Ratzel contre la géopolitique ? Référence allemande et géographie politique dans la géographie française de l'entre-deux-guerres

Abstract

Abstract. The study of the receptions, uses and transformations of the figure of Friedrich Ratzel in the French geography of the inter-war period considers here the double heritage of Ratzel and Vidal de la Blache, the consequences of the Great War on international relations and the emergence of new schools of thought, in particular of Geopolitik. Between admiration, criticism and attempts to go beyond his ideas, even to use them against his German heirs, some geographers persist in thinking with (sometimes against) him, throughout the crises and world wars that give him a persistent image of relevance. On the one hand a precursor and eminent scholar, on the other hand a «bad teacher» of geopolitics for the Wilhelmian and then Nazi regime making him responsible for its excesses and territorial ambitions, his theories were then used to understand the troubled evolution of the world until 1945.

Friedrich Ratzel, géographie et sciences sociales en France (1890–1918) – Centralité et distanciations

“…Ce fut le cas dans l'Année sociologique en 1910 et en 1913 et dans les Annales de géographie où sont intervenus le jeune Hückel (1906) et son aîné Gallois (1918) -sans parler des publications d'immédiat après-guerre, notamment La Terre et l'évolution de l'humanité, où l'historien Lucien Febvre (1922) a construit le dualisme opposant le « déterministe » Ratzel au « possibiliste » Vidal de la Blache 2 (cf. Ginsburger, 2023).…”

History and philosophy of geography I: Heterodox progress, critical scepticism and intellectual voluminosity

“…2 While the first analyses Ratzel’s concepts of geography in the scientific context of the 19th century, the later focuses on Ratzel institutional reception in various linguistic contexts. This results in examination of the re-elaboration of Ratzel’s biogeography in Italian academia in 1880–1920 (Proto, 2022), of his political geography in 1930s Italy (Bassoni, 2022), of his anthropogeography through Semple’s American reception (Klinke, 2022) and his receptions, uses and transformations in the French geography of the inter-war period (Ginsburger, 2023), or even the relevance of Ratzel’s Lebensraumtheorie for the National Socialist policy in Germany (Jureit, 2023).…”