Description: The United States is currently engaged in building and justifying its Empire. In doing this it draws upon a set of ideas that have come to be known as Geopolitics. These ideas have been current with many other ideologists of Empire, from Edwardian Britain, to Nazi Germany, to Soviet Russia, to Cold War USA, to post-Soviet Russia. This book examines the long entanglement between ideas of Geopolitics and the ideology and practices of Empire tracing these matters back to the true founder of Geopolitics, a British geographer of the early-twentieth century, Halford Mackinder. His was an eventful life, and he was at various times an explorer, the leader of a mission to displace the Bolshevik regime from Russia in 1919, an MP, and the Director of the London School of Economics. The book also considers how these ideas are used to justify the Neo-Conservative view of foreign policy in the United States today. It ends by proposing an alternative, more progressive version of Geopolitics.
Review Quotes: "Halford Mackinder stands astride geography as perhaps no other geographer ever has done, or likely will.... Gerry kearns gives us here what must be the definitive biography of Mackinder as the man, academic, teacher, and imperialist.... Almost every page contains new insights, and the book repays close and multiple readings."--Geographical Review