BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Revenge of Geography’
THE REVENGE OF GEOGRAPHY: WHAT THE MAP TELLS US ABOUT COMING CONFLICTS AND THE BATTLE AGAINST FATE
By Robert D. Kaplan
Random House, $26, 403 pages
By Robert D. Kaplan
Random House, $26, 403 pages
Robert Kaplan, a seasoned foreign correspondent, scholar and author, sets out to demonstrate that geography did and does play a major role in the behavior of nations. In much earlier times, for example, natural barriers such as mountains and rivers provided defense. Nowadays, geography that enhances a country’s economic importance can determine its geopolitical importance. ...
That geography is so crucial in national formation and success is an important insight, making me even more eager to read Robert Kaplan's next rumored book: "Orbiting the Sun: Impacts Our Yearly Calender!"
Seriously, we are periodically bombarded by these unintentionally comical books, like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, that argue that geography is responsible for this, that, and the other thing, and why you named your dog Henderson--but it could not possibly have had any significant impact upon human genetics! (So get that idea out of your head, you silly!)
For example, let's say, oh, I don't know, casting about, white people are simply the beneficiaries of dumb luck, since they happened to have grown up in such a posh lush lucky geographic neighborhood--but these all-powerful all-shaping geographic forces, including climate, obviously did not shape their genetic makeup, influencing such things as IQ or dynamism. (So this is the last time I'm warning you, buster--forget that whole nutty notion!)
All this is an example of lying through half-truths, academic-journalistic subdivision, that keeps anti-Western ruling elites firmly sitting fat and happy upon and around their golden thrones.
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