The book’s premise and title are promising, but the narrative falls short.

This book is better suited to a high school student needing a high level summary of regional politics than to a serious student of history. While an easy read, it would be more compelling if the geography, and its specific influence on the history and politics of a given area, were given greater emphasis. Unfortunately, each chapter begins with the broad assessment of terrain, then quickly veers off into the political, military, and cultural issues that define each region. How the geography continues to influence a region’s affairs is ignored. For instance, whereas geography created culture and civilization hundreds to thousands of years ago, how does it continue to influence (or not) events in today’s highly interconnected society, where communication and interaction are easier and less constrained by geographical boundaries? ( )

Only a couple of them revealed things that somebody who has studied history and keeps up with current affairs would be surprised with. But well written.

A sequel of sorts to his Power of Geography and just as good. Highly recommend for anyone who cares about the current state of the world. Crazy how Marshall makes the usually fairly dry subjects so entertaining and interesting! Can't wait for more of his work. ( )

Sometimes I wish that I could have the equivalent of the Economist magazine's coverage of the world condensed and given to me once a year, including historical background I'm ignorant of about a region such as say, Turkey. This book is exactly that. Refreshing to have someone like Marshall call a spade a spade in the world of geopolitics, rather than hide behind elaborate and obfuscatory sentences in the ivory tower. I felt compelled to keep reading because of his bracing pace as he passed through Saudia Arabia and its politics and history, Iran, Turkey, the Sahel region, etc.

Reading Tim Marshall’s The Power of Geography while the Russians are invading Ukraine has been an interesting experience.

The sequel to The Prisoners of Geography (which I admit I haven’t read) this book explores the geopolitics of eight countries, a region, and outer space. It’s broken into 10 chapters, each focused on one country or region. In each chapter there’s a summary of the history and an overview of the geography of the area. With those two out of the way Marshall then explores and assesses the potential geopolitical ambitions of the countries, keeping their history and geography in mind.

In the first few lines of the Introduction Marshall lays out his world view and defines the premise that underlies his geopolitical analyses. He asserts that the world order that defined the Cold War is but a distant memory, and we are headed back to a Great Powers rivalry, with the “minor players” jockeying for their place.

So, in that context we dive into some really well written, very readable discussions. I really enjoyed the way Marshall used history and geography to outline what are and aren’t options for each country / region he discussed. This includes discussions of the ethnic and religious history of each country, which can shed light on current circumstances and future possibilities.

Spain for example is a mountainous country. Its mountains have divided it into regions whose peoples each have their own dialects or languages. It is a “nation state comprised of nations”. Within Spain the Basque and Catalan regions still have separatist ideas that, if they went too far, could complicate the policies and politics of Spain and the European Union.

Marshall is a retired foreign affairs correspondent for Sky News, and he seems quite expert in these discussions. But also because of that background he seems to be writing mainly for a UK / European audience. The nations he chose to cover are all in or near Europe, with the exception of Australia, which of course has historically close ties to the UK.

The one multinational region he covers, the Sahel of Africa in chapter 7, has the potential of sending refugees flooding into Europe should climate change and religious and ethnic tensions get out of hand. A European target audience might not be as interested in learning about countries not covered, like Japan, Brazil or Thailand, for example, which also have interesting geographies and histories.

I want to return to the Introduction for a minute and Marshall’s assertion of a return to an era of “great powers” and “multiple powers” rivalry. It’s a fairly common assessment of our world since the end of the Cold War in 1991. But any geopolitical assumptions we all may have had for the direction of the arc of history are being tested right now by Putin in Ukraine. Cold War geopolitics may prove to be more appropriate today and in the foreseeable future than could have been anticipated a year ago when this book came out. Even so, there are points in the book that seemed particularly relevant to the events of the last couple of weeks.

The bottom line from me is that this is a well written and very readable discussion of history, geography and geopolitics (which leans toward a European perspective). It's packed with interesting facts and you are sure to learn quite a bit from it. For fans of history and/or geopolitics it's well worth the read. Four Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ( )