Contemporary Geopolitics and the Geographical Framework

Extract

During the first half of the twentieth century geographers analyzed at length the individual's relationship with his natural environment. The French school of humanist geography must be credited with stressing the influence of environment which, in proportion to its pronounced characteristics, becomes more and more powerful. Thus we came to understand the causes which determine a way of life, the customs, psychology, and idiosyncracies of those who inhabit the mountains, plains, forests, deserts, or seas. Our task has been a more daring one : we have studied the relationships established in the past between a certain geographical environment and the civilizations which formerly flourished there. In recognition of their meaning we labeled these relationships “geopolitics.” The term, coined by the German school, enjoyed a tremendous vogue because it was so apt. However, as critics have amply demonstrated, of and by itself it was really meaningless because the subject matter with which it must be concerned belonged to other, previously established and independent disciplines, such as economics or political geography. An inexact term, the word “geopolitics” crept into our present-day language. We, however, have chosen it to designate a determinate historical relationship.