Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
hordes in the thirteenth century, with only time, distance, and weather as its friends, craving
more access to the sea. And because there is no serious geographical impediment between
Europe and the Urals, Eastern Europe, despite the collapse of the artificial boundary of the
Berlin Wall, is still under threat from Russia, as it has been for centuries. It is also true that
anxiety over the German frontier plagued France—like in the time of Louis XIV—through
the end of World War II, when the United States finally guaranteed the peace of Europe.
Indeed, geography is the preface to the very track of human events. It is no accident that
European civilization had important origins in Crete and the Cycladic islands of Greece,
for the former, a “detached fragment of Europe,” is the closest European point to the civil-
their island situations, were for centuries protected against the ravages of invaders, allow-
ing them to flourish. Geography constitutes the very facts about international affairs that
are so basic we take them for granted.
What could be a more central fact of European history than that Germany is a continental
power and Great Britain an island? Germany faces both east and west with no mountain
ranges to protect it, providing it with pathologies from militarism to nascent pacifism, so as
to cope with its dangerous location. Britain, on the other hand, secure in its borders, with an
oceanic orientation, could develop a democratic system ahead of its neighbors, and forge
a special transatlantic relationship with the United States, with which it shares a common
language. Alexander Hamilton wrote that had Britain not been an island, its military estab-
lishment would have been just as overbearing as those of continental Europe, and Britain
“would in all probability” have become “a victim to the absolute power of a single man.”
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And yet Britain is an island close to continental Europe, and thus in danger of invasion
through most of its history, giving it a particular strategic concern over the span of the cen-
turies with the politics of France and the Low Countries on the opposite shore of the Eng-
lish Channel and the North Sea.
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Why is China ultimately more important than Brazil? Because of geographical location:
even supposing the same level of economic growth as China and a population of equal size,
Brazil does not command the main sea lines of communication connecting oceans and con-
tinents as China does; nor does it mainly lie in the temperate zone like China, with a more
disease-free and invigorating climate. China fronts the Western Pacific and has depth on
land reaching to oil- and natural-gas-rich Central Asia. Brazil offers less of a comparat-
ive advantage. It lies isolated in South America, geographically removed from other land-
masses.
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Why is Africa so poor? Though Africa is the second largest continent, with an area five
times that of Europe, its coastline south of the Sahara is little more than a quarter as long.
Moreover, this coastline lacks many good natural harbors, with the East African ports that
traded vigorously with Arabia and India constituting the exception. Few of tropical Africa's
