The Heroic Earth
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The Heroic Earth
Author: David Thomas Murphy
language: en
Publisher: Kent State University Press
Release Date: 1997
In The Heroic Earth, David T. Murphy argues that geopolitical ideas were most dynamic and significant in Germany not during the Nazi era (1933-45) but in the democratic culture of the Weimar republic (1919-33). By helping to condition the German population to geopolitical ideas, which emphasized revision of the Versailles settlement and enlarging Germany's living space, geopolitics helped contribute to Nazi imperialism. From the defeat of Germany in 1918 until the rise of National Socialism i9n 1933, theories of geographical determinism enjoyed a broad currency in many fields of German public life. The ancient notion that environmental factors--climate, topography, resource distribution--shape society in significant ways was now applied in a radically determinist fashion to help Germans understand why they had lost the war and what they had to do to regain their place among the Great Powers. Under the rubric of Geopolitik, politicians, teachers, writers and others argued that they key to Germany's past, and the hope for its future, lay in understanding geography's determining impact upon races, cultures, states, and warfare. Theories of geographical determinism shaped German thinking about politics, race, science, education, aesthetics, and many other subjects on the eve of the Nazi era. Challenging traditional historiography, Murphy argues that geopolitics faded in importance after Adolf Hitler came to power.
The Heroic Earth: The Flowering of Geopolitical Thought in Weimar Germany, 1924-1933
This work examines the popularization of geopolitical ideas in Germany in the decade before the Nazi seizure of power. It opens by tracing the reception of geopolitical ideas in Germany in the late nineteenth century, and then examines the dimensions of geopolitical rhetoric in the Weimar period. Geopolitical language focused on the concept of geodeterminism, the belief that geography exercises a decisive formative influence on states and societies. The work also discusses the geopolitical concept of the state as an organism, the consequences of a geodeterminist approach to politics, society, culture and history, the relationship of geopolitical thought to Weimar modernism, and such recurrent geopolitical themes as the role of struggle in state relations, the role of geographic factors in Germany's demographic crisis, and the impact of modern technology on geopolitics. The evidence suggests that geopolitical ideas were influential across a much wider portion of the Weimar political spectrum than is generally acknowledged, from the moderate left to the radical right, and that they popularized an organic view of the state which undermined the legitimacy of the postwar state system. The popularity of geopolitics reflected a broad radicalization of Weimar political discourse, which was caused by the experiences of defeat in the First World War and the consequent social and political unrest. Seven individual thinkers (Ewald Banse, Friedrich Burgdorfer, Arthur Dix, Adolf Grabowsky, Karl Haushofer, Manfred Langhans-Ratzeburg and Walther Vogel), including political scientists, government officials, geographers and historians, are examined in detail to show the appeal of geopolitics across political lines and academic disciplines. The dissemination and political function of geopolitical ideas are examined in chapters treating geopolitics in the German colonial revanchist movement, state support for geopolitical education in Prussian schools and geopolitics in textbooks and at German universities. This work also examines the role of geopolitical thought in state-supported revanchist propaganda, and the geopolitical approach to German foreign policy, the League of Nations, and the Pan-Europe movement of the interwar years. It concludes with a chapter which analyzes the graphic language of geopolitical cartography, including over twenty geopolitical maps and sketches, and with a consideration of the recent revival of geopolitical thought in light of the historical uses of geopolitical ideas. The dissertation draws upon an extensive examination of Weimar periodical literature, papers of prominent academics, politicians and geopoliticians, records of political parties and political pressure groups and the official records of government agencies in charge of education, cultural activities and foreign policy.
The Ice
Author: Stephen J. Pyne
language: en
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Release Date: 2016-06-01
“The Ice is a compilation of more about ice than you knew you wanted to know, yet sheer compelling significance holds attention page by page. . . . Pyne conveys a view of Antarctica that interweaves physical science with humanistic inquiry and perception. His audacity as well as his presentation warrant admiration, for the implications of The Ice are vast.”—New York Times Book Review