Some characters and comics that drove Halford Mackinder’s century.
Collage by Bloomberg Opinion.
, Columnist
The Man Who Predicted Today’s World Over a Century Ago
British geographer and diplomat Halford Mackinder foresaw the epic Eurasian conflicts that would ravage the 20th century — and that will challenge the democratic world in the 21st.
This essay is adapted from Hal Brands’ new book, The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern World.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist,” John Maynard Keynes once wrote. “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”