Prisoners of Geography
Ratings131
Average rating3.9
Wel aardig boek waarin de diverse politieke problemen in de wereld worden verklaard aan de hand van de onderliggende geografie – hoe die de diverse naties hebben gevormd, en de daarbij nog geldende (on)mogelijkheden daardoor.
Slightly interesting, but mostly just modern geopolitics, and not in fact “everything about the world.” I didn't care enough to finish it, and can't remember anything about it a month later.
I enjoyed a lot the history and geographical challenges countries face! It is a bit older book so of course, some things have already happened. Can wait to read his newer books. I put a 4 because of not being sure if everything is objective and correct.
There's something attractive about the claim that a nation's prosperity and geopolitical history can be explained by its geography. The characteristics of our coasts, rivers and mountains define how successful we are at trading and how eager we are to wage war with our neighbours. And why straight borders drawn in colonial past are meant to fail.
Illuminating how important and political shipping routes still are. Channels are are being built, the melting of arctic ice is welcome, and all to allow us to cut transportation routes short.
An excellent geopolitical history primer.
An interesting read, but I simply was not a fan of the style of writing. I also wish that there were more maps illustrating the author's points — the maps included are quite basic and not particularly rich in context.
(2.5, rounded up to 3)
This was supposed to be a primer on maps and geography first, and how it relates to history later. What should have been a compelling read is reduced to short paragraphs of text which look like they have been lifted straight from Wikipedia, which is not a compliment.
Two glaring flaws jump at you once you finish this book. The first being that Marshall's treatment is superficial at best and unconvincing at worst - I sometimes felt that even the author wasn't convinced that rivers and mountains have influenced history to the extent that he describes. Secondly, Marshall is an unabashed neoliberal - his beliefs are that Latin America is in dire straits because they had socialism, colonialism happened and we should all get over it, and trust for American hegemony is very much implicit within the text.
All in all, the book is a decent introductory read if you are a novice on geopolitics, but if one is already aware of what is going on in the world and wanted to know the ground reality, as I did, then this book is not a good starting point. There are some good things to be said about the book but the consistently glossing over details and the pretending that Australia doesn't exist does it no favours.
The final chapter, where Marshall states that humanity is so divided that we cannot contemplate travelling the universe as representatives of mankind but will still think of ourselves as Indians, Americans, Russians or Chinese – is a sobering one. This is the only place where he made me believe in the prisoners of geography argument – and better late than never, I suppose.
Interesting approach to global politics, however inconsistent at times and oversimplified at others.
Russia and Africa chapters were decent and consistent, the rest subpar, except for the Middle East, which was a total distaster.
All in all it's a nice concept for you to build your own thoughts on, not to be taken at face value (written for the sole intent of being a bestseller, and not to share valuable input)
Tim Marshall paints with broad brush strokes the overwhelming influence of geography on nation building, trade, security and conflict in the international arena. Sometimes, he does overemphasize the geographical limitations and tends to underemphasize how geography works within feedback loops of culture and ethnicity- which results in a bleaker picture than is necessary of global conflict. However he should get credit for succinctly morphing a “intro to geopolitics 101” lecture into a handy book.
Interesting Concepts. Marshall presents an interesting case of geopolitics from a geographical perspective, and while quite a bit of it makes perfect sense, there are also times where he presents an idea as perfectly obvious... when it actually isn't/ wasn't. For example, he claims that once America gained access to the Pacific Ocean in the 19th century via the Oregon Territory, it was destined to become a great world power simply because it had direct access to both of the world's great oceans. If it was so perfectly obvious, why did it take another century or so - for this barely century old nation at the time - to achieve such supremacy? But the cases Marshall does make, he makes many interesting points on that even I had never considered, and I consider myself a fairly learned and analytical person. He also does so with great humor, which makes what could have been a much drier, more academic treatise into a much more enjoyable read. So read this thing. It has some good ideas and you'll be entertained. Just don't believe every word it says, and keep a critical eye on all things at all times. Recommended.
This was a fantastic start into reading more nonfiction. How will anything else compare?
Tim Marshall gives a solid overview of how various countries foreign policy, borders and difficulties were defined by their geography. While the scope of this book wasn't incredibly detailed, I learnt a lot and found myself with more areas of interest to read more about.
I would also like to highly recommend the audiobook for this one, I found it to be a great asset when trying to stare at maps and read at the same time.
I really enjoyed this book.
Tim Marshall does not attempt to analyse the given scenarios in too much depth but does paint a strong socio-political-historically-geographic background for each of the world maps he investigates. The geography aspect does get a little repetitive but I feel this book has so much information to supply from all of the above four areas of study that there was something interesting and new on almost every page.
Sensibly, the author has avoided offering solutions beyond explaining the situations how they arise and what persists them. But I feel he also fails to address some bigger issues that are landed on again and again such as climate change, with fossil fuel extraction and trade playing a major role throughout but more as a technical footnote than as altering forces. This may have again been a smart choice however to remove political opinion and bias from what is largely a factual book.
That said the approach taken is clearly from the western point of view, though there is an effort made to explain national ideas and goals through the eyes of the subjects.
Overall I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a general interest in our planet, it's geography, the nations of the world, politics, history or economics as this book is an eye opener and really pieces together the vast aspects of the globalised world.
Have to say Tim Marshall has done an excellent job of this book and providing a relatively simple baseline for geopolitics, and providing a plain English explanation for historical, and not so historical political decisions and the effects of geography related to these.
Marshall says in his introduction, which is a good paragraph summary:
The land on which we live has always shaped us. It has shaped the wars, the power, politics and social development of the people that now inhabit nearly every part of the earth... The choices of those who lead the seven billion inhabitants of this planet will to some degree always be shaped by the rivers, mountains, deserts, lakes and seas that constrain us all - as they always have.
Marshall blends history with geography to attempt to explain contemporary geopolitics. He does a fairly good job of making the case that we underestimate the importance of geography in relations between states, and the book is well-written and engaging. I was thinking as I was reading that this was someone who would get on with Jared Diamond, and then a brief quote from the section on Africa, plus the fact that Guns, Germs & Steel heads up the bibliography confirmed my suspicions.
By starting with Russia, and then wrapping back to it in the final Arctic section, Marshall lays his cards on the table as to where he thinks the most geopolitical turmoil in the coming century is likely to come from. He may not be wrong. I would quibble with his characterisation of the Middle East, particularly the Arab Spring - which I happened to write my dissertation on - as I think in his haste to get back to geography he undersells the economic and political causes of the movement. Still, mostly the book is highly informative, and well worth reading if you have an interest in geopolitics.
Well written and interesting, with concise explanations of each region's geographical constraints and advantages, dovetailing into politics and events. A very helpful book.
Woulb be a fiver but for the prose and the too short chapter on Siuth America (Read Chile). Must be read to get a better understanding of the big players in global politics.
Great, albeit a bit shallow at places, overview of current geopolitical situation. Highly recommended for those interested in the subject but without much knowledge on the subject
I wasn't all that sure what I was getting into when I picked up this book, but despite that it's proven to be a rather interesting read, even if I'm very sure that geopolitics is not the end-all and be-all of understanding the world's current political climate. It's out-of-date by now, of course, since it was published in 2015 and the world has changed significantly between then and the Orange Oompa Loompa being elected President of the United States, but there's still quite a few interesting chunks of information scattered throughout that still hold true today. Most important, I think, is how arbitrary lines drawn on maps by white people in the 19th century have created the chaotic warzones of the 21st. A good thing to remember that, especially when looking at the political situation in the Middle East and Africa.