Book Review: Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World

The main thesis of the book stresses that all leaders of nations are constrained by geography. Marshall states that their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas, and concrete. He examines Russia, China, USA, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Western Europe, Japan and Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic. Marshall includes their climates, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders- to provide a context often missing from political reportage.

I expected this book to present a new perspective, but it was less than what I had expected. Nonetheless, there are some interesting facts shared in the book. I mention some of them here. In 1867, Alaska was bought from Russia at the rate of tow cents per acre (p. 76). George Washington's advice in his farewell address of 1796 was to not get involved in "inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others," and to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world (p. 78). 

The author claims that in the standard Mercator map, Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa, and yet Africa is actually fourteen times the size of Greenland (p. 117). The author says that 'Islam, cricket, the intelligence services, the military, and fear of India are what hold Pakistan together (p. 190).

While reading the book at times I thought this book has been specially published as part of a propaganda to create an alternate point of view to cover the atrocities of world powers.