Divided by Tim Marshall

Like Tim Marshall’s other titles, Divided takes a fresh perspective on ways to tell geopolitics. He explores nations through their divisions and their unities, both within and without, in the past and the present. He undertakes a historical, contemporary, and speculative analysis of divisions that are unintentional, orchestrated, imposed, or inherent.

Infamous physical divisions such as The Berlin Wall and Trump’s promised wall of his 2020 election campaign, invisible boundaries like the firewall between China and the rest of the world, or ideological walls of understanding, lines drawn in the sand, and uneducated borders drawn by colonists come at a cost to those on either side. Marshall explains the costs, context, and repercussions of these walls and stretches his explanations and context far back into history.

He explains the dynamic creature of geopolitics, the movement of peoples and the risk, reward, and reasons for challenging and taking on the walls in their way. He tells the ever-growing story of climate refugees, like those displaced in Bangladesh as the rivers encroach each year.

There are also new ways that we define and perpetuate divisions or attempt to prevent them. Divisions can be easily created as we saw in the 2019 Brexit vote in Britain, and prevented, as laid out in the Moon Agreement that agrees the land mass of the moon cannot be claimed by any one state. We are also finding new ways to define inherent differences as old systems become outdated. David Goodhart, Marshall explains, characterises a new structure in Britain defined by Somewheres and Anywheres. Anywheres are characterised by transferable skills that allow them to live anywhere in the world and feel at home, to see the world as open. Somewheres, living within 20 miles of where they were born for their entire life, have a stronger affiliation to their local regional, and national identity, and may feel more averse to things such as immigration.

Marshall ends the book with a note on the Spaces in Between, leaving room for speculation on which side of ideologies you lie, of ever more present conversations around immigration, free speech, and globalisation. He considers a world that will be united physically in a struggle against extremism and impending climate disaster. He wonders if, as consideration of borders and divisions enter popular consciousness more and more due to these issues, which side of the theoretical, political, and ideological fence the world will be on: “Although present nationalism and identity politics are once again on the rise” he concludes “there is the potential for this arc of history to bend backwards towards unity.”