On Sunday, December 13, 2020, 1:30-3:00 p.m. Eastern Time (US), our final Mackinder Forum Seminar of the year took place. Professor Kent Calder addressed the following topic: “The Logic of Eurasian Integration.” TOPIC FOR CONSIDERATION: Geography arguably dictates many basic parameters of political-economic competition. It conveys certain latent, potential advantages… Read more »
On November 22, 2020, 1:30-3:00 PM Eastern US Time, Gordon Chang presented “China’s Mackinderism” to the Mackinder Forum Seminar. ABSTRACT: Chinese policymakers are Mackinderites; and they are also believers in the Rimland Theory of Nicholas John Spykman, as evident from their all-out plan to build infrastructure in Central Asia. The… Read more »
On Sunday, November 8, 2020 at 1:30 – 3:00 PM (Eastern Time, US), Mr. David P. Goldman presented a talk on “Heartland Theory in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” ABSTRACT: With regard to China’s global ambitions, Mackinder’s “Heartland” concept in some ways is more relevant than ever, but in other ways… Read more »
Brian Blouet College of William and Mary Why does Mackinder evolve from the Pivot paper (1904) to the Heartland thesis (1919)? In 1904 Mackinder identified four possible contenders for control of the core of Eurasia. The contenders were: the German empire, the Russian empire, China, and Japan. Mackinder added, should… Read more »
On Sunday, September 6, 2020 (from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern Time, US), an anonymous presenter delivered a talk on “A Giraffe in Nanjing: A Cartographic Reimagining of China’s One Belt One Road.” ABSTRACT: Many myths surround China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The results of a spatial analysis of… Read more »
“As we consider this rapid review of the broader currents of history, does not a certain persistence of geographical relationship become evident? Is not the pivot region of the world’s politics that vast area of Euro-Asia which is inaccessible to ships, but in antiquity lay open to the horse-riding nomads,… Read more »
by James D. Hardy, Jr., PhD, Leonard Hochberg, PhD and Geoffrey Sloan, PhD Introduction The Twentieth Century War began on August 1, 1914 and ended on November 8, 1989.[1] The War began with Paris streets filled with people who watched with increasingly sober silence as drummers beat the rappel calling reservists to the… Read more »
