Halford Mackinderʹs “new” political geography and the geographical tradition

This article re-examines Halford Mackinderʹs conception of geography in general and his practise as a political geographer in particular by placing his work in the context of the history of geography. The nature and politicisation of early modern (c.1600–1850) geography are depicted, and used as a contextual standard against which to assess Mackinderʹs claims to have propounded a “new” geography and a “new” form of political geography. Mackinderʹs conception of geography is found to have been a substantial departure from the early modern one, in terms of its definition of geography, its textual format and its placing of geography in a broader educative structure. By contrast, Mackinderʹs political geography is shown to effect a far less radical break, for whilst Mackinderʹs rhetoric suggests that geography will drive his political analysis, it is in fact his pre-existent politics as a tariff-reforming conservative which drove his political geography. To the extent that geography acted as a container for politics, Mackinder was still in the tradition of the early modern period, although he did change the form of that argument.