How geography maps our destiny

Prisoners of Geography, as Newsweek magazine noted, “… shows how geography shapes not just history but destiny.” The author, a former foreign correspondent for Britain’s Sky News television, knows his geography. He has reported from 30 countries and six war zones.

Marshall manages to provide the link between geography and history in a fact-filled read that is light and entertaining. I had a difficult time putting this book down.

The ten defining maps in this book include the following: Russia, China, United States, western Europe, Africa, The Middle East, India and Pakistan, Korea and Japan, Latin America and the Arctic.

The author provides at least one map for each chapter. The maps clearly show geography’s influence on history. Countries with rivers and natural boundaries are much better off than those with no natural resources or protection.

Readers can also see the profound and heartbreaking repercussions of arbitrarily drawing maps without considering history, the ethnic make-up of a region and the geographical boundaries of a region.

European countries including England, France, Spain and Belgium often created maps without an understanding of their implications, and this is why there are so many trouble spots in the world today.

Geography impacts a country’s ability to survive economically as well. Countries that are landlocked and countries that don’t have navigable rivers are doomed to failure. Many of the countries on the continent of Africa come to mind here. Africa has many rivers, Marshall points out, but those rivers can’t be navigated because they are broken up by waterfalls. On the other hand, waterfalls provide electricity.

Marshall has an uncanny way of picking up readers and plopping them down in countries as he demonstrates how geography and history are related. At least it feels that way when you are reading this remarkable book.

Marshall’s maps provide great insight into why countries behave the way they do: why they create wars and scramble for certain alliances. These maps answer many questions and raise a great deal more questions like “why will America never be invaded? What does it mean that Russia must have a navy, but also has frozen ports six months a year? How is China’s future curbed by its geography? Why will Europe never be united? Readers will likely be interested in why the author groups Korea and Japan into a chapter about maps.

Each chapter is distinct, but each chapter also forms an interlocking whole so that you can divide the world into chunks of understandable pieces or look at the world as a whole picture.

I found the chapter on the Arctic to be the most fascinating chapter because of its implications for the future. Global warming will make the Arctic increasingly important as a waterway, and this will undoubtedly result in conflict.

A bird’s eye view of the Arctic shows how the Arctic will impact on the economic future of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Greenland, Canada and the US. Melting ice means a Northwest passage – two for that matter with implications that affect the Panama Canal and the canal in Nicaragua that China wants to build. Melting ice means exposing mineral wealth and oil fields.

Maps have defined the past, and they define the present. What most readers don’t realise is how they will impact on the future.