Finished: July 5, 2023
Why I read this
Honestly I picked this book up mostly because I was in need of something new and the cover and concept caught my eye. It is an intersting idea that the geography of certain regions could be the driving factor in how they develop and I wanted to see what the conclusions of the book would be. Additionally, I found it strange that the authors claim was that 10 generally minor countries or areas in our world currently would be the next most influential regions of the future.
What I learned
From page one the reader is absolutely bombarded with information. Every paragraph is a new fragment of regional history, cultural challenges, and geopolitical theory. This part allowed me to learn so much new and interesting information about regions I never would have researched on my own, and gave me enough history of these regions to have a bit more of a complete view of them. For example learning about the Sahel, and its problems was super relevant for me living in France. I liked to see that the problems of forever wars fighting extremism was not a uniquely American problem, and I was surprised that I had never even heard of such a seemingly impactful region.
What I didn’t like
The other side of the coin for the constant informational flow is that it was a bit much in certain ways. If you don’t have a heavy background already in history, culture, religion, and many other fields the small conclusions or ideas presented might not be enough context to really understand the points being made by the author. A good example of this is regarding Islam. Knowing that this book is likely marketed to middle class, decently educated, western person, it is possible, or even likely, that the reader is not the most educated person regarding Islam, myself included. Therefore, the heavy discussion with Iran or Saudi Arabia regarding the complex cultural and religious challenges of these regions and their relationship to Islam was very challenging for me to understand. The author would mention something like “this is due to the more extreme ideology of the Shia Muslims than the Sunni Muslims”. Why are the Shia’s more extreme? What is the difference in these two sects? Where are the roots of these differences, and what caused them to happen? This is just one example and there were many many topics like this that I found giving me many additional questions that were not answered in the text.
Questions I asked
Is culture really a result of geography?
Why are refugees such a problem for western countries when for example the US was created on successive waves of western refugees? How can we replicate that success with current problems?
What is the responsibility of rich countries regarding the management of conflicts in poorer countries?
My Favorite Quote
“Humans have always looked up, deep into the night sky, and dreamed. Now we’ve actually reached the high ground; it is manifestly our destiny to go higher, and we will get there more quickly if we do it together. The sky is not the limit.”
Tim Marshall
Books I liked like this one
Humankind: Rutger Bregman (For relationships between culture and psychology like this book does with geography)
Debt the First 5000 Years: David Graeber (For the unique conclusions from human history and systems)
Book Reviews for Mom 