Tom around the Web this week

+ Chirol adds to his Mapping the Gap series with part 5: Italy, Netherlands, France.

+ ZenPundit engages the debate between Max Borders and Tom: Building institutions vs. nations or states

+ Chirol compares Tom's thought to early US involvement in the Caribbean based on Chirol's reading of Max Boot's 'The Savage Wars of Peace'.

+ Brian Hertzer has posted excerpts from his paper The Great Enlistment: Missions and Ministry in the 21st Century, which he writes is greatly influenced by Tom's thinking.

+ A big thanks to Sun Bin for his mini reviews of the Washington Observer's coverage of Tom.

+ And, finally, this nice quote from Penguin Monkey (in reference to the Putin post):

I really like Tom Barnett. It's like if Hemingway was a policy wonk. It really is that level of greatness.

Comments

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Tom et al, I just finished reading a book by Jared Diamond called "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." Late in the book he has a couple of maps :) that list societies that face serious environmental problems that are also what he labels "Political Trouble Spots", among these Haiti, Burundi, Rwanda, Irag, Afghanistan, Somalia, among others. I wondered if you have considered the impact of environment degradation into failed states or states likely to fail and if so, to what extent. It is an interesting book and this is a minor point of his, more of a broad look at how some states (societies) have failed over time due to environmental impacts and how others (Notably Japan) have been able to overcome environmental challenges. The book is worth a look, an earlier book of his just completed broadcast on PBS, "Guns, Germs, & Steel".