mr. Kaplan’s assertion that the answers to moral questions about the rightness of war are to be found more readily in the classics than in the strategic analysis of present-day experts ...
Kaplan can often sound pompous and old-fashioned (not a new criticism), but the advice that military actions should be carefully thought through, and then thought through again, should be heeded by anyone who contributes to making life-and-death decisions. A road map for effective, well-considered policy.
