In last week's College newsletter, Clarence (Fourth Form) gave a fantastic review of Tim Marshall's Prisoners of Geography, an important book that also features on our 18 by 18 reading challenge. Read the full review below:
"Prisoners of Geography is such a wonderful book! My friend recommended it to me and I don’t regret following his advice.
I loved how well organised the book is. It is separated into 10 chapters, each of which is about a country or continent, and each chapter builds on the ideas previously discussed. Prisoners of Geography is my first book on geopolitics and I learnt a lot, mainly around how a country’s policies are partly determined by their geographic locations (the book includes clear maps of each country discussed). For example, Russia: I
never realised that having an oil and energy supply could be so beneficial to a country! Germany may be more reluctant than the USA or France to criticise Russia, not because Merkel and Putin are close friends, but because of natural resources. Germany would not want to pay more to Russia for energy, or even risk being cut off from the supply of it.
This content in this book is so rich. Reading it allows you to explore interesting political issues including the India-Pakistan rivalry, the importance of Tibet to China, the complicated relationships between North and South Korea, and how Africa’s location affects their economic development.
I highly recommend this book. Even for those who don’t consider themselves to be geographers, give this book a chance as you may well be fascinated by its wealth of interesting materials and you might even fall in love with geography!"
- Clarence (Fourth Form)
