ABSTRACT
This chapter focusses on the rhetorical dimension of Jean Bodin's climate theory, and reviews an 'epistemological' bias in the history of geography: namely, Hippocrates' superiority over Aristotle, or science's debunking of rhetoric and ideology. The idea of geographical 'ana chor ism', a play on its historical counterpart, the better-known 'ana chor ism', demonstrates how a writer can use climate rhetorically, as a creative and self-reflexive idiom, aware of its erroneous yet strategic representation of space. After introducing some key structural features of climate theory, the chapter discusses how the philosopher's recourse to it evolves alongside the turbulent Wars of Religion in the Methodus, the Six livres de la République and the Theatrum. The absence of a systematic environmental determinism speaks to the true complexity of climate theory: the all-encompassing idea of God leads Bodin towards a seemingly more scientific but deeply metaphorical approach to geographical knowledge.
