Monday, August 31st
today students will practice map-reading skills
Bellringer
How and why has American farm size changed in recent years?
Mental Maps
Draw a map of the world from memory
From Mackinder’s Heartland Theory and images
What is Mackinder’s Heartland theory? To what extent do you agree with
it?
How would Mackinder’s theory have influenced strategy during WWI and
WWII?
What role did Mackinder have in reshaping the world after WWI?
How would Spykman’s rimland theory have influenced strategy during the
Cold War?
How might Mackinder’s theory have affected American foreign policy in
recent years?
What is the opinion of the creator of the “Russia wants War” satirical
image?
Contrast the images under SSSR (USSR) and USA. What point is being
made?
From Human Geography textbook
Who was John Snow and how did figure 1.5 change the understanding of
cholera? (Page 10)
Why did cholera spread throughout Haiti in 2010 (page 10 and 11)
List and define the 5 themes of geography (page 11 and 12)
What similarities and differences exist between the living preferences of
Pennsylvanian and Californian students? (Page 12 and 13)
Why do geographers use maps, and what do maps tell us? (Page 15)
Closing Bellwork
Contrast Mackinder’s Heartland theory with Spykman’s Rimland theory
Mackinder's Heartland Theory
In 1904, British geographer Sir Halford John Mackinder submitted an
article to the Royal Geographical Society titled 'The Geographical Pivot
of History', in which he formulated the 'Heartland Theory', which he
himself later boiled down to this:
"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island controls the world."
~ Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 194
Mackinder's Heartland (also known as the Pivot Area) is the core area of Eurasia, and the World-Island
is all of Eurasia (both Europe and Asia).
Mackinder was directly involved in redrawing the map of Eastern Europe as we know it
today. Participating in the Paris Peace Conference at the end of WW1 on behalf of the British
Foreign Office, he directly oversaw the break-up of the four losing Eurasian empires
(German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian) into arbitrary statelets "in order to
close the gates of the Eurasian heartland to Britain's enemies and maintain an
international status quo favourable to the interests of the Anglo-Saxon nations."