8/10. I am a big fan of Tim Marshall's Politics of Place books, and The Power of Geography is no exception. This book is a proper follow-up to Prisoners of Geography. Across 10 chapters in a tight 259-page volume, Marshall takes readers on a snappy and informative world tour, highlighting many of the pressing geopolitical challenges shaping the twenty-first century, including climate change, great power competition, political fragmentation and regionalism, resource distribution, and even the looming frontier of space.

I really enjoy and appreciate Marshall's efforts to give readers a brief but adequate grounding in history, culture, and geography in the first few pages of each chapter. For example, understanding the relationship between England and Scotland prior to the Union of 1707 adds so much richness to contemporary discussions about Scottish independence. The same can be said for the age-old rivalry between Greece and Turkey.

Of the ten chapters in The Power of Geography, the standouts for me were Marshall's coverage of Australia, The United Kingdom, Turkey, The Sahel, and Space.

My biggest disappointment with this book was that it felt somewhat incomplete, or that the premise of featuring "ten maps that reveal the future of our world" was not truly fulfilled. This book really is just a sequel to Prisoners of Geography and I suppose Marshall did not want to retread ground by having whole chapters explicitly discuss the United States, China, the European Union, or Russia. That said, there is a lot to learn here about each of those powers. The Australia chapter provided a fascinating lens through which to understand China's challenge to the United States in the Pacific. The Sahel chapter was similarly illuminating in framing how and why great powers operate in fragile but resource-rich states, and how what happens in a place like Niger or Mali matters a great deal to the global economy, counter-terrorism efforts, controlling migration, and maintaining the stability of North Africa and Europe.

I strongly recommend The Power of Geography to anyone looking to dip their toes into geopolitics and world history. Even students of international relations and history will surely learn new things from Marshall's work. As with Marshall's other works, I am sure I will refer back to parts of this book from time to time and will re-read chapters whenever I need to brush up on a particular area of the world (or the galaxy).

Prose/Readability: 4
Commitment to Unbiased Truth: 5
Interesting Content: 5
Perspective Shift: 4

Comments:
I am aware that I am very interested in global politics and so this book (plus Prisoners of Geography) is right up my street. If you don’t have the same fascination in the subject, then this book will probably be a 4 or 3 star for you.
Also, despite me rating the book 5 star not every chapter/region was 5 stars or as compelling as others.
However, Marshall writes so clearly about things most people aren’t aware of that you are bound to learn a lot, and I think there is plenty to think about and find interest in for anyone.

Summation:
Solid recommend for general readers and HIGHLY recommend for those interested in global politics and history.

It's just like it's predecessor, Prisoners of Geography, describing how the Geography of a country defines it's history, it's socio-economic and political situation and what it means for it in the grand scheme of geopolitics. This one has a bigger focus around the European migrant crisis. Gripping read from the get go, and ends with a intro to space & astropolitics, which is going to be the main theme of the author's next book.

Interesting follow up to Tim Marshall’s other book prisoners of geo. In this case focus on those nations just down a level from the top and whose choices will effect their peoples future

For me this was a bit of a lackluster followup to what I thought was a great book, Prisoners of Geography. It's not a bad book, just not what I was hoping for.

Waste of time, and poorly written.

This book is 100% false advertising. "The Power of Geography". Very little geography. "Ten maps that reveal the future of our world." The maps don't do this whatsoever.

In the first book, "Prisoners of Geography", Tim Marshall delivered what he promised. It focused on the physical geography of regions or nations and connected it to that nation's political and military strategies. I enjoyed reading it, and learned a fair bit about geopolitics.

This book, I learned pretty much nothing at all.

Each chapter has this structure:

1. A very basic map of the country.
2. A couple of pages describing the geography.
3. A fat old middle section that goes through a very basic overview of the history of that country. Usually a third of this part is dedicated to the politics of the second half of the 20th century.
4. A few closing pages of speculation about where the country might be headed in the coming years.

This gets old very quickly. The best way to read this book is to read the first and final 3 pages of each chapter.

Marshall is not very good at writing about history and it is painful to trudge through those middle sections. He clearly attempts to be "impartial" but because he gives attention to certain areas and skips over others, he falls on his arse.

He also tries to spice things up with some anecdotes from when he was out reporting in various regions. But the way he tells them makes me think he is the most boring man in the world, who happened to be at some interesting places at interesting times. One story he says that a policeman didn't thump him because he had freckles. Wow.

Also, too many instances of pro-British whitewashing of history. The colonial French were vile bastards. But Britain was just a little bit naughty and all is forgiven because we abolished slavery first. Any non-Western atrocities are given plenty of attention, however.

I am left wondering what the point of this book actually is? Who is the target audience? A reader of the first book, you would assume, has a decent grasp of global history and politics. Or is interested in it enough to competently Google specific periods or regions for more background info. So why make this second book a sub-standard history book that flails all over the place.

The cynic in me wants to say that Marshall wanted to cash in on the success of his first outing. He had some leftover chapters that didn't make the cut because the content wasn't enough. So he padded it out with a lot of history to bash out another book.

The optimist in me would say that Marshall didn't have good advice from his editors or he committed way too early to a format that he just couldn't see is broken.

Ultimately, I have to give it 1 star because I can't name one thing I took away from this book. I actually feel like I've lost some knowledge rather than gained any.

Some interesting speculations, but not as insightful as Prisoners. What is interesting, is shifting the focus away from some of the historical world powers i.e. Australia and Spain (although the UK gets its own post-Brexit chapter).