What of Iran? Will it ever become a world power, as it was in the days of Darius and Xerxes? Hemmed in by mountains, “Iran’s main centers of population are widely dispersed and, until recently, poorly connected. Today, connected by air and sea routes and communication lines, it is “a territorially huge, Western-oriented, advanced democracy” that sits next door to China, “the world’s most economically and militarily powerful dictatorship.” This makes Australia a bulwark. The isolation of the island continent once allowed it to maintain a small White settler population and conduct genocidal wars on Indigenes largely unseen. Consider Australia, he writes in the first chapter: It sits 5,000 miles from Africa, more than 7,000 miles from South America, and more than 2,500 miles from its supposed neighbor, New Zealand. Geography is not necessarily fate, but it is more important, insists Marshall, than individual politicians. The author of Prisoners of Geography(2015) follows up with an elucidating survey of 10 regions whose demographics, economics, and politics will affect the future of the planet.

The power of geography book