ABSTRACT
Political idea means more than just the state-idea. It means any political idea. Both political scientists and geographers have studied the phenomena at the other end of the chain—political areas. The one common characteristic of all political areas is that they have recognized limits, though not necessarily linear or permanent. Every political decision involves movement in one way or another. These politically-induced movements may be thought of as "circulation fields." In the case of prohibition, the existence of the political area of the United States gave general shape to the major fields produced by the Volstead Act, for obvious reasons. A political area in being is a condition of political ideas, decisions, and movements. The unified field theory fits boundary studies into the general pattern of political geography. The theory is "geographical" in that it makes mappable the results of ideas and decisions that are themselves not mappable. The unified field theory may have utility outside academic circles.
