I don't give 5 stars freely

Brilliant book, which strikes a great balance between summary and detail, dissects why the world is the way it is. Thoroughly recommended

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Excellent but not with problems

Really fascinating stories about geography, history, people’s and wars of the world. Stories you don’t want to hit the stop button.
However, the author tried a bit too hard on its theme of “we’re all prisoners of geography, whatever we do, we can’t get out of certain destinies”, while ironically most stories he quoted especially those after the WWII are proving exactly the opposite point: the advancement of technology and influence of economic ideologies are wiping out the geographical prison doors everywhere on earth.
Europe was by no means destined to fight each other all the time to eternity, Russia and China are not anti-western dictatorships by default, and so many troubles in the Middle East stem from religion rather than arbitrary lines in the desert.
My conclusion at the end of the book is: it’s the ideas that are the primary forces in shaping human history and destiny, why geography only adds some interesting flavours to the journey.

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A surprisingly gripping history of the world

Wonderfully conveyed by writer and narrator. A refreshing lens through which to view global politics.

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A very important read

An essential read to understand the background to the issues that dominate today's headlines.

The only criticism I have is the lack of maps to download as a pdf (other books offer this). This would help to further explain the author's analysis and commentary and is a miss as they are available in the hard copy version.

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Typical closing the eyes to the obvious

The first half of the book was very interesting, but once he gets to Africa in Chapter 6, he goes along with the same old narratives that have been proven wrong and doesn't elaborate or speak on very serious issues in South Africa and China's goals there.
First of all, the Rwandan Genocide was not the first of it's kind or due to European's; not entirely anyway. The Tutsi militia group assassinated the Hutu president, after they had already been attacking the country from the neighbouring country, and this caused tensions to boil over. The two groups have a 400 year history of Tutsi elite and disgruntled, lower-class Hutu's. The two have been killing eachother in the thousands to hundreds of thousands since about 1958. Both are guilty of genocide and crimes, it wasn't just the Hutu being evil. More than half of the Rwandan genocide victims were Hutu, and it doesn't really make sense how Tutsi's that started the terror were genocided, but still one and the same Military president has retained power.

The other point I wish to make is that China isn't just looking for materials in Africa to increase their manufacturing output, they are putting these countries in debt and claiming the use of their ports presently or in the future, so they have Navy ports far from China where they couldn't before.

It frustrates me that the author can be so detailed in some respects and so lacking in others, where it is easier to say the evil European's ruined another country and ran off. How about you look at the infrastructure they left behind that is being rapidly dismantled and destroyed by the South African countries that were colonised. They use telephone pole oil for cooking and are tearing up the streets for gods sake.

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