Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World

Nearly as important as geography is the human factor. A nation must feed its people and protect its treasures, and sometimes, through necessity or greed, a country will be tempted to venture across borders into its neighbors’ backyards, searching for more reserves of wealth. Even if a country resists this temptation, it must nonetheless guard against other nations who may, for whatever reason, launch an attack.

These incursions are a given in international relations. Beyond that, what matters is the quality of play, in the manner of a chess game. Each side must see to its own best interests; its geographical and economic situations will set limits; and leaders must choose the best option among those available. In this respect, leaders tend to behave rationally, much like businesses or consumers who review the available marketplace choices before making a purchase.

The results, of course, can be bloody, but this doesn’t change the need for strategic thinking. After reporting from 40 countries, the author describes the decisions made by local governments in a way that suggests that they do, indeed, try to advance their countries’ interests by playing as good a game as they can.

Although natural borders—mountains, rivers, deserts, marshlands—can make trade more difficult, they have advantages. They tend to create cohesive, ethnically distinct groups while also preventing armies from invading. Artificial borders, on the other hand, can lead to internecine conflict that hobbles a nation regardless of its other geographic advantages.

The great European Powers developed powerful military technology and used it to conquer lands in the Western Hemisphere, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. For their own purposes, they divided these regions up, often placing straight lines between neighboring colonies as simple solutions to territorial disputes between colonial powers, without considering the cultural or geographic features of the colonies they were creating.

After World War II, most of these colonies gained independence, but the artificial borders remained in place, splitting apart ethnic groups in some place and clumping together enemy tribes in others. Thus, fights erupted over control of the new countries. Wars in Central Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and South America often ignite over this issue, making more difficult the efforts of former colonies to rise up from their past and participate fully in the prosperity of the modern age.