Friedrich Ratzel

Life

• 1844: Born in Karlsruhe, Germany.
• 1860s: Serves in the Prussian Army and later studies geology and zoology.
• 1868: Receives his doctorate and begins traveling as a journalist, reporting from Italy, the United States, and Mexico.
• 1875: Becomes a professor of geography at the Technical University of Munich.
• 1886: Appointed professor of geography at the University of Leipzig.
• 1904: Dies in Ammerland, Germany.

People Who Influenced Their Thought

• Charles Darwin: Profoundly influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution, which Ratzel applied to human societies and states.
• Ernst Haeckel: The German zoologist and proponent of ecology; Ratzel was influenced by his organicist view of nature.
• Alexander von Humboldt: Inspired by his holistic approach to geography, integrating physical and human elements.
• Karl Ritter: Influenced by Ritter's comparative methodology and emphasis on the relationship between humans and their environment.

Main Ideas and Publications

• Anthropogeographie (Anthropogeography, 1882-1891): His seminal work outlining the influence of the physical environment on human societies and the distribution of populations.
• Politische Geographie (Political Geography, 1897): Introduced the concept of the state as a biological organism that must grow or die, a key foundation for Geopolitik.
• Lebensraum (Living Space): The concept that states are biologically determined organisms that naturally seek to expand their territory to nourish their growing populations.
• Organic State Theory: The idea that a state is akin to a living organism that is tied to the land (the Raum) and goes through stages of youth, maturity, and old age.
• Laws of Spatial Growth: Proposed that the growth of states follows deterministic laws, often expanding from a core area into new territories.

Controversies around his main work or thought

• Scientific Determinism: His strong emphasis on environmental determinism was heavily criticized for oversimplifying the complex forces that shape human societies and for being scientifically reductive.
• Foundation for Geopolitik and Nazism: Although Ratzel himself was not a virulent racist, his concepts of Lebensraum and the organic state were later adopted, distorted, and radicalized by the German Geopolitik school (e.g., Karl Haushofer) and used by the Nazi regime to justify territorial expansion and imperialism in Eastern Europe.
• Legacy of Colonialism: His theories provided a scientific-sounding justification for the colonial projects of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, framing the subjugation of other peoples as a "natural" biological process.

Key People Influenced by Their Thought

• Ellen Churchill Semple: An American geographer who was a major proponent of Ratzel's environmental determinism in the English-speaking world.
• Rudolf Kjellén: The Swedish political scientist who coined the term "geopolitics" and directly built upon Ratzel's Organic State Theory.
• Karl Haushofer: The German geographer whose ideas of Geopolitik were heavily based on Ratzel's work and later influenced Nazi strategic thinking.
• Halford Mackinder: The British geographer engaged with and reacted against Ratzel's ideas in developing his own Heartland Theory.

Legacy

He is considered a founding father of human and political geography, whose ambitious but flawed theories of environmental determinism and the organic state left a deeply influential and controversial legacy, inadvertently providing a pseudo-scientific rationale for 20th-century imperialism and expansionist aggression.