I’ve mentioned Robert Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography before, along with some critical reviews, but I’ve now read the damn thing. One of the most peculiar elements is the attempt to exhume Mackinder, as if this is the cutting edge of what Geography is about. Kaplan keeps claiming he is not a determinist, but it’s a particularly clunky version of what Geography is, and how it effects human actions, collective and social. Alongside it I read Christian Parenti’s Tropic of Chaos, which looks at the interrelation of geography and violence in a much more thoughtful, nuanced and critical way.