Geography is clearly a fundamental part of the “why” as well as the “what.” Take, for example, China and India: two massive countries with huge populations that share a very long border but are not politically or culturally aligned.
The physical realities that underpin national and international politics are too often disregarded in both writing about history and in contemporary reporting of world affairs.
Marshall deftly shows geography’s remarkable explanatory power when analyzing economic and political decisions: Russia is hardly the only country whose ambitions have been limited by geographical factors. It doesn’t matter if the ideology of those in control is czarist, Communist, or crony capitalist––the ports still freeze, and the North European Plain is still flat. World leaders face the same problem on a larger scale, Marshall claims:Įach Russian leader has been confronted by the same problems. Our imaginations are free to run wild, but our ability to live out our dreams is always constrained by the physical compositions of our bodies and communities. There is an intriguing connection here with our modern understanding of the relationship between the human imagination and the body/mind. Marshall’s general outlook is that geography constrains much more than it enables, and that the availability of favorable landscapes makes a huge difference in a country’s ability to thrive in the globalized world. Marshall has no trouble gathering examples from numerous corners of the globe and historical eras to support this argument, touching on fascinating topics such as the richness or paucity of a region’s natural resources, the destructive legacy of European colonialism, and the new role climate change is playing in 21st-century geopolitics. Prisoners of Geography is a sober reminder of the powerful influence geography exerts on human communities: “Geography has always been a prison of sorts––one that defines what a nation is or can be, and one from which our world leaders have often struggled to break free” (259).
Inhabitants of this rapidly-globalizing world often believe that political ideas and economic imperatives are the main drivers of international cooperation and conflict. Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography offers a terrific opportunity to begin filling in the gaps. A portion of my ignorance can be attributed to personal preferences and limitations, but it’s a good bet that my geopolitical blind spots are shared by many of my fellow Americans. I’m college-educated, but know relatively little about world geography, and even less about how it shapes national economies and political strategies. Geography is one of the glaring weak points in American education.
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