Abstract
To introduce the student to political geography we have selected two papers so diverse that at first sight they may seem almost incompatible, and our choice mischievously perverse. Mackinder’s paper, published as long ago as 1904, essays ‘a correlation between the larger geographical and the larger historical generalisations’. The interesting oral discussion at the Royal Geographical Society is also reproduced here. After World War I his ‘Democratic Ideals and Reality’ (1919) elaborated these ideas, referring to a great core area of Eurafrasia as the Heartland, and suggesting that:
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland.
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island.
Who rules the World-Island commands the World.
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Note
A. R. Hall, ‘Mackinder and the Course of Events’, Annals Amer. Assoc. Geogr., vol. 65 (1955) 109–26.
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© 1970 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Mackinder, H.J., de Blij, H., House, J.W. (1970). Approaches to Political Geography. In: Understanding Society. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15392-3_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15392-3_23
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