Prisoners of Geography

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.