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Prisoners of Geography
- Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins
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Publisher's summary
Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general. And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question.
All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In this audiobook, now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic - their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders - to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders.
Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China's power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical.
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George Friedman has forecasted the coming trends (politics, technology, population, and culture) of the next century in The Next 100 Years, and focused his predictions on the coming ten years in The Next Decade. Now, in Flashpoints, Friedman zooms in on the region that has, for 500 years, been the cultural hotbed of the world - Europe - and examines the most basic and fascinating building block of the region: culture.
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Important Reading: Old Grievances Do Not Go Away
- By John on 02-21-15
By: George Friedman
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Disunited Nations
- The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World
- By: Peter Zeihan
- Narrated by: Peter Zeihan, Roy Worley
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In Disunited Nations, geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan presents a series of counterintuitive arguments about the future of a world where trade agreements are coming apart and international institutions are losing their power. Germany will decline as the most powerful country in Europe, with France taking its place. Every country should prepare for the collapse of China, not North Korea. We are already seeing, as Zeihan predicts, a shift in outlook on the Middle East: it is no longer Iran that is the region’s most dangerous threat, but Saudi Arabia.
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brilliant geopolitical primer re the future
- By Howard on 04-11-20
By: Peter Zeihan
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Sea Power
- The History and Geopolitics of the World's Oceans
- By: Admiral James Stavridis USN - Ret.
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
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From the time of the Greeks and the Persians clashing in the Mediterranean, sea power has determined world power. To an extent that is often underappreciated, it still does. No one understands this better than Admiral Jim Stavridis. In Sea Power, Admiral Stavridis takes us with him on a tour of the world's oceans from the admiral's chair, showing us how the geography of the oceans has shaped the destinies of nations and how naval power has in a real sense made the world we live in today and will shape the world we live in tomorrow.
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Highly Recommend. Brilliant, engaging & thoughtful
- By Francis Claro on 06-22-17
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Vietnam
- A New History
- By: Christopher Goscha
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 23 hrs and 42 mins
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In Vietnam, Christopher Goscha tells the full history of Vietnam, from antiquity to the present day. Generations of emperors, rebels, priests, and colonizers left complicated legacies in this remarkable country. Periods of Chinese, French, and Japanese rule reshaped and modernized Vietnam, but so too did the colonial enterprises of the Vietnamese themselves as they extended their influence southward from the Red River Delta.
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Not bad, but not great.
- By Kp on 08-06-18
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The Cold War
- A World History
- By: Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 22 hrs and 44 mins
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In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today.
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A lenghy treatise on the Cold War
- By Donald Hill on 11-21-17
By: Odd Arne Westad
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Bully of Asia
- By: Steven W. Mosher
- Narrated by: Al Kessel
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
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The signs are everywhere. China unilaterally claims the entire South China Sea as sovereign territory, then builds artificial islands to bolster its claim. It suddenly activates an air defense identification zone over the East China Sea, and threatens to down any aircraft that does not report its position. It builds roads into Indian territory, then redraws the maps to show that it is actually Chinese territory. The People's Republic under President Xi Jinping is quickly becoming The Bully of Asia.
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Eye opening, up to date
- By Silomi on 01-01-19
By: Steven W. Mosher
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America in Retreat
- The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder
- By: Bret Stephens
- Narrated by: Bret Stephens, Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
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America in Retreat identifies a profound crisis on the global horizon. As Americans seek to withdraw from the world to tend to domestic problems, America’s adversaries spy opportunity. Vladimir Putin's ambitions to restore the glory of the czarist empire go effectively unchecked, as do China's attempts to expand its maritime claims in the South China Sea, as do Iran's efforts to develop nuclear capabilities.
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The Burden of American Exceptionalism
- By Harry Paget on 08-15-15
By: Bret Stephens
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Tropic of Chaos
- Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence
- By: Christian Parenti
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
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From Africa to Asia and Latin America, the era of climate wars has begun. Extreme weather is breeding banditry, humanitarian crisis, and state failure. In Tropic of Chaos, investigative journalist Christian Parenti travels along the front lines of this gathering catastrophe - the belt of economically and politically battered postcolonial nations and war zones girding the planet's mid-latitudes. Here he finds failed states amid climatic disasters.
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Absolute must-read topic!
- By Kevin on 07-07-14
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The Weaponisation of Everything
- A Field Guide to the New Way of War
- By: Mark Galeotti
- Narrated by: Mark Galeotti
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
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Hybrid war, grey-zone warfare, unrestricted war: Today, traditional conflict - fought with guns, bombs, and drones - has become too expensive to wage, too unpopular at home, and too difficult to manage. In an age when America threatens Europe with sanctions, and when China spends billions buying influence abroad, the world is heading for a new era of permanent low-level conflict, often unnoticed, undeclared, and unending.
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Clear, concise, and thought provoking
- By Dad / Husband (who rarely reviews) on 03-08-22
By: Mark Galeotti
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To uncover the fate of the thousands being interred at a mysterious Nazi camp on the border of the Reich, a young Polish resistance fighter named Witold Pilecki volunteered for an audacious mission: intentionally get captured and transported to the new camp to report back on what was going on there. But gathering information was not his only task: he was to execute an attack from inside - where the Germans would least expect it. The name of the camp was Auschwitz.
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It is impossible to hear of the atrocities of Auschwitz without being. Forced to consider man’s infinite cruelty
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As Far As It went
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Very informative, worth listening to thrice..
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What listeners say about Prisoners of Geography
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- Joanna DeSa
- 08-01-17
Extraordinary
If ever you wondered what difference a mountain range, a tropical rainforest, a wide expanse of desert, or a river wide and deep enough for transport could make on a Nation and its "life, this is your book. Wonderfully narrated, with some level of forecasting that, given today's current state of political nationalism, and/or isolationism, causes one to pause, and think about the world's future, and one's place in it.
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21 people found this helpful
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- Malick Tchakpedeou
- 04-23-20
Geography 👍🏽 History 👍🏽 Human industry 👎🏽
* Great geographical descriptions, altho it makes you wanna be looking at a map constantly.
* Great historical connections. Helps you understand the geographical causes of historical actions. The book agues exactly what the title says: That nations are prisoners of geography. That they can't act beyond the limits of what "nature or God" has dealt them.
It feels like the author aims to reinforce the status quo. According to Geography, "nature or God" has given America the greatest deal any Nation can have. Western Europe with it's fertile lands and navigable rivers has a pretty good deal, but will not be able to truly unify in the E.U due to strong nationalist sentiments. Russia must defend its vast western plains and occupy Crimea in order to keep NATO away. India and China are not likely to ever go to war because of the Himalaya mountains. China will never leave Tibet because there lies all of its water source. Africa is doomed because of its poor soil and its unnavigable rivers.
* But wait a minute.
Isn't this a very fatalistic way of looking at humanity. Is this the mentality that led Ferdinand de Leceps to dig the Suez Canal? Or Roosevelt to push for the Panama canal? Did the Appalachians stop the settlers to push westward? Why did Europeans invade and plunder Africa if they had it so good.
Did an infertile/desertic land stop Israel from creating green pastures.
I am from Africa, born and raised. And yet I have a theory. And it is not very flattering to my people: If you move all Americans to Africa, and all Africans to America. Just the people, leave everything else behind. It will be just a matter of time ( very little time) until Africa becomes the new superpower.
I believe the power of a land is in the mind ( not even the arms) but in the mind of its people.
The good news is, unlike the geography which almost never changes, the mind can learn and change.
Malick Tchakpedeou.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Si
- 12-15-17
Thoughtful content, excellent narrator
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
An eye opening account of geography, society, history, humanity and geopolitics. I especially liked how the author illustrated key themes through a global lens. It's so rare to get so much out of one book!
Have you listened to any of Scott Brick’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
No this was the first Scott Brick performance I have experienced. He is a fabulous narrator with the perfect tone and pitch for non fiction.
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- Brandon Maly
- 05-01-20
The Book to Better Understand Geography
Broadens understanding of the role that geography plays in shaping countries and world-events of the past, present and future.
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- Tyran Hardin
- 03-19-19
Loved this Book and the Narration!
The book was so good. A must read for anybody interested in geographical content. I learned a lot. I do wish the author would've talked more about Japan and not have focused on North Korea so much during that part of the book. All around good book, and the narrator was amazing.
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- Clark J Woodruff
- 04-30-20
Excellent!!
An excellent book, very informative and gives us a hint as to why things are the way they are around the world.
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- andre_k
- 03-27-20
Review
Awesome book. I love every bit of it. Very detailed and interestingly narrated. I love it
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- LarryK
- 04-09-20
Excellent Book
An excellent book. One of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to. I highly recommend it.
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- jdudley
- 05-30-20
So informative on the why's of different cultures
Geography plays such a developmental role in culture, conflict, resources. Middle east chapter was eye-opening.
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- enriver
- 05-28-20
Extremely informative.
Superbly researched and well written, this book is very informative in an entertaining way. A rare combination indeed. I highly recommend it to anyone truly interested in our existence and progress as humans within the confines of our geography.
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