Compare And Contrast Wittfogel And Kaplan

Robert Kaplan and Karl Wittfogel both appropriated history and geography to their own similar contemporary political ends. Both authors primarily aim is to provide intelectual cover for American empire. Wittfogel and Kaplan both see geography as the primary former of human culture, political economy, and conflict. Kenneth Pomeranz provides one refute to the essentialists’ reading of geography in advancing an argument of divergence which includes topography and climate as two of many variables in an exceptionally complex historical equation. While Pomeranz does adequately refute the geographic essentialism of Wittfogel and Kaplan he does fall prey to a sort of economic universalism in his comparison of China and England. Wittfogel and Kaplan both argue for the superiority of American empire, though in slightly different ways. Wittfogel seeks to explain the alleged “Oriental despotism” (giving the work its title) and its supposed origins in hydrology. Kaplan, on …show more content…
John Morrissey, Professor of Geography at the National University of Ireland draws comparison between the geographic essentialism of Kaplan and his colleagues in Strategic Studies, and the german geographer of the Third Reich Karl Hushoter. While the comparison to the Reich is clearly rhetorical flourish Morrissey’s criticism is not unfounded. Another academic geographer, Simon Daly, concluded the Kaplan’s brand of geographic determinism (and subsequent advocacy for United States’ control of his so-called shatter points) amounts to little more than a rebranding of Kaplan’s