Camille's Reviews > Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics

If you haven't ever thought about geography's role in politics before, this is a great place to start. Prisoners of Geography describes a lot of things that help to make sense of global politics and can be applied beyond the 10 countries and regions that have been selected.

It's a shame the publisher went with the listicle approach that is common in blogs and self-help books because there is so much more that should have been covered. Perhaps they will be publishing a sequel called "Ten More Maps That Tell You More Than You Ever Needed To Know About GeoPolitics". Still, I would pick it up in the hope that it talked about Australia and New Zealand and how their island nation status has affected their role on the world politics stage. I would also want it to do better justice to Africa and Latin America, because I was actually quite horrified at the Latin America chapter and the cursory detail that was included. I should, however, acknowledge that given my interest and experience in LatAm I already have a much greater understanding than I do of say Russia and China, so I found those chapters particularly enlightening.

Prisoners of Geography is also a great book because it equips you with the ability to understand other regions and issues from the solid base that it gives about impenetrable mountain ranges, navigable rivers, warm water ports and naval access to the oceans and how they have contributed to military strategy, past and present.

Just last week there was talk in the office of a proposed high speed bullet train from Beijing to Melbourne that the Chinese are supposedly building. Colleagues were talking about it as if it were a fait accompli because the Chinese have the capability to do it, and were getting quite excited by the idea. They couldn't see the whole, huge can of worms that this sort of thing presents and the cultural and value change required for Australians to accept a land (under-the-sea/bridge) crossing to Indonesia, and also the political implications in our age of wariness of Chinese interference and closing of borders. A nice little case in point is South Australia's Hindmarsh Island bridge issue of the 199o's. Anyways, Prisoners of Geography gave me the foundations to be able to formulate, and articulate, my opinion.

It can be a little repetitious, and is more military focused than expected, however Prisoners of Geography is easy to read, interesting and is good fodder for dinner conversations.