ABSTRACT
The ideas of a geographical pivot and a heartland located in Eurasia around which international politics and geopolitical strategizing were spatially centered were proposed by Mackinder in 1904 and 1919, respectively. The chapter provides a spatially informed chronology of the main contributing theoretical and empirical notions of a Eurasian pivot and heartland. This provides a foundation for understanding how these concepts have informed discussions of what and where a Eurasian heartland might be, their meaning for people and places of Eurasia, and the extractive energy resources amidst transforming socioeconomic and biophysical worlds. The area of the Eurasian pivot, as envisioned by Halford Mackinder encompassing watersheds that began in the central Asian steppe, flowed laterally and northward across the Eurasian continent and drained to the Arctic. The chapter discusses three important contextual concerns for understanding why the location, functions and potential of the heartland have continued to evolve: socioeconomic development, resource mobilization, and ethnic homelands.
