Americans tend to associate geography with the glossy pictures and cheerful prose of the National Geographic, and ignore the benefits that derive from this looking at the world through its lens. In fact, the geographical study of international relations offers an important way of approaching issues, one no less useful than the historical, the economic, or the political.
Looking around the globe, Prescott observes that Europe has the distinction of being the only continent where boundary evolution was an entirely indigenous process. Latin America stands out by virtue of its frequent recourse to arbitration. The author disputes the conventional view that "the scramble for Africa" ignored the Africans themselves, asserting that there is "plenty of evidence to show that boundaries were drawn to preserve existing indigenous social and political units." He divides the Middle East into two regions, the northern (Turkey and Iran), where the local powers drew their own boundaries; and the southern (the remaining thirteen states of South West Asia), where Britain and France had preponderant roles. Recalling Lord Curzon's dictum that "frontiers are indeed the razor's edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace," Prescott points to the many times when land disputes have led to war and the surprising fact that differences over maritime boundaries have never caused hostilities.
