The Geographical Axis of History

Sir Halford John Mackinder - an English geographer, lecturer at the University of Oxford, member of the House of Commons of the British Parliament, one of the founders of geopolitics as a science. In his main work, The Geographical Axis of History, Mackinder introduced the concept of the Heartland, designating the central part of Eurasia around which the inner arc of Europe – Arabia - Indochina and the peripheral arc of America – Africa - Oceania are located. Who controls the Heartland, controls the world, wrote Mackinder. But what territory serves as a counterbalance to the Heartland? This is the Rimland – the states that own the coastal strip surrounding the Heartland and opposing it. Their unresolved contradictions generated and continue to generate the geopolitical problems that we observe today.