Book review — The Future of Geography, by Tim Marshall

Having loved Tim Marshall’s previous books on geography, I was delighted to see the familiar branding at the airport ahead of a 13 hour flight to Singapore… and I wasn’t disappointed: a truly eye-opening perspective on the politics of space and the urgent issues that we will inevitably face.

As in previous books, Marshall has a gift for bringing the topic to life in an especially concrete way, connecting the physical with the conceptual so that some pretty complex geo-political challenges become straightforward common sense results of the environment we inhabit (or in this case may inhabit in the future).

I found the juxtaposition of the more recent Chinese and US space missions with their very different philosophical underpinnings fascinating, but I found Marshall strongest when he was bringing to life how many questions of “astropolitics” are unanswered with the legislative and political frameworks we have today. Perhaps naively, I had assumed a level of consensus and — perhaps more importantly — codification in our space endeavours which appears not to exist, even at a pretty primitive level.

Will it be Star Wars, Star Trek, or something darker? Who knows… but Marshall does a brilliant job here of bringing the issues, from space debris to the exploitation of the moon’s resources, to jurisdictions on Mars, and the speed with which they might become genuinely material for humanity.

Definitely worth reading. Now.