ShelfLook
Tools About
Cover of Prisoners of Geography

How long does it take to read Prisoners of Geography?

Tim Marshall

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall takes about 5 hours 20 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

Part of Politics of place

Next: Worth Dying For - The Power & Politics Of Flags

About 5 hours 20 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2015. 291 pages, about 80,025 words.

11 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 8 hours 54 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 5 hours 20 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 3 hours 20 minutes

The page count is the median across 17 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Yes, to understand world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements - but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture. To understand Putin's actions, for example, it is essential to consider that, to be a world power, Russia must have a navy. And if its ports freeze for six months each year then it must have access to a warm water port - hence, the annexation of Crimea was the only option for Putin. To understand the Middle East, it is crucial to know that geography is the reason why countries have logically been shaped as they are - and this is why invented countries (e.g. Syria, Iraq, Libya) will not survive as nation states. Spread over ten chapters (covering Russia; China; the USA; Latin America; the Middle East; Africa; India and Pakistan; Europe; Japan and Korea; and Greenland and the Arctic), using maps, essays and occasionally the personal experiences of the widely traveled author, Prisoners of Geography looks at the past, present and future to offer an essential guide to one of the major determining factors in world history.

Subjects: Geopolitics, World politics, Politics and Government, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, INTERNATIONAL SECURITY, Geopolítica

More by Tim Marshall

Books like this

Popular books of similar length