Prisoners of Geography — A Book Review
What a journey it has been with this book. I borrowed this nearly a year a go now, started reading it sometime in February and 5 months later, finally reached the end.
It wasn’t that the book was dry and boring. I simply didn’t place any pressure on myself to just finish the book which meant I’d read maybe a few pages every few days after work and make notes, while probing over the maps. It turned out to be a very wholesome experience.
Prisoners of Geography is a book that aims to explain the political nature of different parts of the world through the lens of the physical landscape. Geography is something often overlooked in discussions about the conflicts around the world but the fact of the matter is that all nations are constrained by the mountains and rivers that surround them.
The book is split into 10 chapters where each chapter explores a different country/ part of the world. It begins at Russia, then to China, Europe and USA. Then goes through the Middle East to Asia and ends at the Arctic.
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Mixed initial thoughts
Even as I began the book, I did hold some reservations. When I was about to borrow the book, we noticed that the author was a journalist for BBC and Sky News 'specialising in foreign affairs and international diplomacy’. For two news channels who cover international affairs in a rather biased, white-washed manner, I couldn’t help but keep my guard up as I opened the first pages.
But having said that, I found myself surprisingly enjoy it at the start. My knowledge about countries like Russia and China was limited in both a physical and human geography sense. I loved the way the author began by giving a birds eye view of the whole country and then zooming right in to the different areas, explaining how it all came together to form the current standing of the country today.
It was really interesting. I though I was learning a lot.
Then I reached the chapter of the Middle East — the first chapter that entered the Eastern side of the world.
And my jaw was left hanging.
What am I reading?
The lack of awareness seeping through the pages was shocking. ‘Islamism’ being a threat, justification given to the US invasions, Sunnis v Shia rhetoric. From one glance you could tell the writer really had no clue about the social fabric of that side of the world.
A part of me asked myself ‘why was I even shocked?’ But the other part of me couldn’t register the fact that books like this were being read by the masses as a form of non-fiction. As a way to learn about the world.
But all they were learning was the biased opinion of a white man.
And then it became a bit more difficult to enjoy it as much. Because I couldn’t help questioning if anything I’d read in the previous chapters was even true. I went onto the next chapter, Japan and Korea. And although once again I learnt a lot about the physical geography, I no longer could buy into any of the political opinions the author had.
The concluding review
So it’s difficult to really give a concluding review on this book.
Although I really enjoyed learning about the world and being able to have a one stop tour of the whole globe. At the same time, as someone who has a bit of knowledge about the politics of Middle East and Asia, I think it’s absolutely appalling that this can be classed as non fiction and be published to the masses. It’s not hard to understand then why there’s so much mistrust and islamaphobia from all levels of people.
And because of that, all the other knowledge I gained while reading this is on the boderline as being classed as fiction. On that note, I’d be interested to hear what people who know more about Russian, Chinese, Latin American history think of what the author has presented in those chapters
In one sentence…
I’d say this book is worth checking out, but be aware of the biases it holds. And please do not read this book as your one stop to understand 'everything you need to know about geopolitics’ like the book claims.
If you reached till the end of this ramble, thank you my friend. I appreciate it!
I hope we get to meet each other in my next post too. Until then, if you have any thoughts about what you’ve just read let me know (in the comments or any other way). I’d love to start a conversation!
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