Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Book Review

This is one of those books that you wish everyone on the planet should have read in their high school. The book is the most concise geopolitical story of the world I read so far. It is very easy to comment on current situations in the world, but Tim Marshall is among those very few people who are qualified to make very careful commentary.

The author partitions globe into various sections and discusses how the local geography defined the politics and demographies in those areas. Then he goes on to show examples of what happens when the geography is accepted and what happens when it is ignored.

Majority of the discussion is centered around various conflicts in the world, the Koreas - the middle east - central africa to provide some examples, and how they are in very stale-mate situations due to the random borders drawn by people ignorant of the local geography. In essense he highlights how much human greed and zero-sum-game approaches had shaped several of these conflicts to take their current form. He then goes on arguing about how this will continue in the future.

The book is a very interesting read written in a simple yet gripping style.