The Future of Geography

Sixty years ago, the Space Race began with a bang, but in The Future of Geography, foreign affairs writer Tim Marshall argues that we humans now stand on the brink (or perhaps the precipice) of an entirely new Space Race: one dominated by nations, entities and individuals jostling for supremacy, not just of space’s high ground, but of much more besides.

Marshall furnishes a whistlestop tour of our ageless fascination with the night sky, whose mysteries were depicted by our ancestors in prehistoric carved animal bones, artwork and deeply entrenched mythologies. He traces our gradual understanding of the heavens above, leading the reader to the bitterly ironic origins of the first space age, when rockets of peaceful intent were perversely twisted into bellicose tools of war.

His prose is brisk in pace and refreshingly crystalline in its clarity, affording a highly readable lesson in historical geopolitics. But as its title suggests, the history part is merely an entrée dish, as Marshall explores the influences and rivalries endemic in today’s ‘astropolitics’ as they spill their earthly discord not only into space, but to the Moon and far beyond, into the Solar System’s mineral-rich depths.

In this deeply thought-provoking volume, The Future of Geography draws parallels with advances made by land and sea power in redrawing 19th-century geopolitical maps. So too, Marshall writes, will space power redraw future maps. “Each time humanity has ventured into a new domain,” he sagely writes, “it has brought war with it.” On this point, we can hope Marshall has got it wrong. ★★★★★