Influences of Geographic Environment, on the Basis of System (Classic Reprint)

Friedrich Ratzel sA nthropo-G eographie. The German work is difficult reading even for Germans. To mostE nglish and American students of geographic environment it is a closed book, a treasure-house bolted and barred. Ratzel himself realized that any English form could not be a literal translation, but must be adapted to the A nglo-C eltic and especially to the A nglo-A merican mind. The writer undertook, with Ratzel sapproval, to make such an adapted restatement of the principles, with a view to making them pass current where they are now unknown. But the initial stages of the work revealed the necessity of a radical modification of the original plan. Ratzel performed the great service of placing anthropogeography on a secure scientific basis. He had his forerunners in Montesquieu, Alexander von Humboldt, Buckle, Ritter, Kohl, Peschel and others; but he first investigated the subject from the modern scientific point of view, constructed his system according to the principles of evolution, and based his conclusions on world-wide inductions, for which his predecessors did not command the data. To this task he brought thorough training as a naturalist, broad reading and travel, a profound and original intellect, and amazing fertility of thought. Yet the field which he had chosen was so vast, and its material so complex, that even his big mental grasp could not wholly compass it. His conclusions, therefore, are not always exhaustive or final. Moreover, the very fecundity of his ideas often left him no time to test the validity of his principles. He enunciates one brilliant generalization after another.
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