I'm trying to find a good book about the influence of Geography on History. Not at the macro level (in the style of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel") but rather at a smaller level explaining the success of failure of particular polities.
Meanwhile, I try to notice instances of geographical reasoning on regular history books. Like the following passage, which explains the relative paucity of republics on the plains of Lombardy during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance:
Although this danger [Ezzelino] had been got rid of, no town in the northern plains of Italy, except Venice, was able to establish a durable republic. The poet tells us that liberty has two voices, one of the sea, and the other of the mountains. Freedom dwells upon the heights, and not upon the plains. The plains of Lombardy were peculiarly suited to the evolutions of cavalry, and cavalry was especially the arm of the nobles, as infantry was of the citizens in the towns. Hence the great towns Milan, Verona, and Padua, were no sooner free from one master than they fell under the dominion of another. This encroachment was also assisted by the fact that the towns were obliged to allow themselves to be defended by some nobles of their choice against the attack of a robber chieftain who might swoop down upon them from the mountains. They were obliged to oppose cavalry of their own to the cavalry of their enemies. We find the power of more than one of these houses raised upon the ruins of the authority of Ezzelino.
The same book mentions how Pisa's lack of natural defenses was a decisive factor in the eclipse of the city by Genoa:
The weakness of Pisa consisted in the plain which lay behind it. That was occupied by a number of hostile towns Lucca, Florence, Arezzo always ready to take advantage of a moment of misfortune. Genoa, on the other hand, her victorious rival, was backed by the ridge of the impassable Apennines. The cornice or narrow ledge of coast road between Genoa and Spezzia, offered points of vantage for many a little town, which owed allegiance to her proud mistress, but to no one else. The busy ports were well suited for shipbuilding ; the sea supplied the wealth and sustenance which the hills denied. Every village sent forth its contingent of hardy sailors, no unworthy fellow-countrymen of Columbus. For these reasons the contest between the two cities was unequal, and the issue could not be doubtful.
The importance of an easily defensible position for the prosperity of Genoa and Venice is touched in Nick Szabo's essay History and the Security of Property.
I also found the following bit about Corsica interesting:
The position of Corsica was peculiar. That island is divided into two parts by a very high range of mountains, whose summits rival the loftiest peaks of the Apennines. At a time when all communication was effected by sea, the two sides of the island knew very little about each other. They stood, as it were, back to back, one half owning allegiance to Ajaccio, the other to Bastia ; the western half dependent on Genoa, the eastern to Pisa.
Another book notices Siena's unpropitious location:
If beauty of situation determined the importance of a city, Siena would have been second to none in Italy. But, unfortunately, the unrivalled site imposed a number of permanent material drawbacks. One alone of these, the lack of water, constituted no less than a calamity; for at their sources among the hills the Elsa and the Ombrone are mere brooks, not only unsuited to navigation but incapable even of yielding a liberal supply of drinking water for man and beast. Was it conceivable that Siena should ever overcome this fundamental disability? Was it at all likely that a town suffering from scarcity of water and deprived of what in early times was always the safest means of communication with the surrounding territory, a generous water-course, should ever become a great directive agent of civilization? No, its action would necessarily be limited, its world would be hardly more than the dependent district which the citizen, gazing from the ramparts, saw lying at his feet. The story of Siena, set high and dry among the hills, could never be the tale of a world centre, such as Venice, or Milan, or Florence, bestriding each, like a colossus, one of the great and convenient highways of the Italian peninsula.
Lack of water, and of easy access to the sea, whas a hindrance for Siena's economic development. Later in the same book:
Never have men since cities have a history struggled so hard against a decree of nature, or so persistently hoped against hope, pinning their faith in the last resort to a miracle. With admirable patience the burghers brought water from afar by means of cunning, subterranean conduits which still exist, arousing the admiration of modern engineers. Nevertheless the supply obtained was insufficient. When that picturesque upland region, where Siena has her seat, failed to reveal, even to close scrutiny, any further spring capable of being tapped for city uses, the townsmen encouraged one another to believe in a hidden river underneath their feet. They even knew its name, the Diana; borings were invited at public expense, and sensitive ears in the still hours of the night plainly heard the rush of its waters. Readers of the Divine Poet have laughed merrily over his contemptuous fling at the gente vana who hugged such illusions to their breast, but for the lover of this people the curious aberration has the deep pathos inseparable from the spectacle of hopes heroically pursued in the face of the unchangeable decrees of nature.
