Oliver KRAUSE, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig, Germany
H. J. Mackinder's heartland concept is considered a fixed point in the theory of political geography. Up to the present day, the three versions (1904, 1919, 1943) have experienced reinterpretation concerning a wide range of political settings, instrumentalised for propaganda purposes or seen as a dystopian prediction of future global conflicts. The reception of the heartland concept in the United States during the World War II was not primarily motivated by the interest in Mackinder's ideas, but by interest in the myth that Nazi expansionist policies were inspired and scientifically prepared by Karl Haushofer's geopolitical ideas and the work of an Institute for Geopolitics in Munich. American journalists determined Mackinder's heartland concept as the inspiration of Haushofer’s ideas and Nazi-Germany’s expansion. Through Mackinder's reception in Haushofer's presentation, but also that of numerous European emigrants, complexity-reduced versions of the Heartland theory emerged, which received attention both at the academic level and in the discussions of political bodies in the United States (Senate, House, Committee on Foreign relations).
The continued presence of the Heartland theory has been conditioned by the theory's transformation into a metaphor, in which Mackinder's complex theory is referred to an abstract naming of factors, in which the original attachment to the author and the region defined by Mackinder is dissolved, allowing the theory to be applied to almost any region on earth. The possibility of reviving the now under-complex theory in the US was achieved through the metaphorization of the heartland concept and its popularisation by the manifestation of the term as a designation for the Midwest of the USA, as title of a periodical and a music style. The (Dis)continuities in the recourse to heartland theory in the US are only possible as the heartland metaphor with its theoretical implications is deeply rooted in American political consciousness.
Mots clés : Heartland concept|Geopolitics|popularization|metaphorization|knowledge transfer
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