Reddit mentions of Global Politics (Macmillan Foundations Series)

I've got to say, I would very much discourage people from trying to read the early books on geopolitics, or any subject, for that matter.

Those books are aimed at people who are already academics and who lived in a vastly different world, with vastly different cultural references and ways of speaking to us.

The elements of Sea Power is a a great example of this. Was it hugely influential in the early 20th century? Yes! It hugely influenced Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policies in the USA as well as Bismarck in Germany.

But all you actually need to know about the book is its basic premise, i.e. that navel power is the ultimate way to ensure independent and even global dominance. You don't need to know the specifics, because that view of geopolitics very quickly becomes outdated. I mean, for starters, this book was written before the invention of planes. That revolutionised the way power is exercised and very quickly naval power become relatively unimportant in comparison to one's ability to control land instead of sea. That's why we call this geopolitics, and not waterpolitics or something like it. This lecture on 'what is geopolitics?' goes into more detail.

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But surely I'm just criticising for criticism's sake? Not at all. I'll offer an alternative.

I think that you should start not by reading the early books, but by reading introductory books. I actually think that this lecture I linked is a pretty good introduction to a lot of core themes. But that's not really enough. So more what I think you should look for are things entitled 'introduction to:..." and also just general text books. For instance, I have one on my shelf called 'The Globalization of World Politics' by Baylis et al. It's a good book. Andrew Heywood's 'World Politics' is also quite good.

Reach the relevant chapters and then go from there. Every chapter will include either references or a 'further reading' list (or both). Baylis's book is good because it provides a pretty good description of each of the books in the further reading list at the end of every chapter and what its useful for. So you can read a chapter on Neorealist approaches to International Relations and from there it will direct you to other interesting geopolitical figures, including Kenneth Waltz, who's probably the main guy you should read if you want to understand conventional geopolitics and international relations, as it is practiced by most (western) governments (although whether or not conventional IR theory is good or not is another question which you will undoubtedly learn more about if you look into these text books).

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edit; apart from that, good post. Especially the recommendations about reading widely and especially about the recommendation to read authors who do not consider themselves to be security studies or international relations analysts.

You can start here. Then move onto here to address what you just said. For fun you can then move onto here. Once you've got all that under your belt you can learn how politics really works by reading this.

Good luck! But I urge you not make comments like "Nazis were left wing" until you've combated your ignorance with those books! Don't do it for me, do it for yourself and your country!