In Geography Is Destiny, historian Ian Morris returns to familiar ground for readers of Why the West Rules, for Now and War!: the long arc of history shaped not primarily by ideology or individual genius, but by geography. This time his focus narrows to Britain. The result is a sweeping, 8,000-year meditation on how the island has defined itself — and misdefined itself — in relation to Europe and the wider world.
Morris argues that Britain’s story is not one of simple insularity or simple Europeanism. It is both. Over millennia, geography made Britain part of Europe and separate from it at the same time. The English Channel is neither a moat nor a wall; it is a filter. Britain’s physical separation fostered political distinctiveness, but its proximity guaranteed entanglement. Morris invokes “Thatcher’s Law” repeatedly: Britain is part of Europe, like it or not. The island may resist Brussels, resent regulations, or vote for Brexit, but geography remains stubborn.
When Morris finished the book in 2021, Brexit was five years old. He reminds readers that Britain has “left Europe” before — politically, strategically, psychologically — only to return when reality intruded. The deeper argument is that Britain’s oscillation between European integration and distance is structural, not temporary. Brexit, in this telling, is not a revolutionary break but another turn in a very long cycle.
The book also offers a clear-eyed assessment of Britain’s imperial rise and fall. Morris shows how geography first positioned Britain advantageously at the edge of Atlantic trade networks, then enabled it to build and project maritime power on a global scale. But the same geographic realities that helped create empire could not shield it from the industrialized slaughter of the two world wars. The financial and demographic costs of those conflicts broke the imperial model. Geography opened doors; geopolitics closed them.
What makes Geography Is Destiny particularly striking is its final turn. Morris argues that Brexit debates fundamentally miss the larger strategic picture. The real challenge to British sovereignty is not Brussels. It is Beijing. In his view, China — not the European Union — will define the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century. He sees China as the likely dominant power by the end of this century, reminding readers that the name “Middle Kingdom” reflects a civilizational self-understanding of centrality. China’s long history of technological and political dynamism, combined with its demographic weight, makes its rise less anomaly than reversion.
Reading the book now, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amid strains between America and NATO allies, Morris’s emphasis on structural forces feels even more prescient. Britain’s future will not be determined by symbolic acts of separation but by how it positions itself in a world where continental Europe, the United States, and a rising China compete and cooperate in shifting combinations.
What I admire most about Morris is his scale. He refuses to be trapped by headlines. He steps back — centuries back — and asks what geography makes likely. The result is not fatalism but clarity. Britain may debate identity endlessly. But islands do not move. And the larger tectonics of power are already shifting eastward.
This is Morris at his best: bold, unsettling, and deeply persuasive. I loved the book.
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