Myths of Geography

Eight Ways We Get the World Wrong

By: Paul Richardson

Narrated by: Orlando Wells

Is geography really destiny?

Our maps may no longer be stalked by dragons and monsters, but our perceptions of the world are still shaped by geographic myths. Myths like Europe being the center of the world. Or that border walls are the solution to migration. Or that Russia is predestined to threaten its neighbors.

In his punchy and authoritative new book, Paul Richardson challenges recent popular accounts of geographical determinism and shows that how the world is represented often isn't how it really is—that the map is not the territory.

Along the way we visit some remarkable places: Iceland's Thingvellir National Park, where you can swim between two continents, and Bir Tawil in North Africa, one of the world's only territories not claimed by any country. We follow the first train that ran across Eurasia between Yiwu in east China and Barking in east London,and scale the US-Mexico border wall to find out why such fortifications don’t work.

Written with verve and full of quotable facts, Myths of Geography is a book that will turn your world upside down.

Not the best book I read this year

My biggest complaint with the Audible version is the constant mispronunciation of words. The narrator pronounced words like he had never seen them before. I also had a difficult time following his logic. It was like he was having a difficult time coming up with 8 myths of geography.

politically biased geography book

Only made it to chapter 2 because the narrator butchered the word "circa" at every mention of a year . Instead of saying "sur-kuh" we get "sea-rah-kuh" and after the 20th time I had to end it. I doubt I missed much . You may enjoy hearing a guy that can't say Mercator complaining about maps showing land near the poles to be larger because those maps are racist since White people live in the north and he thinks it is racist that north is shown at the top of maps