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Zbigniew Brzezinski
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The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives Paperback – September 18, 1998

by Zbigniew Brzezinski (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 367 ratings
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The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives
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As the twentieth century draws to a close, the United States has emerged as the world's only superpower: no other nation possesses comparable military and economic power or has interests that bestride the globe. Yet the critical question facing America remains unanswered: What should be the nation's global strategy for maintaining its exceptional position in the world? Zbigniew Brzezinski tackles this question head-on in this incisive and pathbreaking book.The Grand Chessboard presents Brzezinski's bold and provocative geostrategic vision for American preeminence in the twenty-first century. Central to his analysis is the exercise of power on the Eurasian landmass, which is home to the greatest part of the globe's population, natural resources, and economic activity. Stretching from Portugal to the Bering Strait, from Lapland to Malaysia, Eurasia is the ”grand chessboard” on which America's supremacy will be ratified and challenged in the years to come. The task facing the United States, he argues, is to manage the conflicts and relationships in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East so that no rival superpower arises to threaten our interests or our well-being.The heart of The Grand Chessboard is Brzezinski's analysis of the four critical regions of Eurasia and of the stakes for America in each arena—Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and East Asia. The crucial fault lines may seem familiar, but the implosion of the Soviet Union has created new rivalries and new relationships, and Brzezinski maps out the strategic ramifications of the new geopolitical realities. He explains, for example: Why France and Germany will play pivotal geostrategic roles, whereas Britain and Japan will not. Why NATO expansion offers Russia the chance to undo the mistakes of the past, and why Russia cannot afford to toss this opportunity aside. Why the fate of Ukraine and Azerbaijan are so important to America. Why viewing China as a menace is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why America is not only the first truly global superpower but also the last—and what the implications are for America's legacy. Brzezinski's surprising and original conclusions often turn conventional wisdom on its head as he lays the groundwork for a new and compelling vision of America's vital interests. Once, again, Zbigniew Brzezinski provides our nation with a philosophical and practical guide for maintaining and managing our hard-won global power.
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  1. Print length
    240 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Basic Books
  4. Publication date
    September 18, 1998
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0465027261
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0465027262
  8. Lexile measure
    1550L
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, is a counselor and trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor of American foreign policy at the School of Advanced International Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, both located in Washington, D.C. His many books include The Choice and The Grand Chessboard. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; Later Printing Used edition (September 18, 1998)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465027261
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465027262
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1550L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.75 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 367 ratings

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Zbigniew Brzezinski

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
367 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book engaging and easy to read. They appreciate the insightful and informative content that helps them understand the world around them. The book provides a useful guide for interpreting current events and understanding the global scenario.

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ReadabilityInsight
32 customers mention "Readability"29 positive3 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They say it's a good read for IR students, well-written, and simple. The book provides a clear assessment of the trends and challenges.

"...book reveals much about super-power strategic thinking process, written very clearly, and I added the last star for his efforts to draw a map of the..." Read more

"...Anyway a very interesting book." Read more

"...very highly not because it is a real "page turner" or is particularly well written, but because of its cold Machiavellian analysis of the need to..." Read more

"..."The Grand Chessboard" is an easy read based on the headiness of the subject matter, but must be ingested in small pieces...." Read more

26 customers mention "Insight"26 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful and informative. They say it's a good guide to interpret current events and the global scenario. The author puts on display his deep analytic skills on a topic he has spent many years studying. Readers mention the book requires an open mind and willingness to look at things from a perspective different from their own.

"...In this book he puts on display his characteristically deep analytic skills on a topic he has spent many years as a professional strategist and..." Read more

"...Dr. Brzezinski ‘s very interesting book is loaded with maps and other graphics to illustrate the changes that would be made in the future..." Read more

"...This is a practical, unsentimental, and insightful argument for American global primacy and how we should use our power and influence for good...." Read more

"...This book provides important and stimulating information for the average person...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Alaturka
5.0 out of 5 stars Expert Analysis:
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2003
Verified Purchase
Brzezinski is familiarly precinct, efficient and far reaching. In this book he puts on display his characteristically deep analytic skills on a topic he has spent many years as a professional strategist and lecturer. Though at the time of its publishing, when the world was in a much more optimistic mood and globalism was on the march, his approach seemed to hark back to a bygone era, nowadays in this time of hawkish politics, he does not seem to be that far off the mark. His rationalism should not be confused with the views of the current ideologues on the right though.
Certainly, his take on US [power], and its logic of inevitability, may not be that acceptable to some, but still, it only reflects reality, not necessarily a moral judgment. Regardless, rather than simply focusing on and explaining the present based on recent past, like many professional talking heads do, he has actually made some bold projections into far future.
He points at Asia as the center of this grand chess game and concludes it is there where the final moves will be played out. With his excellent knowledge of Eastern Europe, Russia and Far East, he makes an excellent argument.
His few attempts at placing Middle East and Islam in the picture fall far short though; he fails to go beyond worn-out clichés. When was the last time an Islamic revolution got exported anywhere, really?
This is a valuable and interesting book reveals much about super-power strategic thinking process, written very clearly, and I added the last star for his efforts to draw a map of the future geo-politics. Highly recommended for anyone interested in these topics.
9 people found this helpful
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Suzanne Natafji
5.0 out of 5 stars Brzezinski’s 1st ‘Bookend’: The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives
Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2017
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Two of the title key words are very important to this review: ‘American Primacy’.

When an author writes a book, especially one that is political and deals with foreign affairs, this book captures events as a snapshot in time. As authors write later books, sometimes their views change.

Chessboard has been on university Poli Sci and Foreign Affairs/ Diplomatic Studies book lists for academic use since it was published, meaning that people who needed to know about and shape our foreign policy for the last 20 years have been familiar with it and have used it.

Dr. Brzezinski ‘s very interesting book is loaded with maps and other graphics to illustrate the changes that would be made in the future (from the time that he wrote it) to many countries world-wide, some of which would benefit from these changes, while others would not.

One of the most prescient, cogent, and almost incredible aspects about this book is that most of what it says would occur in world events at the time that it was written has, in fact, eventually happened!

In many ways, this book seems to have been ‘the script’ for many US foreign policy advisers to have been following, and it is understandable that it was followed, given that Brzezinski was a member of the CFR, a founding member of the Trilateral Commission, a Bilderberger, and an adviser to Presidents and other people that shape global policy. He did this both professionally and as a university professor.

The average person has no idea that a book like this exists. Because of this, I have bought multiple copies and given them out to others to help them understand why our current events are happening - by means of both major political parties, in a seemingly long-term weaving back and forth, throughout different political administrations.

As such, this would be one of the main Poli Sci/ diplomatic studies books to buy, read, re-read, and discuss with friends who also have inquiring minds.

I recommend that readers also buy Brzezinski’s last book: Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power (2012), because it is the bookend to Chessboard. In fact, I often buy both and give them to friends to read, so that we can use our higher-order thinking and communication skills to have a discussion about what the author felt/ knew about the imperatives of the ‘American Primacy’ at the time that he wrote Chessboard in 1997. This should then allow us to compare his changed vision to what he says in Strategic Vision, only 15 years later.

This book (along with Strategic Vision) should be required reading to increase the Politics/ Foreign Affairs knowledge base for every inquiring mind, especially regarding the concept of ‘global order’ and how the US currently fits inside of this.

(Please see my other Brzezinski Amazon ‘bookend’review on Strategic Vision.)
19 people found this helpful
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F. ALCALA
4.0 out of 5 stars A clever and full of hate mind
Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2006
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This is a very interesting book.Brezinsky is a very clever person, everybody knows that is member of several almost secret organizations, but the hate to Russia that he feels like born in Poland is over all the book. It's curious that he fells more hate to Russia that to Germany, that killed very much more polish people that russians. I recomended to read the book of Jean-Francois Steiner , Warsaw 44, and you will see that the guilty of massacre of Warsaw are the nationalists polishs.

The general lines of the point of view of Brzezinsky are corrects, and we see every day with the news how the US army go in the path recomended by him. But there are some wrong points ( in my modest point of view ). First , Brezinsky was the creator of the muslim guerrilla in Afganistan that was one of the beginning of islamic terrorism. He created a monster only for their hate to Russia, and we , and the americans, are suffering the consequences. Before 9/11, when a journalist asked him about the danger of islamic terrorism for the world, he said " nonsenses". A big mistake.

Second. The word Africa don't appear one time in the book, obviously this continent is not importante for him, may be true but, why the american companies are taking off oil in Angola and Guinea ?

Third . He speaks about Ukrania and Kazastan and other former provincies of Russia like if they were real independients countries. Ukrania and Russia have been unitad for more of 350 years ( very far before US existed )and he's happy that they are separated now. In kazastan 60 % of the population are slavic, russian and ukranians, if you believed in democracy , don't believed that they had to have the mayority of every aspect of life ? But the minority of kazanstan aborigen people ocuped almost every place in the gobernment, companies, etc, with the help of US, that is democracy ? If you see Caspio Net the satelite TV of Kazastan only see oriental faces, that is a disrimination to the white people, but, of course , the white people, an more if they are russians don't have rights.

Of course after the "orange revolution" in Ukrania and others similars in former provincies of the URSS everybody knows who put the money back. And the objetive is clear, Brezinsky said, and everybody knows too. The oil of Central Asia.

Unfortunately for Brzezinsky, Unites States is far and Russia near. The people of Kazastan and the other former provincies, speak russian and have russian education, Russia civilizated that regions before US conquered , about 1848,to Mexico, California, Nevada , Utah, Arizona, New Mexico , Texas, etc. With time these people will be reunited again, and that will be good for all, because the absence of control of Moscow in that provinces, only produced civil wars and anarchy.

Unites States is doing like he did in Panama. Panamá was a province of Colombia and United States paid money to the local politics for make a artifical country separated of Colombia, and in that way buy the land for the Panama channel cheaper an easily, but Russia is not Colombia.

The vacuum of russian power in that countries of central Asia is bad, very bad for all the western civilitation, and not other country can fill it without danger for Europe. The hate to Russia of a man had created a great problem for all us.

Fourth. Brzezinsky is not happy still with make pieces of Russia, he wants make Russia littler, with three bigs republics inside ¡ What do you think if I said that United States have to be divided in three parts, East, Center and West because in that way they can don't suffer the power of Washington ? And If I give money to the aborigines of Haway and Alaska, and they make independent countries and few to few begins to expel to the white people of their countries ? And if from one century or two from now the people of Mexico that will be majority in West and South of Unied States wants to reunite with Mexico and come back the stolen lands ? All that is the things that United States does with Russia now, and don't forget that the white people in Unites States is , every day, fewer.

It's a pity that when a big country like Russia wants go out of comunism , Europe and United States don'help him, and try to cut it in pieces. But remember that Tayllerand said " Russia is never so strong or weaker how she seems ". And also don't forget that the democracy is a way not the meta, many south american countries are democracies almost two centuries ago, and they are OK ? And Hitler get the power in free elections.

One last point. Indonesia never will be a ally of Australia against China, like islamic country , will be a enemy of Australia for ever, because Australia is, still, a christian country. And the same happens with Pakistan and Turkey. United States forget the religion like motor of wars and hates.

Anyway a very interesting book.
28 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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walter
5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for every Politician!
Reviewed in Germany on November 23, 2024
Verified Purchase
Excellent book! Originally published in 1997; predicts possible war with Russia over Ukriane partnership with NATO. This current war could have been avoided and many lives saved.
Its a blue-print of the USA National Security Doctrine to defend its hegemony.
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Patrick
5.0 out of 5 stars Un'analisi semplicemente magnifica
Reviewed in Italy on October 2, 2017
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La carriera di Brzezinski parla da sé. L'analisi è approfondita e gli accenti posti nei punti giusti. Puntuale e molto chiara, oserei dire illuminante per coloro che non sono estremamente competenti nel campo della geopolitica.
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julika winkler
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating reading.
Reviewed in Canada on June 6, 2015
Verified Purchase
The title of the book says it all. A primer in the political chessboard that is the US foreign policy. Brzezinski outlines in broad strokes
the template that should direct US foreign relations if the US wishes to remain the dominant world power.Considering this book was first published in 1997, it is amazing in its prescience regarding US policy today , especially vis a vie China, Russia, Ukraine and Europe. For readers interested in politics,this book makes fascinating reading.
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Florian ETIENNE
5.0 out of 5 stars Un grand classique de la géopolitique
Reviewed in France on July 23, 2013
Verified Purchase
The Grand Chessboard est un livre important pour comprendre le projet de l'impérialisme américain.
Il faut cependant lire ce livre avec un regard d' "initié" pour comprendre toutes les implications,
car Brzezinski cache toujours ses véritables intentions.
N'oublions pas que le processus d'hégémonie qu'il défend ne servira pas à promouvoir la "démocratie" mais à
installer la dictature des financiers occidentaux sur le monde, soit le "nouvel ordre mondial".
Ce n'est donc pas un livre pour les dupes.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a 'must read book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 19, 2009
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For anyone interested in the motivations that underpin current American foreign policy thinking, this is a 'must read' book. I came to it because of the number of times it was referenced by other authors and decided that it was time that I read it too. The title of the book explains its analytical purpose. It is very much about how the USA can continue to assert its primacy and the manner in which it needs to do so. Reading this analysis of America's global strategic imperatives, especially for the long-term control and security of oil supplies, shows why the USA is in Iraq, Afghanistan now and, latterly, why it is becoming more involved in Africa in countries where oil and minerals are yet to be exploited intensively. It also explains America's military, diplomatic and commercial presence in countries that encircle Russia and border on China.
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