The Future of Geography: How the Competition in Space Will Change Our World by Tim Marshall

I love Tim Marshall’s books.  I’ve probably said this before but  … What that man doesn’t know about geography is likely not worth knowing. Which is to say, Marshall knows a LOT about geography and has written plenty about it. So much so that he might have exhausted terrestrial matters, because in this book he takes to the skies.
Space being the final frontier, it’s a natural progression. People have spent centuries disputing and fighting over areas of Earth and eventually, they will take their squabbling into space.
As technology progresses and more money is being poured into research and development, governments and private companies are looking to increase their presence in the outer space. The current laws governing these matters and vague and outdated, so it can be either a free-for-all or yet another source of contention, but nation after nation, people are reaching for the stars, whether for scientific, political,  or purely pecuniary reasons. Okay, let’s be honest, it’s mostly the latter. From space retreats to tourism to exploiting other planets for their resources, people want to monetize space. It’s in the language itself, when the conversation turns to  colonizing space. I mean, words like colony colonialism, colonization don’t particularly carry a lot of positive associations. Yet, it’s an inextricable part of the past that echoes into the present, and one day will likely feature in the future.
The question is who gets there first and how. And that’s what this book is about, basically. And Tim Marshall does a terrific job of walking you through the current situation from contextualizing it through the past examples to playing out possible space war scenarios. Marshall writing style is intelligent, erudite, and rather funny, resulting in a nonfiction book that’s as engaging as any work of fiction, but smarter than most. It educates while entertaining and makes you look up to the sky with wonder from a more informed perspective.
A great read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.