Play Book Tag discussion

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics. This is on kindle unlimited (audio and ebook) right now. I found it more interesting to read 1-2 chapters at a time. The chapter on the Middle East is the one I am most likely to re-read. The story about the (arbitrary?) dividing line between North and South Korea is one that I'll remember.

This is a highly readable (well "highly" might be overstating it) book that provides a big picture view of the geographical constraints that have shaped the success of key regions in the world. This book is on Kindle unlimited (both kindle and audio), and it was easy to listen to it while doing something else. A lot of the details went over my head, but I still learned quite a lot. I think that those who are more knowledgeable will also learn some things they didn't know before, and find things they disagree with. (He blames Britain for a lot of recurring problems in the world.)

The sections on Russia and India/Pakistan were relatively easy to understand. The section on Africa was interesting right now, because I read other books about Africa this month. There are too many countries on the continent to make the clear connections between geography and politics that he made in other chapters. (I don't think you can blame geography for what happened in Rwanda.)

The section on The Middle East was most interesting but also most confusing. (It had more details than I could possibly absorb on audio.) I still learned quite a bit. Some messages came through loud and clear. First, it's not all about Israel. Second, he offers plenty of evidence that some of the continuing conflicts were caused by the British (back in the 1930s- 1940s) when they drew lines creating separate countries that didn't coincide with ethnic and religious identities.