Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World by Tim Marshall (2025), 352 pages

In this New York Times bestseller, an award-winning journalist uses ten maps of crucial regions to explain the geo-political strategies of the world powers—“fans of geography, history, and politics (and maps) will be enthralled” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram).

Maps have a mysterious hold over us. Whether ancient, crumbling parchments or generated by Google, maps tell us things we want to know, not only about our current location or where we are going but about the world in general . And yet, when it comes to geo-politics, much of what we are told is generated by analysts and other experts who have neglected to refer to a map of the place in question.

All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In “one of the best books about geopolitics” (The Evening Standard), now updated to include 2016 geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders.

All leaders of nations are constrained by geography. In “one of the best books about geopolitics” (The Evening Standard), now updated to include recent geopolitical developments, journalist Tim Marshall examines Russia, China, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Japan, Korea, and Greenland and the Arctic—their weather, seas, mountains, rivers, deserts, and borders—to provide a context often missing from our political reportage: how the physical characteristics of these countries affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the decisions made by their leaders.

Offering “a fresh way of looking at maps” (The New York Times Book Review), Marshall explains the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe . Why is Putin so obsessed with Crimea? Why was the US destined to become a global superpower? Why does China’s power base continue to expand? Why is Tibet destined to lose its autonomy? Why will Europe never be united? The answers are geographical. “In an ever more complex, chaotic, and interlinked world, Prisoners of Geography is a concise and useful primer on geopolitics” (Newsweek) and a critical guide to one of the major determining factors in world affairs.

Courses in Which This Book Will be Used: Geography, English 1-2, English 1-2 (H), Faith in the Modern World, Thinking Mathematically

Summer Reading Course Name: Global Geopolitics (2.5 Credits)

Textbook: Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World (2015)

This course examines how the physical characteristics of nations affect their strengths and vulnerabilities and the political decisions made by their leaders. In addition, it explores the complex geo-political strategies that shape the globe. Why has Russia embraced military expansion into former Soviet regions? Why was the United States destined to become a global superpower? Why is  China’s emerging superpower status likely to continue? Why will Europe never be united? What factors prevent Africa nations from establishing stability and economic growth? What hinders Brazil from asserting itself as Latin America’s leading power? 

Methods of Assessment: (1) A reading journal, entering responses to prompts and questions from each chapter; (2) Two assessments—a combination of multiple-choice items and free-response (short essay) questions—will be administered in September.

To download study guides for Prisoners of Geography, click on the links in the dropdown below.

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 1: Russia

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 2: China

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 3: USA

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 4: Western Europe

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 5: Africa

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 6: Middle East

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 7: India & Pakistan

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 8: Korea & Japan

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 9: Latin America

Prisoners of Geography Guide Ch. 10: Arctic

The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World by Tim Marshall (2018), 288 pages

Tim Marshall, the New York Times bestselling author of Prisoners of Geography, analyzes the most urgent and tenacious topics in global politics and international relations by examining the borders, walls, and boundaries that divide countries and their populations .

The globe has always been a world of walls, from the Great Wall of China to Hadrian’s Wall to the Berlin Wall. But a new age of isolationism and economic nationalism is upon us, visible not just in Trump’s obsession with building a wall on the Mexico border or in Britain’s Brexit vote but in many other places as well. China has the great Firewall, holding back Western culture. Europe’s countries are walling themselves against immigrants, terrorism, and currency issues. South Africa has heavily gated communities, and massive walls or fences separate people in the Middle East, Korea, Sudan, India, and other places around the world .

In fact, at least sixty-five countries, more than a third of the world’s nation-states, have barriers along their borders. There are many reasons why walls go up, because we are divided in many ways: wealth, race, religion, and politics, to name a few. Understanding what is behind these divisions is essential to understanding much of what’s going on in the world today.

As with Marshall’s first two books, The Age of Walls is a brisk read, divided by geographic region. He provides an engaging context that is often missing from political discussion and draws on his real life experiences as a reporter from hotspots around the globe . He examines how walls (which Marshall calls “monuments to the failure of politics”), borders, and barriers have been shaping our political landscape for hundreds of years, and especially since 2001, and how they figure in the diplomatic relations and geo-political events of today.

Courses in Which This Book Will be Used: Sophomore Epistemology, World History, AP World History, English 3-4, English 3-4 (H), and Scripture. (Also, if applicable: Islamic History, Latin American History, East Asian History, African History, Perspective on Diversity, Public Policy, American Government, Economics)

Course Name: Nationalism & Geopolitics (2.5 Credits)

Textbook: Tim Marshall, The Age of Walls: How Barriers Between Nations Are Changing Our World (2018)

This course examines the roles nationalism and isolationism play in contemporary politics, both domestic and foreign. While the world has been shaped by globalization and technological change, recent years have witnessed a nationalist and isolationist backlash across the globe. Mass immigration, political terrorism, poverty, and growing economic inequality are four major factors that will be explored. The course will examine how nationalism and isolationism have influenced the political landscape for centuries. A particular emphasis will be placed on how they influence diplomatic relations and geo-political events today.

Methods of Assessment: (1) A reading journal, entering responses to questions from each chapter; (2) Two assessments—a combination of multiple-choice items and free-response (short essay) questions—will be administered in September.

To download study guides for The Age of Walls, click on the links in the dropdown below.

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 1: China

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 2: USA

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 3: Israel & Palestine

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 4: Middle East

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 5: India

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 6: Africa

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 7: Europe

The Age of Walls Guide Ch. 8: UK

The Age of Walls Guide: Conclusion

These Truths: A History of the United States (Read Only Part 1, “The Idea, 1492-1799) by Jill Lepore (2018)

In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history.

Lepore’s groundbreaking investigation places truth itself―a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence―at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas―"these truths," Jefferson called them―political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise?

These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. Along the way, Lepore’s chronicle is filled with arresting sketches of both well-known and lesser-known Americans, from a parade of presidents and a rogues’ gallery of political mischief makers to the intrepid leaders of protest movements, including Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist orator; William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and ultimately tragic populist; Pauli Murray, the visionary civil rights strategist; and Phyllis Schlafly, the uncredited architect of modern conservatism.

Americans are descended from enslaved people and slave owners, from conquerors and the conquered, from immigrants and from people who have fought to end immigration. "A nation born in contradiction will fight forever over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. "The past is an inheritance, a gift and a burden," These Truths observes. "It can’t be shirked. There’s nothing for it but to get to know it."

Courses in Which This Book Will be Used: United States History, AP U.S . History, Junior Epistemology, American Literature, and AP English Language. (Also, if applicable: Islamic History, Latin American History, East Asian History, African History, Perspective on Diversity, Public Policy, American Government, Economics)

Course Name: The American Idea, 1492-1799 (2.5 Credits)

Textbook: Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (2018)
This course examines the origins and the rise of the United States, a nation born out of division. It will examine the United States’ commitment to three main ideas—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people—while exploring the extent to which it realized, and was committed to, the meaning of that promise. Beginning with the first European incursions in the Americas and concluding with the end of George Washington’s terms as President, this course asks students to consider the question asked by the nation’s founders: Can a political society be governed by reflection, election, reason, and truth, rather than by accident, violence, prejudice, and deceit? As recent history has shown, ideology separates contemporary Americans. Are Americans so clearly divided that they no longer agree about the core ideas the United States was founded upon? This course will explore those two essential questions.

Methods of Assessment: (1) A reading journal, entering responses to questions from each chapter; (2) Two assessments—a combination of multiple-choice items and free-response (short essay) questions—will be administered in September.

To download study guides for These Truths, click on the links in the dropdown below.

These Truths Guide Ch. 1

These Truths Guide Ch. 2

These Truths Guide Ch. 3

These Truths Guide Ch. 4

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World by Tim Marshall (2021) 305 pages

From the author of the New York Times bestseller Prisoners of Geography, a fascinating, “refreshing, and very useful” (The Washington Post) follow-up that uses ten maps to explain the challenges to today’s world powers and how they presage a volatile future.

Tim Marshall’s global bestseller Prisoners of Geography offered us a “fresh way of looking at maps” (The New York Times Book Review), showing how every nation’s choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas, and walls. Since then, the geography hasn’t changed, but the world has.

Now, in this “wonderfully entertaining and lucid account, written with wit, pace, and clarity” (Mirror, UK), Marshall takes us into ten regions set to shape global politics. Find out why US interest in the Middle East will wane; why Australia is now beginning an epic contest with China; how Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the UK are cleverly positioning themselves for greater power; why Ethiopia can control Egypt; and why Europe’s next refugee crisis looms closer than we think, as does a cutting-edge arms race to control space.

Innovative, compelling, and delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is “an immersive blend of history, economics, and political analysis that puts geography at the center of human affairs” (Publishers Weekly).

Courses in Which This Book Will be Used: Government and Law, Economics, Odyssey of Youth, Short Story, AP English Literature, Physics, AP Environmental Science, Physiology, Chemistry, Islamic History, Latin American History, East Asian History, African History, Perspective on Diversity, Public Policy, Philosophy, Psychology, Statistics, Math Analysis, Intro to Calculus and AP Calculus

To download study guides for The Power of Geography, click on the links in the dropdown below.

Power of Geography Guide Ch 1: Australia & Intro

Power of Geography Guide Ch 2: Iran

Power of Geography Guide Ch 3: Saudi Arabia

Power of Geography Guide Ch 4: UK

Power of Geography Guide Ch 5: Greece

Power of Geography Guide Ch 6: Turkey

Power of Geography Guide Ch 7: The Sahel

Power of Geography Guide Ch 8: Ethiopia

Power of Geography Guide Ch 9: Spain

Power of Geography Guide Ch 10: Space