From the archive: Are we really prisoners of geography?
Daniel Immervar critiques the recent surge in geopolitical books that claim geography determines international relations, arguing these works promote a conservative worldview that ignores how landscapes change over time. He contends that while geopolitical thinking has gained popularity amid rising border tensions and climate change, it oversimplifies complex political realities and fails to account for human agency in reshaping physical environments.
Summary
The article examines the resurgence of geopolitical thinking through popular books by authors like Tim Marshall, Robert Kaplan, and Peter Zeihan, who argue that geography fundamentally determines international relations. Immervar traces this intellectual tradition back to Halford Mackinder's 1904 theory about Eurasia's heartland and its influence on Nazi geopolitik. He notes that geopolitics seemed to decline after the Cold War as globalization promised to make geography irrelevant, with trade agreements multiplying and new military technologies enabling precision warfare. However, recent events like Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the rise of border walls, and challenges to global trade have revived interest in geographic explanations for political events. The author criticizes modern geopoliticians for their historical determinism, noting their poor track record of predictions and their tendency to treat landscapes as unchanging. He argues that actual geographers understand places as historically constructed and constantly evolving. Using examples like Dubai's artificial transformation and the effects of climate change, Immervar demonstrates that human agency can dramatically alter physical environments. He concludes that the choice isn't simply between transcending geography or being trapped by it, but recognizing that we inhabit a human-modified landscape that continues to evolve in unprecedented ways.
About this episode
We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2022: A wave of bestselling authors claim that global affairs are still ultimately governed by the immutable facts of geography – mountains, oceans, rivers, resources. But the world has changed more than they realise By Daniel Immerwahr. Read by Christopher Ragland. Help support our independent journalism at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/longreadpod">theguardian.com/longreadpod</a>
Key Insights
- Immervar argues that the recent popularity of geopolitical books expresses both political conservatism and a conservatism about the earth itself, assuming it won't change
- The author contends that international politics oscillates between two modes: ideas and trade crossing borders effortlessly, or defended borders and resource protection, with the current era favoring the latter
- Immervar claims that modern geopoliticians like Marshall have poor forecasting records, citing failed predictions about wars with Japan and misguided support for the Iraq War
- The author argues that geopolitical theorists promote crude environmental determinism that has been discredited in academic geography, treating landscapes as unchanging when they are actually historically constructed
- Immervar demonstrates that physical geography can be dramatically altered by human intervention, using Dubai's creation of artificial islands and ports carved from desert as examples
- The author criticizes geopolitical writers for largely ignoring climate change despite its massive implications for reshaping landscapes and international relations
- Immervar argues that geopoliticians excel at explaining why things won't change but are inadequate at explaining how things actually do change throughout history
- The author contends that the future will involve unprecedented environmental hazards shaped by human-modified landscapes rather than a simple return to 19th-century geopolitical constraints
Topics
Transcript
This is The Guardian. The Guardian Archive Long Read Hi, I'm Daniel Imarvar. I'm the author of Are We Really Prisoners of Geography, which was published in 2022. This article is an attempt to make sense of a rash of books that have been coming out about geopolitics and mountain ranges and water tables explaining international affairs. And I got really curious about why these were so popular all of a sudden, and I came to feel that they were expressive of a kind of conservatism, not just a political conservatism, but also a conservatism about the earth itself, that it won't change. So I'm going to read a little bit about the book. I ended up writing a skeptical…
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