Flashpoints, George Friedman
Flashpoints, George Friedman
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Flashpoints
The Emerging Crisis in Europe

Author: George Friedman

Narrator: Bruce Turk, George Friedman

Unabridged: 11 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/27/2015


Synopsis

A major new book by New York Times bestselling author and geopolitical forecaster George Friedman (The Next 100 Years), with a bold thesis about coming events in Europe. This provocative work examines “flashpoints,” unique geopolitical hot spots where tensions have erupted throughout history, and where conflict is due to emerge again.

“There is a temptation, when you are around George Friedman, to treat him like a Magic 8 Ball.”  —The New York Times Magazine

With remarkable accuracy, George Friedman has forecasted coming trends in global politics, technology, population, and culture. In Flashpoints, Friedman focuses on Europe—the world’s cultural and power nexus for the past five hundred years . . . until now. Analyzing the most unstable, unexpected, and fascinating borderlands of Europe and Russia—and the fault lines that have existed for centuries and have been ground zero for multiple catastrophic wars—Friedman highlights, in an unprecedentedly personal way, the flashpoints that are smoldering once again.
     The modern-day European Union was crafted in large part to minimize built-in geopolitical tensions that historically have torn it apart. As Friedman demonstrates, with a mix of rich history and cultural analysis, that design is failing. Flashpoints narrates a living history of Europe and explains, with great clarity, its most volatile regions: the turbulent and ever-shifting land dividing the West from Russia (a vast area that currently includes Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania); the ancient borderland between France and Germany; and the Mediterranean, which gave rise to Judaism and Christianity and became a center of Islamic life.
     Through Friedman’s seamless narrative of townspeople and rivers and villages, a clear picture of regions and countries and history begins to emerge. Flashpoints is an engrossing analysis of modern-day Europe, its remarkable past, and the simmering fault lines that have awakened and will be pivotal in the near future. This is George Friedman’s most timely and, ultimately, riveting book.

About The Author

GEORGE FRIEDMAN is the CEO and founder of Stratfor, the world's leading private intelligence company. He is frequently called upon as a media expert in intelligence and international geopolitics, and is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Next Decade and The Next 100 Years, as well as numerous articles on national security, information warfare, and the intelligence business. He lives in Austin, Texas.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nilesh on March 24, 2015

Flashpoints packs in some good information but it is too cursory, needlessly conspiratorial and unfoundedly biased. Almost a half of the short book is a summary of the "European" history. From protestant reformation and renaissance to scientific revolution, French revolution and Napoleonic wars, colo......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on March 08, 2015

Friedman is in serious need of an editor. The first two sections, which intend to provide a brief history of 500 years of European history, are too short to be useful and too long to be interesting. The third part, which actually discusses the flashpoints of the title, is often unfocused and ramblin......more

Goodreads review by Dmitri on April 10, 2016

Job well done from the Master of geopolitics Deep understanding of the roots of European conflicts of the the last 500 years of its history. It makes a fascinating and enlightening read. A little sad, maybe, because of the clear understanding that the wars are far from over. Nothing new for me. More......more

Goodreads review by Tuncay on September 02, 2022

Avrupa'daki politik patlama noktalarının tarihsel arka planları ışığında geleceğe dair öngörüler içeren bir kitap. Avrupa ve çevre ülkelerde yaşanabilecek her problemin artık barış içinde, Avrupa Birliği gibi uluslararası örgütlerde müzakere ile çözümlenebileceğine yönelik genel kanıya ters iddialar......more

Goodreads review by Muath on March 31, 2016

Geopolitics of today's Europe and how WWI and WW2 reflect on it. Geography, and nationalistic identity play great role. Japan defeated in WWII is not allowed to have real army, yet Germany is, why? Because of Cold War and Germany's proximity to Russia so Americans armed them, and much more stuff like......more


Quotes

One of the Wall Street Journal's Top 16 Books on Wall Street’s Spring Break Reading List

"In this insightful examination of contemporary Europe, political scientist Friedman (Next Decade) challenges the view that the European Union and its neighbors have transcended the threat of violent conflict among nations….. By dispassionately anatomizing the fears, aspirations, and interests of the key players, particularly a resurgent and resentful Russia, Friedman vividly describes a region where memories are long, perceived vulnerabilities are everywhere, and major threats have emerged rapidly and unexpectedly many times before."
--Publishers Weekly

"This nonacademic but erudite view of European history shows that the 20th century's trauma of war and violence is not quite behind us….A thoughtful, uncluttered treatise considering Europe's intractable patterns of unemployment, immigration and racism."
--Kirkus