Friedrich Ratzel | |
|---|---|
 Friedrich Ratzel | |
| Born | (1844-08-30)August 30, 1844 |
| Died | August 9, 1904(1904-08-09) (aged 59) |
| Nationality | German |
| Education | University of Heidelberg University of Jena Humboldt University of Berlin |
| Known for | Concept oflebensraum |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Geography Ethnography |
| Institutions | Leipzig University |
Friedrich Ratzel (August 30, 1844 – August 9, 1904) was a Germangeographer andethnographer, notable for first using the termLebensraum ("living space") in the sense that theNational Socialists later would.
Ratzel's father was the head of the household staff of theGrand Duke of Baden. Friedrich attended high school in Karlsruhe for six years before being apprenticed at age 15 toapothecaries. In 1863, he went toRapperswil on theLake of Zurich,Switzerland, where he began to study theclassics. After a further year as an apothecary atMoers nearKrefeld in theLower Rhine region (1865–1866), he spent a short time at the high school in Karlsruhe and became a student ofzoology at the universities ofHeidelberg,Jena andBerlin, finishing in 1868. He studied zoology in 1869, publishingSein und Werden der organischen Welt onDarwin.
After the completion of his schooling Ratzel began a period of travels that saw him transform from zoologist/biologist to geographer. He began field work in theMediterranean, writing letters of his experiences. These letters led to a job as a traveling reporter for theKölnische Zeitung ("Cologne Journal"), which provided him the means for further travel. Ratzel embarked on several expeditions, the lengthiest and most important being his 1874-1875 trip toNorth America,Cuba, andMexico. This trip was a turning point in Ratzel's career. He studied the influence of people of German origin inAmerica, especially in theMidwest, as well as other ethnic groups in North America.
He produced a written account of his travels in 1876,Städte-und Kulturbilder aus Nordamerika (Profile of Cities and Cultures in North America), which would help establish the field ofcultural geography. According to Ratzel, cities are the best place to study people because life is "blended, compressed, and accelerated" in cities, and they bring out the "greatest, best, most typical aspects of people". Ratzel had traveled to cities such asNew York,Boston,Philadelphia,Washington,Richmond,Charleston,New Orleans, andSan Francisco.
Upon his return in 1875, Ratzel became a lecturer in geography at the Technical High School inMunich. In 1876, he was promoted to assistant professor, then rose to full professor in 1880. While at Munich, Ratzel produced several books and established his career as an academic. In 1886, he accepted an appointment atLeipzig University. His lectures were widely attended, notably by the influential American geographerEllen Churchill Semple as well asMartha Krug-Genthe, the first woman to obtain a doctorate in geography.[1]
Ratzel produced the foundations ofhuman geography in his two-volumeAnthropogeographie in 1882 and 1891. This work was misinterpreted by many of his students, creating a number ofenvironmental determinists. He published his work onpolitical geography,Politische Geographie, in 1897. It was in this work that Ratzel introduced concepts that contributed toLebensraum andSocial Darwinism. His three volume workThe History of Mankind[2] was published in English in 1896 and contained over 1100 excellent engravings and remarkablechromolithography.
Ratzel continued his work at Leipzig until his sudden death on August 9, 1904, in Ammerland,Lake Starnberg, Germany.Ratzel, a scholar of versatile academic interest, was a staunch German. During the outbreak of Franco-Prussian war in 1870, he joined the Prussian army and was wounded twice during the war.
Influenced by thinkers including Darwin andzoologistErnst Heinrich Haeckel, he published several papers. Among them is the essayLebensraum (1901) concerningbiogeography, creating a foundation for the uniquely German variant ofgeopolitics:Geopolitik.
Ratzel's writings coincided with the growth ofGerman industrialism after theFranco-Prussian war and the subsequent search formarkets that brought it into competition withBritain. His writings served as welcome justification forimperial expansion. Influenced by theAmericangeostrategistAlfred Thayer Mahan, Ratzel wrote of aspirations for German naval reach, agreeing thatsea power was self-sustaining, as the profit fromtrade would pay for themerchant marine, unlikeland power.
Ratzel's idea ofRaum (space) would grow out of his organic state conception. His early concept oflebensraum was not political or economic but spiritual and racialnationalist expansion. TheRaum-motiv is a historically-driving force, pushing peoples with greatKultur to naturally expand. Space, for Ratzel, was a vague concept, theoretically unbounded.Raum was defined as whereGerman peoples live, and other weaker states could serve to support German peoples economically, andGerman culture could fertilize other cultures. However, it ought to be noted that Ratzel's concept ofraum was not overtly aggressive, but he theorized simply as the natural expansion of strong states into areas controlled by weaker states.
The book for which Ratzel is acknowledged all over the world isAnthropogeographie. It was completed between 1872 and 1899. The main focus of this monumental work is on the effects of different physical features and locations on the style and life of the people.
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Here are his other notable writings:
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