Elucidating, if a bit colored. [The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall]

Tim Marshall's global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation's choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn't changed, but the world has.

'Quite simply, one of the best books about geopolitics you could imagine: reading it is like having a light shone on your understanding' - Nicholas Lezard, Evening Standard, on Prisoners of Geography

If you want to understand what's happening in the world, look at a map.

In this revelatory new book, Marshall takes us into ten regions that are set to shape global politics and power. Find out why the Earth's atmosphere is the world's next battleground; why the fight for the Pacific is just beginning; and why Europe's next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks.

In ten chapters covering Australia, The Sahel, Greece, Turkey, the UK, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Space, delivered with Marshall's trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity's past, present - and future.

Tim Marshall's The Power of Geography is a look at ten geographical regions that are imagined as primed to upend regional and global politics. Covering Australia, The Sahel, Greece, Turkey, the UK, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Space, the book give a historical summary to contextualize modern tensions and politics and uses them to examine how the future might look locally and affect everyone else globally. My biggest issue with my read was most glaring during the Sahel chapter. 

We all have our implicit biases coloring how we experience and interpret the world around us. But there's an added tone of unnecessary tension when an author of a history or political text comes from a Western country, is of the most empowered demographic in said country, and said country has a marked history with colonialism and/or imperialism. There's a tone of infantilization and paternalism that accompanies any analysis of an area that might be considered as part of the Global South. And again, not to single the author out, this is a system issue across this genre of books. But it reiterates the need to question the objectivity of an author, because everything is political and everyone has political biases, whether they're aware of them or not. 

So, for instance, when histories of local ethnic tensions are centered as the crux and premier impediment to developmental progress, as opposed a system of states imposed by occupying colonial powers and ongoing disenfranchisement of the locals through a system of resource extraction and military maneuvering, it's a bit weird. And this could be how it reads to me because of the demographics I fit. It could be that, as I believe, this is a thing across the board that very few authors from Western countries fitting the aforementioned criteria successfully avoid. Who knows? 

Still, it took me out of the read. I really enjoyed everything else but that. So 4 stars from me. I will say that I would recommend this book. It's really informative and helps form a comprehensive sense of political histories and realities around the globe. But it does have an innate bias favoring Western countries, is my impression.

The Power of Geography (ISBN: 9781783965373) was published April 2021.