Book review: The Power of Geography – Ten maps that reveal the future of our world

Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography was one of my favourite books of the last few years. It effortlessly stitched together, a simple descriptive language about the sweeping shape of countries with the history of the regions and showed how the geography has caused civilisations the globe over to develop they way they have.

Geopolitics, indeed.

It was therefore with no little delight that I discovered by chance in a bookshop in Kew a day before my summer holiday that Mr Marshall had recently published a partner volume, “The Power of Geography – Ten maps that reveal the future of our world”.

It has not disappointed.

This time, Marshall has selected a number of individual countries and looks both forward as well as backwards to analyse what the geographic challenges – from constraining mountains in Iran to the inevitable end to the oil flow in Saudi Arabia will means decades from now.

I have found the selection of countries (for example juxtaposing Greece and Turkey as well as Iran and Saudi Arabia in individual chapters) inspired and insightful, enabling Marshall to build a coherent and interlocking world narrative despite “keeping it real”, with his usual straightforward style.

This book, in my view, is at its best when the evocative descriptions of the countries’ unique geography is followed by insightful but matter-of-fact storytelling that explains historical realities that stem from these shapes and this is especially true of the chapters focused on the Middle East, where Marshall clearly has deep experience and local knowledge.

An outstanding read and I recommend it unreservedly to anyone interested in geo-politics, or just understanding the world a bit better.