On the history of a subterranean geopolitics

Geopolitics has in recent years been framed as a flat discourse whose cartographic obsessions prevent it from appreciating both the vertical dimension in which statecraft and armed conflict operate as well as the earth’s geologic agency. This assessment, I argue, is based on an incomplete reading of...

全面介绍

书目详细资料
主要作者: Klinke, I
格式: Journal article
语言:English
出版: Elsevier 2019
_version_ 1826310137085689856
author Klinke, I
author_facet Klinke, I
author_sort Klinke, I
collection OXFORD
description Geopolitics has in recent years been framed as a flat discourse whose cartographic obsessions prevent it from appreciating both the vertical dimension in which statecraft and armed conflict operate as well as the earth’s geologic agency. This assessment, I argue, is based on an incomplete reading of the geopolitical tradition. A journey through the history of geopolitics reveals that whilst thinkers like Alfred Mahan, Halford Mackinder and Carl Schmitt displayed a tendency for flat earth thinking, it was the German political geographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) who developed a rich tapestry of terms to theorise the power and politics of geology and the underground. The advent of large scale conventional and later nuclear bombing in the 1940s prompted geopoliticians on both sides of the Atlantic to become increasingly interested in the 3-dimensionality of the struggle for space. This paper suggests the need for a dialogue between the intellectual history of geopolitics and the growing literatures on geopower and vertical geopolitics.
first_indexed 2024-03-07T07:46:10Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:e2e77ef1-168b-4fae-b9b4-d0459f70ece2
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-07T07:46:10Z
publishDate 2019
publisher Elsevier
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:e2e77ef1-168b-4fae-b9b4-d0459f70ece22023-06-07T06:45:03ZOn the history of a subterranean geopoliticsJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:e2e77ef1-168b-4fae-b9b4-d0459f70ece2EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordElsevier2019Klinke, IGeopolitics has in recent years been framed as a flat discourse whose cartographic obsessions prevent it from appreciating both the vertical dimension in which statecraft and armed conflict operate as well as the earth’s geologic agency. This assessment, I argue, is based on an incomplete reading of the geopolitical tradition. A journey through the history of geopolitics reveals that whilst thinkers like Alfred Mahan, Halford Mackinder and Carl Schmitt displayed a tendency for flat earth thinking, it was the German political geographer Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904) who developed a rich tapestry of terms to theorise the power and politics of geology and the underground. The advent of large scale conventional and later nuclear bombing in the 1940s prompted geopoliticians on both sides of the Atlantic to become increasingly interested in the 3-dimensionality of the struggle for space. This paper suggests the need for a dialogue between the intellectual history of geopolitics and the growing literatures on geopower and vertical geopolitics.
spellingShingle Klinke, I
On the history of a subterranean geopolitics
title On the history of a subterranean geopolitics
title_full On the history of a subterranean geopolitics
title_fullStr On the history of a subterranean geopolitics
title_full_unstemmed On the history of a subterranean geopolitics
title_short On the history of a subterranean geopolitics
title_sort on the history of a subterranean geopolitics
work_keys_str_mv AT klinkei onthehistoryofasubterraneangeopolitics