The Revenge of Geography
What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate
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The Revenge of Geography
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Narrated by:
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Michael Prichard
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By:
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Robert D. Kaplan
About this listen
In The Revenge of Geography, Robert D. Kaplan builds on the insights, discoveries, and theories of great geographers and geopolitical thinkers of the near and distant past to look back at critical pivots in history and then to look forward at the evolving global scene. Kaplan traces the history of the world's hot spots by examining their climates, topographies, and proximities to other embattled lands. The Russian steppe's pitiless climate and limited vegetation bred hard and cruel men bent on destruction, for example, while Nazi geopoliticians distorted geopolitics entirely, calculating that space on the globe used by the British Empire and the Soviet Union could be swallowed by a greater German homeland.
Kaplan then applies the lessons learned to the present crises in Europe, Russia, China, the Indian subcontinent, Turkey, Iran, and the Arab Middle East. The result is a holistic interpretation of the next cycle of conflict throughout Eurasia. Remarkably, the future can be understood in the context of temperature, land allotment, and other physical certainties: China, able to feed only twenty-three percent of its people from land that is only seven percent arable, has sought energy, minerals, and metals from such brutal regimes as Burma, Iran, and Zimbabwe, putting it in moral conflict with the United States. Afghanistan's porous borders will keep it the principal invasion route into India, and a vital rear base for Pakistan, India's main enemy. Iran will exploit the advantage of being the only country that straddles both energy-producing areas of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. Finally, Kaplan posits that the United States might rue engaging in far-flung conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan rather than tending to its direct neighbor Mexico, which is on the verge of becoming a semifailed state due to drug cartel carnage.
A brilliant rebuttal to thinkers who suggest that globalism will trump geography, this indispensable work shows how timeless truths and natural facts can help prevent this century's looming cataclysms.
©2012 Robert D. Kaplan (P)2012 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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What listeners say about The Revenge of Geography
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Phil Mc Mahon
- 10-05-22
Is this a crystal ball?
Having just finished listening to this in early May 2022, less than 3 months into the Russian invasion of Ukraine and not that long after the United States’ humiliating exit from Afghanistan, it is quite fascinating to see how this piece of work and some of its predictions have played out.
Thoroughly enjoyable, well-researched, informative and likely to appeal to anyone with an interest in Geopolitics. It can be beneficial to have an atlas, globe, or suitable app to hand at times if you are unfamiliar with some regions (I actually think audiobooks should come with at least some visual aids).
If you are new to geopolitics, I would recommend reading Tim Marshall’s “Prisoners of Geography” before this, as it is an easier to follow introduction (despite being written after this work).
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Mariush
- 22-06-24
Chaotic and obsolete
The author can't decide does he want to deliver a series of lectures or write a proper, analytical book. The effect is rather mediocre and the time treated this book mercilessly as most of events which happened after the book was released were not exactly as predicted. I suggest that you shouldn't waste your time and money if you're really interested in the subject.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Mladen
- 08-09-21
Very poorly written
The author cites other authors in every single sentence.
The narrator diction is like news presenter from the '80s.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- FarmersgirlCook
- 25-08-21
When dramatic pause becomes gramps drifting off
Oh Dear! Normally I can persevere with a book and give the reader the benefit of the doubt, and usually you become immune to their annoying habits; but I could not continue after every sentence had a dramatic pause. I lost the flow of the argument when it began to sound more like gramps on the rocking chair, telling the young folks how it used to be in the old days, all the while drifting in and out of sleep. At other times, rather than stop, go back and correct a mistake the narrator simply follows the wrong word with the correct word "taught / thought", this time without a dramatic pause.
If the book had been worth listening to, I might have persevered, but there were too many sweeping generalisations which were not backed up with evidence and we find the UK has one of the most advanced democracies in the world? With an unrepresentative first past the post voting system allowing minority governments, a House of Lords full of placemen; and an unelected monarch?? All the while, enjoying a "special" relationship with States, without enlightening us in what way it is special. It sounds to me like a PhD thesis proposal which was rejected but the author decided to carry on with it anyway. Maybe gramps should see a medic if he can only manage a few words without having to come up for air.
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