World politics is also geopolitics. All governments and heads of state are subject to the constraints of geography. Mountains, plains, rivers, seas, and deserts limit their decision-making scope. To understand history and politics, one must know the people, the ideas, and the attitudes. However, without geography, one cannot obtain a complete picture.

One example is Russia: From the Grand Princes of Moscow to Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and Stalin, up to Vladimir Putin, every Russian leader has faced the same geostrategic problems, regardless of whether under Tsarism, Communism, or capitalist nepotism. Most ports still freeze for half the year, which is detrimental to the navy. The northern European plain from the North Sea to the Urals remains flat, allowing anyone to march through.

In ten chapters, Tim Marshall illustrates how geography has influenced world politics and continues to do so.