The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World - The Much-Anticipated Sequel to the Global Bestseller Prisoners of Geography

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My high school was supposed to be one of the best. And I remember all that junk information they dumped on us to memorize. Maps full of rivers, mountains, and country names. All of that was raw information. Zero cooking. I had to wait more than ten years to fill all of that with context. Thanks to this book. What even was the “battlefield” by the 90s? The Gulf war portended a much-discussed “revolution in military affairs”, one that promised to replace armoured divisions, heavy artillery and large infantries with precision airstrikes. The Russian military theorist Vladimir Slipchenko noted that strategists’ familiar spatial concepts such as fields, fronts, rears and flanks were losing relevance. With satellites, planes, GPS and now drones, “battlespace” – as strategists today call it – isn’t the wrinkled surface of the Earth, but a flat sheet of graph paper.

In this sequel of Prisoners of Geography, Marshall explores secondary/tertiary powers not covered in the original, their history, geographical advantages/limitations and current and future role in their particular region/world. Here are my thoughts:

Summery: Great book with some wonderful pointers to my personal geographic and historical blind sides. a bit disappointing title that isn't achieved in the book. That said, a lot of people might like it for the exact reason I reduced a star, i.e. they don't want stronger conclusions.

Welcome to the 2020s. The Cold War era, in which the USA and the Soviet Union dominated the entire world, is becoming a distant memory. We are entering a new age of great-power rivalry in which numerous actors, even minor players, are jostling to take centre stage. The geopolitical drama is even spilling out of our earthly realm, as countries stake their claims above our atmosphere, to the Moon and beyond.”United Kingdom - building an empire and then breaking it apart. Brexit could lead to further division especially with Scotland wanting independence - Northern Ireland and Wales leaning that way too. Geopolitics wonks will find Marshall’s prognostications to be reasonable, believable, and capably rendered. p. 158 "The discovery of potentially huge reserves of natural gas in the eastern Mediterranean has complicated what was already a potential source of conflict between Greece and Turkey. Gas fields have been found off Egypt, Israel, Cyprus and Greece. Turkey, anxious that its own waters have not yielded energy, is scouting around in Cypriot and Greek territory, and has signed an agreement with Libya to drill there. Lebanon has a maritime dispute with Israel over part of one gas field, BP, Total, Eni, and Exxon Mobil have all become involved, and Russia is watching the whole scene nervously as its dominant position supplying natural gas to Europe comes under threat." The cynic in me wants to say that Marshall wanted to cash in on the success of his first outing. He had some leftover chapters that didn't make the cut because the content wasn't enough. So he padded it out with a lot of history to bash out another book. Tim Marshall geht in seinem Sachbuch anhand von 10 Karten auf die Politik von heute und die Krisen der Zukunft ein. Seinen Fokus legt er dabei auf Australien, den Iran, Saudi-Arabien, das Vereinigte Königreich, Griechenland, die Türkei, die Sahelzone, Äthiopien, Spanien und den Weltraum. Jedem Kapitel wird eine Karte vorangestellt, zudem geht der Autor vor seinen geopolitischen Analysen zunächst auf die geschichtlichen Hintergründe der Länder und Gebiete ein. Diese Struktur hat sehr dabei geholfen, beim Lesen nicht den Faden zu verlieren und sich immer wieder in die neuen Themen einzufinden. Tim Marshall kommt mit einer Flut an Informationen daher, eine Analyse trifft auf die nächste.

Ankara's relations with its immediate neighbours are also affected by the two major challenges it has faced on the domestic front: the development of Anatolia, and its 'forever war' against the Kurds." United Kingdom: The nations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland make up the United Kingdom, an island country in Western Europe who used its naval power to build the world's biggest empire which collapsed after World War 2. About half the size of France, its main European concern was to keep a balance of power and avoid one European country from becoming too powerful and threatening its empire. A country caught between being close to USA based on language and history and Europe based on proximity. Facing a growing independence movement from Scotland following Brexit which could impact its military and naval bases. There is a name for Marshall’s line of thinking: geopolitics. Although the term is often used loosely to mean “international relations”, it refers more precisely to the view that geography – mountains, land bridges, water tables – governs world affairs. Ideas, laws and culture are interesting, geopoliticians argue, but to truly understand politics you must look hard at maps. And when you do, the world reveals itself to be a zero-sum contest in which every neighbour is a potential rival, and success depends on controlling territory, as in the boardgame Risk. In its cynical view of human motives, geopolitics resembles Marxism, just with topography replacing class struggle as the engine of history.Readers familiar with Marshall’s first book, Prisoners of Geography,will not be surprised with the format of each of the ten chapters. Each chapter focuses on a country and starts by describing the key geographical characteristics and then a brief history before explaining how its current territory affects its geopolitics. The books simple format is easy to follow but could be accused of repetition, especially when referring to what keeps Generals awake at nightappears constantly. It would be easier to take such talk seriously if the geopoliticians had a proven record. But we are still waiting for “the coming war with Japan” that George Friedman wrote a book about in 1991, and any assessment of Kaplan’s forecasting must note his support of the Iraq war, including joining a secret committee advocating the war to the White House. To his credit, Kaplan has admitted his errors. “When I and others supported a war to liberate Iraq,” he has written, “we never fully or accurately contemplated the price.” Charlotte Heathcote of the Daily Mirror noted the recurring scenario throughout the book that China is aiming to surpass the United States as the world's superpower, and concluded "I can’t imagine reading a better book this year". [3]