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| | [[Image:Friedrich Ratzel.jpg|frame|right|'''Friedrich Ratzel's''' photograph from the [[University of Leipzig]]]] | | [[Image:Friedrich Ratzel.jpg|frame|right|'''Friedrich Ratzel's''' photograph from the [[University of Leipzig]]]] |
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| − | '''Friedrich Ratzel''' ([[August 30]], [[1844]], [[Karlsruhe]], [[Baden Germany|Baden]] – [[August 9]], [[1904]], [[Ammerland]]) was a [[Germany|German]] [[geographer]] and [[ethnographer]], notable for coining the term ''[[Lebensraum]]'' ("living space").
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| − | ==Life==
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| − | Ratzel's father was the head of the household staff of the Grand Duke of Baden. He attended high school in Karlsruhe for six years before being apprenticed at age 15 to [[apothecary|apothecaries]] . In [[1863]], he went to [[Rapperswil]] on the [[Lake of Zurich]], [[Switzerland]], where he began to study [[the classics]]. After a further year as an apothecary at [[Mörs]] near [[Krefeld]] in the [[Ruhr]] area (1865-1866), he spent a short time at the high school in Karlsruhe and became a student of [[zoology]] at the universities of [[Heidelberg]], [[Jena]] and [[Berlin]], finishing in [[1868]]. He studied zoology in [[1869]], publishing ''Sein und Werden der organischen Welt'' on [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]].
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| − | After the completion of his schooling, Ratzel began a period of travels that see him transform from zoologist/biologist to geographer. He began field work in the [[Mediterranean]], writing letters of his experiences. These letters led to a job as a traveling reporter for the ''[[Kölnishe Zeitung]]'' ("Cologne Journal"), which provided him the means for further travel. Ratzel embarked on several expeditions, the lengthiest and most important being his [[1874]]-[[1875]] trip to [[North America]], [[Cuba]], and [[Mexico]]. This trip was a turning point in Ratzel’s career. He studied the influence of people of German origin in [[United States|America]], especially in the [[Midwest]], as well as other ethnic groups in North America.
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| − | He produced a written work of his account in [[1876]], ''Stadte-ünd Culturbilder aus Nordamerika'', which would help establish the field of [[cultural geography]]. According to Ratzel, cities are the best place to study people because life is "blended, compressed, and accelerated" in cities, and they bring out the "greatest, best, most typical aspects of people". Ratzel had traveled to cities such as [[New York City|New York]], [[Boston]], [[Philadelphia]], [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]], [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]], [[New Orleans]], and [[San Francisco]].
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| − | Upon his return in [[1875]], Ratzel became a lecturer in geography at the Technical High School in [[Munich]]. In [[1876]], he was promoted to assistant professor, then rose to full professor in [[1880]]. While at Munich, Ratzel produced several books and established his career as an academic. In 1876, he accepted an appointment at [[Leipzig]]. His lectures were widely attended, notably by the influential American geographer [[Ellen Churchill Semple]].
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| − | Ratzel produced the foundations of [[human geography]] in his two-volume ''Anthropogeographie'' in [[1882]] and [[1891]]. This work was misinterpreted by many of his students, creating a number of [[environmental determinism|environmental determinists]]. He published his work on [[political geography]], ''Politische Geography'', in [[1897]]. It was in this work that Ratzel introduced concepts that contributed to [[Lebensraum]] and [[Social Darwinism]].
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| − | Ratzel continued his work at Leipzig until his sudden death on August 9, 1904 in [[Ammerland]], Germany.
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| − | ==Writings==
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| − | Influenced by thinkers like Darwin and [[zoologist]] [[Ernst Heinrich Haeckel]], he published several papers. Among them is the essay ''Lebensraum'' (1901) concerning [[biogeography]], creating a foundation for the uniquely German variant of [[geopolitics]]: ''[[geopolitik]]''.
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| − | Ratzel’s writings coincided with the growth of [[Second Industrial Revolution|German industrialism]] after the [[Franco-Prussian war]] and the subsequent search for [[market]]s that brought it into competition with [[England]]. His writings served as welcome justification for [[imperialism|imperial expansion]]. Influenced by the [[United States|American]] [[geostrategy|geostrategist]] [[Alfred Thayer Mahan]], Ratzel wrote of aspirations for German naval reach, agreeing that [[sea power]] was self-sustaining, as the profit from [[international trade|trade]] would pay for the [[merchant marine]], unlike [[land power]].
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| − | Ratzel’s key contribution to ''geopolitik'' was the expansion on the biological conception of [[geography]], without a static conception of [[Border#Jurisdictional borders|border]]s. States are instead organic and growing, with borders representing only a temporary stop in their movement. It is not the state proper that is the organism, but the land in its [[spirituality|spiritual]] bond with the people who draw sustenance from it. The expanse of a state’s borders is a reflection of the health of the nation.
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| − | Ratzel’s idea of ''Raum'' (space) would grow out of his organic state conception. This early concept of ''lebensraum'' was not political or economic, but spiritual and racial [[nationalism|nationalist]] expansion. The ''Raum-motiv'' is a historically driving force, pushing peoples with great ''Kultur'' to naturally expand. Space, for Ratzel, was a vague concept, theoretically unbounded just as was [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]’s. ''Raum'' was defined by where [[German people|German]] peoples live, where other weaker states could serve to support German peoples economically, and where [[German culture]] could fertilize other cultures. However, it ought to be noted that Ratzel's concept of ''raum'' was not overtly aggressive, but theorized simply as the natural expansion of strong states into areas controlled by weaker states.
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| − | ==Influence==
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| − | [[Rudolf Kjellén]] was Ratzel’s [[Sweden|Swedish]] student who would further elaborate on [[organic state theory]] and who coined the term “geopolitics”.
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| − | German geostrategist [[General Karl Haushofer]] was exposed to Ratzel, who was friends with Haushofer’s father, and would integrate Ratzel’s ideas on the division between sea and land powers into his theories, saying that only a country with both could overcome this conflict. Haushofer also adopts the view that borders are largely insignificant in his writings, especially as the nation ought to be in a frequent state of struggle with those around it. Further, Haushofer would adopt Ratzel's conception of ''Raum'' as the central program for German ''geopolitik''.
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| − | ==Quotes==
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| − | "A philosophy of the history of the human race, worthy of its name, must begin with the heavens and descend to the earth, must be charged with the conviction that all existence is one—a single conception sustained from beginning to end upon one identical law."
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| − | ==Further reading==
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| − | *Dorpalen, Andreas. ''The World of General Haushofer.'' Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., New York: 1984.
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| − | *Martin, Geoffrey J. and Preston E. James. ''All Possible Worlds.'' New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc: 1993.
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| − | *Mattern, Johannes. ''Geopolitik: Doctrine of National Self-Sufficiency and Empire.'' The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore: 1942.
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| − | *Wanklyn, Harriet. ''Friedrich Ratzel, a Biographical Memoir and Bibliography.'' Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 1961.
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| | {{Credit1|Friedrich_Ratzel|55768794|}} | | {{Credit1|Friedrich_Ratzel|55768794|}} |
