Marshall, T: Prisoners of Geography Foreword by John Scarlett

The book is discussing more the modern geopolitical differences between taking a leap between past and modern day political decisions...I expected more touch on the past tbh but the book is focusing more on the emphasis on modern day. overall the book is a good read

Es ist sehr interessant, allerdings würde ich bei einigen Einschätzung der Zukunft doch widersprechen. So wie beim Konflikt über die Arktis.

In 10 Kapiteln bringt Marshall der Leserschaft anhand geopolitischer Aspekte die Weltpolitik nahe: Warum fühlt sich Russland konstant bedroht? Wie konnte die USA zur Weltmacht werden? Warum hinkt Südamerika immer noch ein paar Schritte hinterher? Und welches Konfliktpotenzial besteht in der Arktis? Mir hat das Buch diverse Wissenslücken geschlossen und mich auch viele neue Perspektiven der Weltpolitik kennenlernen lassen. Marshall hat ein fundiertes Hintergrundwissen und schreibt sehr verständlich und anschaulich, sodass es sich auch für Laien sehr gut lesen lässt. Eine wirklich tolle Lektüre, um die Welt besser verstehen zu lernen. Von mir eine dringende Leseempfehlung!

In this book, Tim Marshall introduces us to the politics of ten countries and regions around the globe and shows us how big of a role geography plays even today. The subjects are well researched, and I found the book to be very captivating.

This book addresses thoroughly the impact which geography has humankind and especially geopolitics. The author argues that humankind, even with its gargantuan technological and scientific advances, its decisions, actions and needs are limited by geography. The book fits as literature for scholars in a variety of fields. It can be fit for political, economic, geographic environmental, historic and many more scholar fields. However, it is not solely fit for them. People with a profession targeting or surrounding the afore mentioned fields could also profit from its content. It can be argued that neither the topic, the argument, nor the methods used are novel. It is essentially to be understood as addressing a topic with a variety of cases through a different lens to provide the reader with a new angle or perspective on the topic. The book manages to provide a new perspective on the topic quite successfully. It’s simple and straight forward structure with ongoing connections to previously read chapters gives a clear view on matters. Its weakness is that the term geography in the book is used and understood somewhat inflationary and thus not appropriate. More specific terms such as the physical environment or cultural background would be more accurate in some cases. Yet, it is understandable that an author of a book has an interest to have a catchy title and is not obliged to follow definitions exactly on a scholar level. When it comes to the use of words, it is only rarely that I stumbled upon words which I did not understand. My English is, so do I believe, somewhat profound, which made it mostly understandable for me. Other than that, the writing is very clear and understandable. I can recommend this book to anyone interested in politics and specifically geo-politics. Especially, in the case of young academics irrelevant of their field, I can assure that the content will be packing and capable of demonstrating why geography is an important science. The physical copy of the book has a handy format. It is not too thick or wide. The cover is an impressive visual piece of work, since some letters on it have a physical feature. In all, the book gives very valuable insights into geopolitics, especially for recent times with the war in Ukraine. It motivates the reader to consider deeper reflections on history, politics and the environment and the role of humankind within those.