Prisoners of Geography

Across ten chapters, Tim Marshall argues that every national leader is constrained by geography and shows how mountains, rivers, seas and borders limit what countries can do. The regions covered are the Arctic, China, Russia, the United States, Europe, Africa, India and Pakistan, the Middle East, Japan and Korea, and Latin America. Drawing on maps and on his own experience of conflicts from the Balkans to Syria, the British journalist explains episodes such as Russia's annexation of Crimea, tied to its need for warm-water ports, and China's grip on Tibet as a way to secure its border with India. He challenges the belief that technology has made geography irrelevant. The book topped the Sunday Times best-seller list.

Zeall.us founder Lucas Morales included it in a list of contrarian reading he shared in an interview about starting out in entrepreneurship.