This book is essentially a surface-level overview of the history and current geopolitical situation of ten countries / regions, viewed through the lens of geography. For each country / region, it gives a basic overview of how those countries or regions came to be (highlighting, for example, the benefits gained from natural borders like mountains or the challenges faced by poorly navigable waterways) and then how those features play out in its current situation. The most interesting part for me is that the book is about ten years old, so when it’s talking about “the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” it’s talking about the one from 2014, not 2022. It’s fascinating to see which of Marshall’s predictions were on the money (such as the renewed Russian hostilities in Ukraine) and which did not (the challenges Russia had in with those hostilities, or the failure of the Nicaraguan Grand Canal to come to pass). As Marshall says, all countries are to an extent trapped by their geography – it’s always going to be hard to get a mountain from China to India over the Himalayas – but I think that painting everything (or even most things) as prescribed by geography may be a bit too simplistic. Still, it was a nice overview to geopolitics, especially for regions I don’t know as much about, so I consider it a worthwhile read. Perhaps at some point I’ll read some of his follow-up books that take more recent history into account.