Reviewed by Sean J. Coleman
The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World
By Hal Brands
W.W. Norton and Company, 2025
326 pages
In a crowded field of geopolitical analyses, Hal Brands’s The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World stands out as a work of profound intellectual rigor and urgent contemporary relevance. Brands, a Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, presents a compelling and meticulously argued thesis: that the defining feature of modern global politics is not the rise of American power, but rather the perpetual, violent struggle for control of the Eurasian landmass and the surrounding seas. This framework, which views the “American Century” as a mere episode within a much longer and more foundational geopolitical contest, offers a fresh and disquieting perspective on the past, present, and future of the international order.
Brands’s scholarship is grounded in a deep and sophisticated engagement with the classical geopolitical theorists, and he uses their ideas as working tools for his analysis. The book’s initial chapters reacquaint the reader with the foundational ideas of Sir Halford Mackinder, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Nicholas Spykman. Mackinder famously posited that control of the Eurasian “Heartland” was the key to world domination. Meanwhile, Mahan argued that mastery of the seas through naval power was the true determinant of global supremacy. Spykman, in a synthesis of the two, contended that the “Rimland” (the coastal areas surrounding the Eurasian heartland) was the pivotal strategic zone. Brands masterfully synthesizes these competing yet complementary theories into a single, cohesive framework, showing that the great powers did not treat these as competing schools but rather as different facets of a single strategic reality.
This intellectual heritage, far from being a dry academic exercise, becomes a powerful tool for illuminating the historical patterns of conflict and cooperation. Brands’s central idea that Eurasia is the world’s strategic center because it contains the majority of the planet’s population, economic potential, and military might is the linchpin of his entire argument. The historical chapters are organized to test this framework. He casts the past century’s great conflicts (the two World Wars and the Cold War) not as isolated, ideologically driven struggles, but as recurring clashes between expansionist, autocratic land powers and offshore democracies. He meticulously guides the reader through this geopolitical tour de force, highlighting how each conflict has been a new iteration of this enduring struggle. The book provides a nuanced account of American involvement, acknowledging that its interventions were never guaranteed while also staunchly defending the overall outcome of the U.S.-led liberal order. This willingness to take a clear, yet balanced, stand is a key strength, providing a transparent polemic without sacrificing scholarly integrity.
The true urgency of Brands’s work lies in its final section, where he applies the lessons of the past to our current predicament. This is where the book truly “hits its stride” by arguing that we are now in the midst of a “second Eurasian century,” defined by a new axis of authoritarian powers: China, Russia, and Iran. He presents their contemporary challenges (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s ambitions in the South China Sea, Iran’s regional aggression) not as new phenomena, but as the latest manifestations of an enduring historical pattern. Brands makes it clear that while these states’ actions may appear to be discrete crises, they are in fact interconnected parts of a broader strategy to “create a radically revised international order.” He notes that they share aims, coordinate in practice, and benefit from each other’s capacity. China, in particular, is highlighted as the most formidable of these powers, acting as both a primary challenger to U.S. hegemony and a vital economic lifeline for its autocratic partners. As a reviewer for Policy Magazine noted, Brands’s argument is a “rigorous work of scholarship” that shows how the contest over the Eurasian landmass is the “defining feature of global politics in the modern era.”
Brands’s analysis also delves into the policy implications of his thesis. He argues for a familiar but demanding approach: maintain access and coalitions in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, keep the sea lanes open, align industrial capacity with contingency plans rather than messaging, and resist binary choices that pit one theater against another. He notes that the United States has balanced more than one theater before, and doing so again demands realistic force planning, robust munitions output, and political leadership that prepares the public for costs over time. A well-known line from President Truman captures the point. America must pay the price for peace. Brands uses that logic to argue for sustained alliance investments and for clarity about the risks of signaling retreat.
A central theme of the book is its refusal to embrace geopolitical determinism. While geography is a powerful and persistent force, Brands insists that it is not destiny. He emphasizes the critical role of human agency, strategy, and ideology in shaping historical outcomes. “There is no law of nature that expansion must fail and tyranny must be vanquished,” Brands warns, echoing a sober and realistic perspective. This is a “thoughtful and disturbing” book, as Kirkus Reviews noted, precisely because it makes a convincing case that peace is not the default state of the world; it is a hard-won condition that requires constant vigilance. Brands’s final warnings about rising isolationism and political polarization in Western democracies serve as a stark reminder of the internal threats to the very coalitions needed to confront this new axis of autocracy.
In its comprehensive scope and its clear-eyed analysis, The Eurasian Century is a tour de force. As Robert Gates noted, reading it should be “required for everyone who will have, or hopes to have, responsibility for national security.” Paul Kennedy’s praise for the book’s “easy lucidity” and the “boldness of his geopolitical arguments” further underscores its value as both a scholarly and accessible work. Brands successfully synthesizes a century of complex history into a coherent and compelling argument, proving that a deep understanding of the past is not a luxury but a strategic necessity. The book is a vital and timely guide for anyone seeking to understand the perilous world we inhabit.
The enduring power of Brands’s analysis lies in its coda, where he returns to the very thinkers he introduced at the beginning. He argues that the struggles we face today (from the rise of China’s naval power in the Pacific to Russia’s expansionism in Eastern Europe) are not new but are in fact the 21st-century manifestations of the very dynamics predicted by Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman. The contemporary contest is nothing less than a brutal, high-stakes collision between a new autocratic “Heartland” and the democratic “Rimland,” with a maritime power (the United States) once again called upon to maintain the balance. Brands’s central message that the contest for Eurasia is far from over is one that no serious observer of international affairs can afford to ignore.
About the Reviewer
Sean J. Coleman, J.D., MBA, M.A., is retired from the United States Navy and has held several other jobs in support of the federal government. He served as the Associate Vice President at Webster University and is the author of the upcoming book, Cold Betrayal, to be published in 2026.