Read this for class and I will say it's a really good overview of all the alliances and rivalries on the map today. I'm resistant to the "everything is about oil and gas" argument but it's pretty convincing in a lot of cases because material interests seem to always track with geopolitical ones. It also helped me place all the wars in the last century inside a tidy narrative. My main issue is the way that this type of argument helps authors pretend to be completely neutral observers when they of course have their own biases that are plain to see based on the context they choose to give. The chapter about climate activists is so grating and smug I almost stopped reading. I think people will like this book because it offers a 2020s update to the conservative viewpoint without disrupting any of its pillars. Overall though an engaging book and I'm glad to have read it.