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In Prisoners Of Geography, Tim Marshall sets out to explain world politics in terms of geopolitics – that is, that nations are almost compelled by the physical attributes of their landscape to behave in certain ways. Thus, we are presented with a Russia that will always want to have a buffer of conquered states to the west where flat plains leave it vulnerable; South America will always be poor because the landscape lacks natural harbours and navigable rivers; and the interconnected rivers but high mountain ranges made it inevitable that Europe would become a trading zone divided by many languages. This all sounds plausible, but does it make a book? Whilst some of the arguments are compelling, it is all presented through the “Lens of Now”. By that, I mean taking the current reality, looking for how geography might have contributed, and then presenting the current state of affairs as an inevitability caused by geography. So, by way of example, China is presented as a successful nation because the Han culture and Mandarin language have achieved dominance in a flat area with natural boundaries and navigable rivers, but development is focused on the coastal region because of ease of transport. But in a parallel universe, where the Han race and Mandarin language had not come to dominate the others, would Tim Marshall have been arguing that an area as vast and flat as China could never be united and enjoy stable governance, always being at the mercy of warlords constantly invading one another’s territory? And thirty years ago when China was not successful, it still had the same geography, didn’t it? Other examples in the book – the Middle East in particular – don’t seem to be much about geopolitics at all. That seems to be more a problem of cultures and religions jostling for supremacy. There are issues of arbitrarily creating nation states based on lines on a map, but the narrative seems more to be a statement of who currently holds what territory rather than any convincing explanation of how geopolitics got us there. There’s a feeling that even without the lines on the map, there would still be warring factions. And much seems to have been simplified: there is scarcely a mention, for example, of the Maronite Christians, how they came to be in the Levant area (i.e. driven out of Armenia by the Turks) and how the Turks had previously been driven out of Central Asia. By the same token, there’s not much thought about current population movements in the area and how they might impact on the future. Speaking of the future, there is some discussion of “where to from here”. We consider whether there will ever be a resolution of the Korean issue (answer – not any time soon); and how global warming might open up trade routes through the Arctic. There are occasional references to the politics of water supply. But unlike the definitive statements about how we got here, geography doesn’t seem to give up the future so easily. It all starts to get a bit vague. Overall there is some interesting material in this book – although after ten chapters it can start to feel a bit samey. Some people have criticized it for over-simplifying things but, in a way, that’s exactly what Tim Marshall set out to do. He wanted to increase our understanding of geopolitics in a very broad sense without having to read the extremely detailed material from which the theories derive. My real beef is not the simplification, it is the weight given to geopolitics in what is a more nuanced world: key decisions might have gone the other way; a different leader might have come to power; the war might have lasted another ten years; Russia might never have sold Alaska, etc. There are lots of what ifs – and I’m not sure this book gives sufficient recognition to those, or to the fact that we are looking at just one point in time facing a vast and unknowable future. ***00

Dear BGO Members, I write to draw your attention to my eBook, ‘The Evidence of Our Senses’: Language, Belief and Britain’s Great War. The book is the product of a student of English literature whose interest, in postgraduate years, turned more specifically to history and the relationships between language, patterns of thought and decision-making. The book examines the confection of a British sense of national identity during the second half of the nineteenth century and relates this to the illogicality and irrationality of the British decision to intervene in the European war that broke out in 1914. It examines the language of English poetry of the war, avoiding the sterile labels of ‘pro-‘ and ‘anti-‘ war verse. It gives the most thorough account to date of Siegfried Sassoon’s 1917 protest against the war’s continuation, demonstrating that the incoherence of that protest is attributable to the incoherence of the war itself (i.e. there was nothing identifiable against which to protest). It reviews British military conduct of the war, demonstrating that the shortcomings of senior British commanders are attributable to their subscription to the meretricious value-system confected in the nineteenth century. It reviews the Treaty of Versailles, confirming both that the Treaty was an improvisation and that the tenets of economic orthodoxy are fundamentally incompatible with a world-view that accepts the possibility of war. It reviews the factitious ‘war-books’ controversy of 1930 and indicates that latter-day attempts to attribute negative British perceptions of the First World War to the influence of a handful of literary works are recrudescences of the mind-set that created the war itself. In this sense, the book is an allegory of the contemporary Zeitgeist. An earlier version of Chapter One appeared as, ‘Confecting a British Identity’, in The New Nationalism and the First World War, ed. Lawrence Rosenthal and Vesna Rodic (Basingstoke and New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 19-46. An earlier version of Chapter Three was delivered as the paper, ‘Gesture and experience in “patriotic” and “anti-war” poetry’, at the English Association Conference, ‘British Poetry of the First World War’, at Wadham College, Oxford in September 2014. An earlier version of Chapter Seven appeared as, ‘Fiction and Memoir of Britain’s Great War: disillusioned or disparate?’, in the European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire, 22:5, 791-813. In an age of ‘fake news’ and labyrinthine relativism, I believe my book is extremely important. At the very least, it could start a discussion about the nature of truth and how we are to establish it. I think that is a discussion we need to have. I hope I have not committed a solecism by advertising my work here. Of course, I hope that people will be interested in my book, but I understand that advertisements can be irritating! Kindest regards, Rod Beecham

Hopefully this is the right place to ask as there were not many other threads in relation to this. I really like history. I am going to read some non-fiction books (that can be interesting), but I have a feeling that Historical fictionbooks are more fun and gripping? More of a 'cant put it down' book collection as opposed to non-fiction (although I am most likely wrong). There are so many historical fiction books out there that look great (lots of reviews), such as 'Wars of the Roses' by Conn Iggulden, ones by Bernard Cornwell (more medieval). How does one find the great books to read, that are set in different eras? I have no knowledge of the good ones, so is there a list I can be recommended to read as I am new to this genre. Thanks you,! Costa

"So They May Stand Alone" Training Iraqi Security Forces in 2005 by Magnus Edward Being in Iraq is like being on another planet. Everyone that has been there has a story to tell. This story is a brief window into but one perspective of what Iraq was really like during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Training a foreign people to fight in their own country is an odd task that brings about strange events. Americans and Iraqis working together, their cultures could not have been more different. "Quite some time has passed since the days that we sweated it out at the East Fallujah Iraqi Camp. This is a recollection of what happened out there. There were several Marines that helped to conduct the training that we did. I think that we all equally contributed in different ways. Each one of them should be proud of what they did. Although this story is told from my perspective, it is not my story, it is our story." This book is a look at the culture, religion, and perhaps some insight into current events. link removed - please use the Amazon link at the top of the page to buy the book

This little booklet on spaceflight history is selling so well, to my surprise, that I decided it would be the first one that would be available not only in ebook formats ( http://www.xinxii.de/the-forgotten-astronauts-p-350121.html ) but also on paper ( http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Forgotten-Astronauts-chapter-spaceflight/dp/149597362X/ref=sr_1_2/280-9050416-0862956?ie=UTF8&qid=1392997612&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Forgotten+Astronauts ).

British Pathe has just announced the uploading of 85,000 films to YouTube. The entire archive is now available to view and share here: British Pathe Archive There is so much living history here, a wonderful resource.