Kyle Harrison
to-read
The Revenge of Geography
The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate
- Author
- Robert D. Kaplan
- Published
- 2012
- Pages
- 448
- Recommended
- Once
Why it’s on the list: Kaplan’s revival of the geographical determinists — Mackinder, Mahan, Spykman — as a corrective to the idea that technology has made terrain irrelevant. Mountains, rivers and coastlines as the constraints politics keeps rediscovering.
Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @typesfast’s question, “What’s the best history book you’ve read?” (June 5, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on What’s the best history book… (tweet). It was listed there as “The Revenge of Geography by Kaplan”.
Connections
- Geopolitics — the subject, argued from the map.
- The Decline of the West — the other grand-determinist account already on Kyle’s list.
- History
- What’s the best history book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.