The Geographical Pivot of

History Author(s): H. J.
Mackinder
Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Apr., 1904), pp. 421-437
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the
Institute of British Geographers)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1775498
Accessed: 14/10/2011 01:52
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The

Geographical ]ournal.
No. 4.

APRIL, 1904.

THE GE0iRAPHICAL PIYOT OF IIIS1'0RY.*

By B.J. MACKINDER, bI.A., Reader in Geography in the University of
Oxford ; Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Wires historians in the remot8 futur8 com8 to look back on the

group of centuri8a through which w8 ar8 now paaaing, and aae
them form- shortened, aa w8 to-day ace the Egyptian dynasties, it
may e1I be that they will deacriba tba laat 400 yeara aa th8

Colombian 8poch, and will aay that it ended aoon after the y8ar 1900.
Of late it haa been a common- place to speak of geographical
exploration aa n8arly over, and it ia recog- nized that geography must
be diverted to the purpoaa of intenaiva aur vay and philosophic
aynthaais. Tn 400 yaara the outline of the map of th8 world haa

laen completed with approaimata accuracy, and aveu in the polar

regions the voyagaa of Nanaan and Scott have very narrowly reduced
the last poaaibility of di'amatiC di8cov8rie8. But th8 opening of the
twentieth century ia appropriata aa the end of a great historic
epoch, not merely on account of this acli iav8ment, great though it
be. Th8 missionary, th8 conqueror, the farmar, th8 minor, and, of

late, tha engineer, have followed ao closely in the trava11era

footatapa that the world, in ita remoter bordara, has hardly been
revealed before we muat chronicle ita virtually complata political
appropriation. Tn Europa, North America, South America, Africa,
and A ustralaaia there is acarcaly a region 18ft for tba pegging out
of a claim of ownership, iinlaaa as the result of a war ba twean
civilized or half-civilized ;owei . Ewan in A8ia wa are probably
witnessing the last moves of th8 game 6rat played by the hors8m8n of
Yermak the GO88ack and the ahipmen of Vaaco da Gama. Broadly

speaking, we may contract the Golumbian 8poch

which preceded it, by deaci'ibing ita essential

with

the ago

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