Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
more dangerous than ever before.
But before the dullness completely sets in, there will upheavals and power shifts and nat-
ural geopolitical evolutions that can usefully be described by reference to the relief map.
It is now time to explore in depth various regions of the globe, with a particular emphasis
on the super-continent of Eurasia, bearing in mind all that we have learned from these his-
torians, geopoliticians, and other thinkers. For in the chapters that follow, I will try to ad-
here to their sensibilities as well as to their theories. I will write about Europe, which lies
adjacent to Mackinder's Heartland and is so influenced by it; about Russia, Mackinder's
Heartland itself; China, which may in future decades come to dominate part of the Heart-
land and part of Spykman's Rimland; the Indian Subcontinent, which forms the core region
of the Rimland; Iran, where the Heartland and Rimland actually meet; the Turkish and Arab
Middle East, which approximates Hodgson's Oikoumene; and finally North America, the
largest of Mackinder's continental satellites to challenge Eurasia and the World-Island. I
will try not to make predictions, but rather to describe geography as it affects history, so as
to get some idea of what the future might hold.