ABSTRACT
Research conducted in the history of both geography and geopolitics has stressed the importance of re-situating key texts within their original context. Political geographers have demonstrated an interest in exploring Mackinder's thought, in its historical setting. 1 More recently, Geoffrey Sloan has shown a way forward in analysing each of the 1904, 1919 and 1943 versions of Mackinder's heartland theory, ‘in the context of the unique periods of their formulation’. 2 This chapter examines the diplomatic and strategic context of the period when the ‘Geographical Pivot of History’ was written, presented, and published.
