The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate

Written by Robert D. Kaplan

Narrated by Michael Prichard

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Oct 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452680521

Robert D. Kaplan

Robert D. Kaplan is the bestselling author of twenty-four books on foreign affairs and travel translated into many languages, including China Whisperers, Waste Land, The Loom of Time, The Tragic Mind, The Revenge of Geography, Asia’s Cauldron, The Coming Anarchy, and Balkan Ghosts. For three decades he reported on foreign affairs for The Atlantic. He is a distinguished senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin. He was a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board and the US Navy’s Executive Panel. Foreign Policy magazine twice named him one of the world’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers.”

Reviews for The Revenge of Geography

[Marin Andry · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Extremely rare original ideas, in fact just a presentation of others ideas about Geography

[rajivc_18 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent book, and I have learned a lot from reading the book. When I read a book called "1962, the War that Wasn't", I realised the importance of geography in geopolitics. Rather, it brought home the importance of geography. When China annexed Tibet and Sinkiang, and Aksai Chin, they ensured that they had access to water and trade routes. Many of my friends disputed this. When you read this book - and it may be worthwhile to explore the many authors he cites - you will gain an intimate appreciation of the geographic importance of the location of places and why countries play in seemingly unimportant countries. The book gives you a broad sweep of geography and geopolitics and spans the globe. It is excellent, and will provide you with a springboard which you can launch for your future explorations.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book started out like the kind of book I really dislike: throwing out of lots of names and semi-obscure references with little attempt to engage the reader. I was doubly disappointed because I have read Monsoon by the same author and found it so much better.It got better in the second part, but I had trouble following Mr. Kaplan's argument. He takes a very broad, rambling approach to his topic. If you decide to read this book, I recommend you begin with the Afterword: it provides an excellent overview and the clearest explanation of the author's ideas.p.s. As a Canadian, I was greatly offended by the description of Canada as "the arctic" bordering the U.S. to the north.

[bradgers-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Kinda interesting, but not enough to make me want to finish.

[Susan Neely · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book should be read by everyone, but it should be required reading for everyone who works in government, business, education. Every student above 3rd grade should listen to it, too, even if they( like some of the people in government) might not understand all of the words. This book might have some keys for immigration problems and curtailing the importation of very harmful “ recreational” drugs!

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Robert Kaplan sets out to describe the effects that physical environments have had on Human affairs for the last four thousand years, with a large number of more modern examples. He quotes from some of my favourite writers on this topic from the past and joins Toynbee, McNeill, and even Freya Starke. The problem of some Americans in dealing with foreign parts of the globe, where their cultural traditions are conditioned by different physical as well as human environments are laid out in clear terms. the prose is literate and the maps quite useful.There are a few cases of special pleading for current conservative approaches to problems. He has a very limited number of answers to the Mexican/Chicano stresses in the USA, for example, and doesn't spend time on successful challenges to the environment that have increased the chances of world peace and betterment. So the tone is alarmist, from the USA! point of view. But within its ideological strictures, it's a very good survey of 2012 on planet earth.

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Eerily prescient. Was afraid of someone with a hammer but turned out to be quite measured and restrained. The analysis is very selective and mostly about places the author visited/cares about.

[dhmontgomery-265379 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting, if not magisterial. Is informed by the ghosts of past foreign policy debates in a manner that sometimes seems off-putting — one wants to learn more about geopolitics, not rehash 1990s debates about Balkan intervention. A nice thought-provoker, but one that covers a lot of subjects cursorily.

[konastories · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kaplan's main thesis is great food for thought; that is: the more the world is connected, the more strategic geographic locations are important. I know I'm going to be reading world news in a better more informed way. This is a very interesting book that suffers from bad writing and editing. Kaplan is quite good at making what could be a perfectly good sentence into a convoluted one. That said, I know more now that I did before about the interplay of geography, politics and strategy.

[Berha · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A good introduction to geopolitics. Includes all last thinker of geopolitical.

[Ragner lothbrok 98 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An up to date information for those having interest in Geopolitics. Truly highlights weakness & strengths of countries & Nations with an America & British point of view.

[Madhav Deshpande · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as Prisoners of Geography but still a better informative book.

[vpfluke · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a very good book about how geography is a big influence on how nations function around the world. He brings in ideas from famous geographers and historians of the past in his effort to explain the situations countries find themselves in. Russia has a vast plain subject to many invasions. Hence, a fortress mentality. Countries which develop sea power function differently than those who have concentratd on land forces. Sometimes, certain locations cause countries to have considerable effect on those near them, such as Iran (Perdia - the pivot) and Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire. Quite a bit was written on China and India, which are fairly close to each other, but vastly different. I enjoyed this book immensely.

[jbreedlove_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Classic Kaplan. In depth history in relation to current events and what may be happening in the near future. less ideological and more rational and in depth than Fergusson. A book I didn't want to put down or end and gave me another way of looking at the conglomeration of nation states on the planet. A rare 5 star review.

[fist_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The discipline of Geopolitics had become tainted after totalitarian regimes in the 20th century had made it the basis of their foreign policies. Kaplan dusts it off, incorporates new viewpoints (Huntington, amongst others) and presents new geopolitical insights for the 21st century. It is probably inevitable that a book of this scope will contain some regrettable cultural generalisations and lack of nuance. The analysis of China's geopolitics was the most revelatory, whereas the chapters on the other regions had me confused at times: having signed up for the Heartland theory, the author seems undecided where this heartland is. Just as he has convinced the reader that Kazakhstan is the heartland that will define who controls Europe, Africa and Asia, the analysis turns towards India. Or Iran. And then it turns out that Afghanistan - of all places - is the pivot state that will determine the global leader of the 21st century. Some might find the book an ex-post grand apology for American foreign policy decisions in the last two decades; others like myself will remember the unsettling picture of the military face-off between China and the US over the control of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans - which has only just started.