IRB Media Summary of Robert Kagan's The Jungle Grows Back

Annotation

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The idea of human progress is a myth. While there have been periods of improvement in the way humans treat each other, history is a jagged line with no discernible slope.#2 There has been steady progress toward liberalism over the last two centuries, but this progress has been met with the rise of the modern police state in response.#3 The past few decades have seen a dramatic decrease in violence around the world, and many have become convinced that human beings have changed fundamentally since the 1930s.#4 The liberal order is not natural, and it has not been the result of any changes in human nature. It is the by-product of a unique set of circumstances contingent on a particular set of historical outcomes, including the battlefield, which could have turned out differently.