I’ve always enjoyed looking at maps. And of course I’ve always loved being outdoors in nature. Geography is fascinating to me.

When you apply geography to politics, you get some interesting insights. And Robert Kaplan has written The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate to show us the critical role that geography plays in shaping history, geopolitics, and culture. It’s a fascinating book.

The first half of the book is the defense of and advocacy for understanding the impact of geography on nation states. There’s history here as Kaplan combs through past thinkers and their insights. It was helpful for setting the stage, and giving legitimacy to, the second part of the book.

In the second part of the book, Kaplan takes the accumulated wisdom of the first section and looks at key spots around the world. Europe, India, China, Turkey, and Iran. The last chapter focuses on the unique relationship between the United States and Mexico, which has an arbitrary border (i.e. not one defined by geography) and a massive immigration issue. Kaplan expresses his own personal opinions throughout these chapters, but he forms those opinions through the eyes of a geographer that has a keen insight into politics. I didn’t agree with everything, but I found his ideas to be interesting and reasonable.

If you like geography, politics, or predicting what the future might hold in the worlds hot spots, this is a fun book.