Prisoners of Geography, Civilization 6 and why History doesn’t have to be boring
A history book that actually helps to guide the future
We have all heard the old adage: those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. However, when I was in school, history was taught in two ways; either a current event session or your chronological view of historical events. The book, Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps that Explain Everything about the World by Tim Marshall, combines both historical events with a current events lens.
The book is broken down into 10 chapters, each explaining a different map of the world. The locations that it covers are Russia, China, the United States, Europe, the Arab World, India & Pakistan, Africa, Japan & Korea, Latin America, and the Artic/Antarctica. What makes it interesting is how each chapter goes into how its location affects its past, current, and future.
In school, you remember subjects and topics that spark your curiosity about yourself and the world. Unfortunately, the focus on many history classes were on the remembering names and dates and not about how it affects us. This in turn, stifles creativity. I was interested initially in the book by my desire of learning more about the world but when I started listening to it; it sparked me to pick up my Nintendo Switch game console to play Civilization 6 again.
Civilization 6 is a strategy based game which is loosely based on historical events throughout the period of history from ancient times all the way into the future. You have the option to choose from a list of historical leaders to compete against other leaders.
Prisoners of Geography, made me think about playing Civilization 6 differently by understanding how bodies of water and landforms affect a country’s military, economic and cultural strategy. For example, the book explains the importance of a port city and how they have and will continue to influence country’s decisions. A port city is a coastline city that can import and export goods and transport people. Chapter 2 spoke to how Russian empire’s desire of a warm water port.
Two major advantages of a warm water port is being able to ship all year-round and to place a navy to protect a country’s mainland. Without a warm water port, countries are either at an economic or military disadvantage or must seek the assistance of a country who does have a warm water port. Russia because of its geographical location did not have access to a warm water port. Many military conflicts throughout Russia from the Great Northern War (1700–1721), the Crimean War (1853–1856), and the Russian intervention in Ukraine (2014-present) can all be partially attributed to the pursuit or prevention of Russia obtaining warmer ports.
The next chapter shows how a country benefited from having multiple warm water ports.
The United States became an economic power once they had access to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Not only did this provide access to multiple ports to ship goods, it also allowed the United States to protect themselves from invasions by having a navy to protect its borders. For example, New Orleans was a key port city because its connection to the Mississippi River provided transportation to and from many northern cities. The city was so important to the economic success of the United States, that the Union prioritized occupying New Orleans in the American Civil War.
In a later chapter, the book talks about the Artic and the implications of global warming which included the warming of cold water ports.
What I like most about this book is that it took a basic concept like a map and tried to explain the world through that concept. It was more than just historical figures and thus, it sparked my own internal creativity. While it was nice to escape from reality to play a game, it brought up the revelation of how creative “sparks” are sorely needed in the educational system. For a student a math concept on angles may encourage them to practice different soccer kicks, a literature lesson may encourage song writing.
Educators are looking for more ways outside of traditional textbooks for learning tools in order to catch the attention of their students. I would suggest video games being a solution with homework versus an alternative to doing it. Too often, we discuss video games not in a positive light. At worst, we decry it as a waste of time and as a distraction from learning. Sometimes, we say that is an alternative for more damaging behavior for unintended youth. But we forget the benefits of videogames. Some benefits include problem solving, cooperation, and visual-spatial skills. At its basic level, video games are a simulation and simulations are used in real-word scenarios like War games. Even popular games like Call of Duty have enough historical references in it to encourage a conversation about the world, which in turn will have less students calling history boring.
Some takeaways without giving away the book.
· The United States will always feel a pull to be an isolationist nation because it is separated from most other countries by large bodies of water.
· The vast number of natural resources in Africa and how that brings positive and negative attention
· Landlocked countries tend to be much poorer than countries that have access to large bodies of water
· Tough terrain is a big of a deterrent to war than diplomacy
After listening, I would recommend this book for people who want to have a different perspective of the world. I didn’t think the worldview that would change the most for me was how I feel about our educational system and what we can do to help students learn.
