Geopolitics: The Geography of International Relations [Hardcover]

Saul Bernard Cohen (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0742556751 | ISBN-13: 978-0742556751 | Publication Date: July 17, 2008 | Edition: Second Edition

Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition, this textbook examines the dramatic changes wrought by ideological and economic forces unleashed by the end of the Cold War. Saul Bernard Cohen, one of the world's leading political geographers, considers these forces in the context of their human and physical settings and explores their geographical influence on foreign policy and international relations. Beginning with a survey of geopolitics and its practitioners, Saul Bernard Cohen explains geopolitical terms, structure, and theory. He traces the geopolitical restructuring of the world's different regions, its major powers, and the global networks that link them, thus creating a map of dynamic equilibrium. Cohen illustrates why those regions_the convergence of what he terms the Maritime, Heartlandic Russian, and East Asian realms _have become 'Gateways,' while the Middle East remains a 'Shatterbelt' and much of South America and Sub-Saharan Africa have grown marginalized. The author argues that whether certain areas become Gateways or Shatterbelts is the key question influencing global stability. For example, the future of peripheral parts of the Eurasian Heartland-Eastern Europe, the Trans-Caucasus, and Central Asia depends on whether the major powers adopt policies of accommodation or competition. Cohen analyzes especially the current forces favoring accommodation, including the economic benefits of globalization and the common battle against terrorism. Presenting a global spatial scope, the book considers the entire hierarchy of geopolitical units_subnational, national states, and quasi-states; geopolitical regions; and geostrategic realms. By emphasizing the interaction between geographical settings and changing ideological and economic forces, Cohen has succeeded in creating a new global geopolitical map.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for the first edition: Cohen's magnum opus, and a brilliant work it is indeed. This text is monumental, profound, analytical, and grounded in sound theory and the real world. This is a book that must be read by students as well as all scholars,politicians, and others concerned with international relations.... (George J. Demko )

Praise for the first edition: This is the most ambitious and comprehensive survey of the field of geopolitics and current geostrategical issues available anywhere. Highly recommended..... (Choice Magazine )

This is reality-based political geography at its best—a combination of deep factual knowledge of the world's major regions, including knowledge of their historical interaction as well as their current relations, with a panoptic world view, not of the shape of the globe as it should be but as it likely will be. (Alan K. Henrikson )

Praise for the first edition: This is the most ambitious and comprehensive survey of the field of geopolitics and current geostrategical issues available anywhere. Highly recommended. (Choice Magazine )

Praise for the first edition: Cohen's magnum opus, and a brilliant work it is indeed. This text is monumental, profound, analytical, and grounded in sound theory and the real world. This is a book that must be read by students as well as all scholars, politicians, and others concerned with international relations. (George J. Demko )

About the Author

Saul Bernard Cohen is University Professor of Geography emeritus at Hunter College, City University of New York, and past director of the Clark University Graduate School of Geography.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 470 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers; Second Edition edition (July 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0742556751
• ISBN-13: 978-0742556751
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,729,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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