How Geography Explains Our World, With Tim Marshall

Tim Marshall is one of the world’s most successful authors on foreign affairs.

He’s the writer who put the ‘geo’ into geopolitics with his multi-million selling books Prisoners of Geography and The Power of Geography.Marshall’s principal argument is that without geography we cannot understand the world.

Geography explains why China would find it highly difficult to invade Taiwan.

The Taiwan Strait is about 130 km wide at its narrowest point, which is roughly three times the distance from Dover to Calais.

Any invading force would face inhospitable coastlines, unpredictable monsoons and muddy, tidal beaches.

Beijing might decide in time that these are risks worth taking.

But these basic and immutable facts of natural terrain still matter hugely in international affairs.