28-09-2009, 09:25 PM
[quote=Paul Rigby]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n4fpk
[QUOTE]Heartland Theory
Sunday, 21:30 on BBC Radio 3
Synopsis: Historian Tristram Hunt presents a series following the surprising journeys of ideas that first developed in Britain and then spread around the world.
He traces the story of Sir Halford Mackinder, a forgotten British geographer, and his geopolitical 'Heartland Theory'. Mackinder argued that the geography of Eurasia meant that Russia and its border countries constituted a vast fortress, land-locked and impregnable - and that if this 'heartland' ever fell under the control of a single great power, it would give it the potential to dominate the world.
His idea, first aired in 1904, was largely ignored in Britain, but in the years after the First World War, it was taken up - and twisted into a disturbing new shape - by a German geopolitician called Karl Haushofer.
Broadcast: Sun, 27 Sep 2009, 21:30, BBC Radio 3[/QUOTE]
Tristram Hunt (and the anonymous writer of the blurb describing his programme) here dutifully follow the British establishment li(n)e, which would have us view Mackinder as a prophet scorned by his native land. In May 2007, for example, the Guardian’s Saturday Review section carried a book review by historian Maya Jasanoff of John Darwin's After Tamerlaine: The Global History of Empire (London: Allen Lane, 2007):
“But a deeper resonance lies with the work of a scholar of decidedly different stamp: the early 20th-century geographer and ardent imperialist Sir Halford Mackinder. In his pioneering work on geopolitics, Mackinder identified Eurasia as the "heartland" of global empire. "Who rules East Europe rules the Heartland," he wrote in 1919. "Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island: Who rules the World-Island commands the World." Mackinder's opinions were little heeded by the British government, but would find uncanny resonance in the policy of Adolf Hitler, who anchored his visions of world empire in the resource-rich domains of the Soviet Union” (1).
In fact, Mackinder’s thesis was the geopolitical bible of the British elite for nearly half a century (2); and its author so ignored by an ungrateful establishment that it made him High Commissioner of South Russia, 1919-1920, for which service he was knighted in the latter year (3). The conventional version has that Mackinder sought to save the White Guardists. As Giacomo Preparata demonstrates, the truth was otherwise.
(1) http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story...95,00.html
(2) Preparata, loc. cit., pp. 8-15
(3) Blouet, B.W. (1976). Sir Halford Mackinder as British high commissioner to south Russia, 1919-1920. Geographical Journal. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_John_Mackinder
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n4fpk
[QUOTE]Heartland Theory
Sunday, 21:30 on BBC Radio 3
Synopsis: Historian Tristram Hunt presents a series following the surprising journeys of ideas that first developed in Britain and then spread around the world.
He traces the story of Sir Halford Mackinder, a forgotten British geographer, and his geopolitical 'Heartland Theory'. Mackinder argued that the geography of Eurasia meant that Russia and its border countries constituted a vast fortress, land-locked and impregnable - and that if this 'heartland' ever fell under the control of a single great power, it would give it the potential to dominate the world.
His idea, first aired in 1904, was largely ignored in Britain, but in the years after the First World War, it was taken up - and twisted into a disturbing new shape - by a German geopolitician called Karl Haushofer.
Broadcast: Sun, 27 Sep 2009, 21:30, BBC Radio 3[/QUOTE]
Tristram Hunt (and the anonymous writer of the blurb describing his programme) here dutifully follow the British establishment li(n)e, which would have us view Mackinder as a prophet scorned by his native land. In May 2007, for example, the Guardian’s Saturday Review section carried a book review by historian Maya Jasanoff of John Darwin's After Tamerlaine: The Global History of Empire (London: Allen Lane, 2007):
“But a deeper resonance lies with the work of a scholar of decidedly different stamp: the early 20th-century geographer and ardent imperialist Sir Halford Mackinder. In his pioneering work on geopolitics, Mackinder identified Eurasia as the "heartland" of global empire. "Who rules East Europe rules the Heartland," he wrote in 1919. "Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island: Who rules the World-Island commands the World." Mackinder's opinions were little heeded by the British government, but would find uncanny resonance in the policy of Adolf Hitler, who anchored his visions of world empire in the resource-rich domains of the Soviet Union” (1).
In fact, Mackinder’s thesis was the geopolitical bible of the British elite for nearly half a century (2); and its author so ignored by an ungrateful establishment that it made him High Commissioner of South Russia, 1919-1920, for which service he was knighted in the latter year (3). The conventional version has that Mackinder sought to save the White Guardists. As Giacomo Preparata demonstrates, the truth was otherwise.
(1) http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story...95,00.html
(2) Preparata, loc. cit., pp. 8-15
(3) Blouet, B.W. (1976). Sir Halford Mackinder as British high commissioner to south Russia, 1919-1920. Geographical Journal. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_John_Mackinder