Author: Samson, Maxim

General & world history

Published on 7 August 2025 by Profile Books Ltd in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 352 pages, b/w 8 integrated maps
241 x 163 x 34 | 556g

‘A riposte to the idea that geography is destiny’ FINANCIAL TIMES’Samson demonstrates how we are not always prisoners of geography but, increasingly, its masters’ LEWIS DARTNELL’This is a book that reshapes our story of global human geography’ DANNY DORLING’Accessible and erudite, this is an original look at the geography of connection’ LEWIS BASTONMountains, meridians, rivers and borders; these are some of the features that carve up the world on our maps and in our minds. But geography is far less set in stone than we might believe and, over time, we have become experts at reshaping our surroundings.

From the Qhapaq an, South America’s ‘Great Road’, and the Panama Canal to Mozambique’s railways and Korea’s sacred Baekdu-daegan mountain range, Samson explores how we mould the world around us. And how, as we etch our needs onto the natural landscape, we alter the course of history.

An immense work of cultural geography touching on ecology, sociology, history and politics, Earth Shapers argues that, far from being constrained by geography, we are instead its creators.