Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics by Tim Marshall - Paperback

This book will enlighten anyone who wants to know about how great countries come to be. Entertaining and informative! I love reading this. wish more books like this are available for students / school kids so they can enjoy Geopolitics :)

Valuable book above the world we're living in with easily written.

Ever wondered whether the current status quo is connected with the geopolitical history of nations.Well, this books provides the basis on which you can objectively build your final judgement. I enjoyed the sense of humor the writer incorporated to make this purely political product entertaining and readable.

Absolutely neglected, ignorant and subjective expressions about countries surrounding Russia. It feels like the author was sponsored by the same propaganda machine to push the idea that there were no life on Ukrainian and Baltic Lands before the occupation of russian empire. The author absolutely didn’t spend any time to research on the actual history of these lands , or he would know that Rus has nothing in common with the current russia and Kyiv was a civilization when moscovia was just forest and swamps, before stealing Rus name after a deal of 1654. He would remember the biggest Tripillya culture that was already present on the banks on Dnipro river in Kyiv, and the deep roots of Baltic Vikings and Kazakhstan Steep tribes. He would know the repressions Soviet regime used to kill nations by starvation , Golodomor 1913-1914, 1932-1933, 1945-1949, he would know Ukraine is a separate nation and muscovia has nothing to do with Kyivan Rus at all!!! But to steal its name, history while destroying culture, language and people. He would know that people in the east were killied and tortured and eventually replaced, he would know that the only reason people spoke rusian is to survive in soviet occupation and not to be sent to Siberia to gulags. He would spoke more about annexation of Finland and Kaliningrad from the geographical point.Author knows nothing about Baltics as he knows little about Balkans, otherwise he would understand why border are what it is now.And don’t let me start on Syria, Lebanon and Palestine…I just saw a marketing campaign for russia imperialism, American capitalism and Juice Gio nism

id say that if you are ignorant on geopolitics and politics as a whole, this book may be a good starting point,

Bon produit

Super interesting book.Now I want to read more work from the author!

Very nice introduction to geopolitics but also useful for those who already have some knowledge about it. Very accessible and accurate (not biased in a political sense), I definitely recommend it even if it’s not the most recent and up to date book on the market. I LOVED the fact that there are maps included for each chapter (duh, it’s what the book is about), it’s always nice to have a clear picture of the areas being discussed, especially since the author delves into describing the geography of many, distant areas.

This is the best non-fiction book I have read this year so far. If you are interested in geopolitics and geography, this is clearly your choice.The 10 chapters (maps) are the following: Russia, China, USA, Western Europe, Africa, The Middle East, India and Pakistan, Korea and Japan, Latin America and The Artic.Here are some examples of the notes I took in the first three chapters:USA:-Geographically speaking, the USA is “blessed” for many reasons: the two oceans protect it from invasions, it has navigable rivers, fertile soil, significant natural resources (shale gas is trending now), etc. The great statesman Otto von Bismarck once said: “God takes special care of drunks, children and the United States of America”.-In 1803 the French sold Louisiana to the USA for only 15 million USD. The historian Henry Adams said: “Never did the United States get so much for so little”. In 1819 the Spaniards ceded Florida. In 1848 they advanced until the Rio Grande after winning the war with Mexico, in 1867 they bought Alaska, etc. The American Empire was getting ready to be a global superpower.-In 1940, the British swapped their ability to be a global power in exchange for help in remaining in the war. After the war, the Americans took their military bases abroad and became, officially, the indisputable Empire in the Western Hemisphere.Russia:-Russia is an energy giant and use its natural resources as a tool to gain political power. And to blackmail its neighbours.-The lack of a warm-water port with direct access to the oceans has always been Russia’s Achilles heel. This explains, in part, their obsession with annexing Crimea.-Russia’s biggest fear: NATO (1949) still exists and it is larger and closer to Russia’s borders than ever before, whereas the “USSR NATO”, The Warsaw Pact (1955), disappeared when the USSR collapsed.China:-China annexed the Tibet region in 1951 and it is unlikely to let it free. For other reasons, because the Tibet is the source of China’s great rivers (Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow) and holds a strategic position in the Himalayas next to its great Asian rival in the coming future: India.-The Chinese look at society very differently from the West. Western thought is infused with the rights of the individual; Chinese thought prizes the collective above the individual.-The Strait of Malacca (between Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) is key for China’s trade and an obvious weakness in case of confrontations. China is investing huge amounts of money in its navy in order to control it.In conclusion: All powerful nations spend peacetime preparing for the day war breaks out.And, by the way, the rest of the book is even better.