POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

The origins of politica geography lie in the origins of human geography itself and the early practitioners were concerned mainly with the military and political consequences of the relationships between physical geography , states territories and state power.In particular there was a close association with regional geography,with its focus on the unique characteristics of regions and enviromental determinism with its emphasis on the influence of the physical enviroment on human activities.

The British geographer Halford Mackinder was also heavily influenced by environmental determinism and in developing his concept of the 'geopolitical pivot of history' or heartland (first developed in 1904) he argued that the era of sea power was coming to an end and that lands best powers were in the ascendent and in particularthat whoever controlled the heartland of 'Euro-Asia' would control the world.This perspective proved influentiol throughout the cold war underpinning military thinking about the creation of buffer states between East & West in central Europe.