Like Pepsi executives suddenly showing up at a Coca-Cola board meeting after having listened for half an hour under the table. This is how Tim Marshall describes the scene in October 2006 when a Chinese attack submarine emerged, silent and without warning, in the middle of a U.S. Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier strike group. They were within torpedo range. Beijing's message was clear: "We are now a naval power, our time has come, and this is our sea."
This is just one of the revealing stories that veteran journalist Tim Marshall unfolds in Prisoners of Geography (Peninsula), the classic bestseller that changed the way millions of readers understood world politics through ten maps. Ten years after its prestigious original publication in 2015, Marshall updates this influential work to demonstrate why, despite the rise of AI, climate crises, or space wars, geography - the rivers, mountains, deserts, and seas - remains the prison that "incarcerates its leaders" and dictates our destiny.
"If you look at a map of Poland and read the history of what has happened there, you know that they must be a powerful country because they have no other choice."
"Geography will always hinder Spain. If I have merchandise in Brussels and want to sell it, it is much easier to take it to Munich than to Madrid, especially by water."
"Trump's first inauguration marked the end of the post-Cold War era. In this new unnamed era, the U.S. has decided that the Indo-Pacific is the new center of the world."