Ratzel, the French School and the birth of Alternative Geopolitics

Modern French political geography began as a response to Ratzelʹs Politische Geographie and then became an attempt to place ratzelian ideas into the context of French geographical thought. What then emerged was a political geography which was set firmly in opposition to German geopolitics. There were some geographers who felt that a more effective response could be made by developing an indigenous French geopolitics. This can be seen as being the origin of the alternative geopolitics which was favoured by some American geographers during and after World War II and which subsequently became an important underlying theme in the new geopolitics which arose in the 1970s. The concept of an alternative geopolitics has owed a great deal to the French school of geography and has it roots in the original response of Vidal de la Blache to Ratzel.