Influences of Geographic Environment: On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-GeographySemple, Ellen Churchill
History
Influences of Geographic Environment: On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography
Semple, Ellen Churchill
Human beings -- Effect of environment on; Human geography
If the distribution of the several races be examined in the light of
this conclusion, it becomes apparent that the races who have succeeded
in appropriating only limited portions of the earth's surface, though
each may be a marked variant of the human family, are characterized by
few inner diversities, either of physical features or culture. Their
subdivisions feel only in a slight degree the differentiating effects of
geographic remoteness, which in a small area operates with weakened
force; and they enjoy few of those diversities of environment which
stimulate variation. They form close and distinct ethnic unities also
because their scant numbers restrict the appearance of variations. The
habitat of the negro race in Africa south of the Sahara, relatively
small, limited in its zonal location almost wholly to the Tropics,
poorly diversified both in relief and contour, has produced only a
retarded and monotonous social development based upon tropical
agriculture or a low type of pastoral life. The still smaller, still
less varied habitat of the Australian race, again tropical or
sub-tropical in location, has produced over its whole extent only one
grade of civilization and that the lowest, one physical, mental and
moral type.[301]
[Sidenote: Wide race distribution and inner diversities.]
The Mongoloid area of distribution, on the other hand, is so large that
it necessarily includes a great range of climates and variety of
geographic conditions. [Maps pages 103 and 225.] Representatives of this
race, reflecting their diversified habitats, show many ethnic
differentiations. They reveal also every stage and phase of cultural
development from the industrialism of Japan, with its artistic and
literary concomitants, to the savage economy and retarded intellectual
life of the Chukches fisher tribes or the Giljak hunters of Sakhalin.
The white race, identified primarily with Europe, that choice and
diversified continent, comprised also a large area of southwestern Asia
and the northern third of Africa. It thus extended from the Arctic
Circle well within the Tropics. Its area included every variety of
geographic condition and originally every degree of cultural
development; but the rapid expansion in recent centuries of the most
advanced peoples of this race has made them the apostles of civilization
to the whole world. It has also given them, through the occupation of
Australia and the Americas, the widest distribution and the most varied
habitats. As agents of the modern historical movement, however, they are
subjected to all its assimilating effects, which tend to counteract the
diversities born of geographic segregation, and to raise all branches of
the white race to one superior cosmopolitan type. On the other hand, the
vast international division of labor and specialization of production,
geographically based and entailed by advancing economic development,
besides the differences of traditions and ideals reaching far back into
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account