Foreword, Colin S. Gray
Preface
1. Geopolitics: Geography, History and Strategy, a Trinity of Relations
2. Geopolitics: Methods and Theories
3. British Foreign Policy and the Heartland: Challenge and Nemesis
4. Britain, Ireland and the Battle of the Atlantic: Failure and Redemption
5. A Geographical Aurora: Geopolitics in the United States during the Second World War
6. Geopolitics and Containment 1945-1973: A Strategy without Limits
7. The Geopolitics of China and the Pacific Pivot
8. Conclusions
University of Reading, UK
Winner of the 2017 Stratfor Prize for best book devoted to
geopolitical analysis.
'In this important and readable book Geoff Sloan brings Geography
back into focus. He shows and explains Geography’s relationship to
the formulation and execution of strategy and thus the exercise of
political power. Now that the geopolitical ‘tectonic plates’,
unfrozen at the end of the Cold War, are on the move; understanding
these relationships is never more important.' -- General Sir Rupert
Smith KCB DSO OBE QGM'For too long international relations and
politics has been dominated by trendy academic methods that
inevitably reflect more about the theorist and the theories, than
about the issues at hand that effect all our lives. Even worse –
most contemporary works of that sort are inaccessible and downright
unreadable – one thinks perhaps a point of pride for the authors at
times! Professor Sloan has written a necessary corrective to this
condition. Geopolitics, Geography, and Strategic History
re-connects the actual experiences of the human condition with the
principle forces that shape the world in which we live. Sloan’s
shrewdness in using geopolitical approaches to explain the rise of
domestic strategic cultures and the reasons for the differences
between them does much more to explain the world in which we live
than the narrow theoretical approaches of modern political
theorists. With its emphasis on the dynamism and interrelation
between history, geography, and power – this book enlightens and
explains much that seems to befuddle modern policy makers and
political spinmeisters. Students of the field and anyone interested
in charting a way through the morass of today’s thorny
international relations scene would do well to heed Sloan and the
geopolitical approach.' -- The Honorable Dr. John Hillen, Former US
Assistant Secretary of State‘Geoffrey Sloan has given us a
magisterial account of the intellectual value of geopolitics
understood, as it should be, as the empirical study of the
inter-relation of history, geography and strategy. Ranging from
Britain’s abortive intervention in South Russia in 1920 to the
geopolitical thinking discernible in China’s policy today, he
reminds us that geopolitical understanding is an indispensable tool
as much for the historian as for the contemporary policy-maker –
and neglected at their peril.’ -- Professor John Darwin, University
of Oxford, UK '...this is an erudite and magisterial book enriching
our understanding of how historical events and emerging
geopolitical trends and developments are enhanced by understanding
the close relationship between geopolitics,geography, and strategic
history and how the multidisciplinary relevance of these subjects
makes classical geopolitics an essential prerequisite for
analyzing, interpreting, and understanding international relations
and history. Strongly recommended for all interested in these
subjects!'-- Bert Chapman, Purdue University, USA
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