In The Eurasian Century, Hal Brands mounts a powerful case that the struggle for control over the Eurasian landmass and its surrounding waters has been the defining feature of modern global politics. As the planet’s “strategic center of the world”—home to 70% of the population and the bulk of its industrial and military potential—Eurasia has been the stage for a recurring conflict. This conflict pits ambitious continental autocracies seeking hegemony against offshore democracies like the United Kingdom and United States, which, in concert with continental allies, have fought to keep the supercontinent divided to preserve a world where freedom can flourish. Brands explores why Eurasia became the “engine of history” for the 20th century’s greatest hot wars, cold wars, and proxy wars, resolving the core paradox of how an era of “unmatched carnage” produced a system “more peaceful, prosperous, and democratic than anything humanity had known before.” Positioning America’s rivalries with China and Russia as the “next round in this geopolitical game,” the book asks what lessons the past offers for the upheaval ahead. A Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Brands grounds this sweeping narrative in extensive research from the “papers and archives of many countries.”
