Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

I decided to cut Part IV completely, giving me only three parts now renamed. I had ditched Chapter 12 (Super-Empower Me!) and moved it up into an earlier chapter as a section, and Thursday, just back from Amsterdam, I decided to kill Chapter 13 (How to Become a Grand Strategist). I had spent the flights there and back prepping the chapter, and felt okay about it starting out, but then I found I simply couldn't write my way into the chapter well. I cranked 1500 words and hadn't even started the chapter and when I looked at the material, it struck me like the beginning of a conclusion, not the start of another substantive chapter. I thereupon still tried to start the How To chapter and did about 1,000, but the tone and the level was all wrong, plus I felt like I was regurgitating material from the first chapter, which I now realize has covered the same material, just at a much higher level. Since the entire book resides at that higher level, I felt I couldn't downshift to a self-help tone at the end. It would just be too weird.

Mark and I have decided I'll probably write that as a piece for Esquire later this year, maybe as an ad for a small, Robert Kagan-like book just on that subject, which would be fun (resurrecting my original book proposal).

I don't feel bad about dropping the entire last part. It just makes sense. Chapter 11 felt like such a concluding substantive chapter: I had said what I set out to say.

Plus I'm so happy with the whole book, which I reread yesterday on flights to and from DC, that I don't want to ruin the strong tone by add-ons.

So today I work up the conclusion, which I will write tomorrow. Then I will break for a week and think about the Preface, based on the new title for the book, which is, Great Powers: America and the World After Bush. The title is mostly Neil's creation, but I like it a lot. I like the idea of recasting that classic term of art in this book, for I feel that is exactly what I've done in the text.