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In the later parts of the 19th century, Friedrich Ratzel dominated the scene of German geography. Being a contemporary of Darwin, he was influenced by Darwin's Theory of Evolution of Species. Before Ratzel, the foundation of systematic geography was laid down by Alexander von Humboldt and that of regional geography by Carl Ritter. Peschel and Richthofen laid down the guidelines of the systematic study of the earth's features. It was Ratzel, who compared the mode of life of the different tribes and nations, and thus made a systematic study of human geography. His interest in tribes races and nations was keen and after doing adequate fieldwork he coined the term 'Anthropogeography' - describing it as the major field of geographical study.

Ratzel, a scholar of versatile academic interests was a staunch German. It was because of his patriotism that at the occurrence of Franco-Prussian War in 1870, he joined the Prussia army and was wounded twice during the war. After the unification of Germany (1871) he devoted himself to the study of the modes of life of the Germans living outside Germany.

At the completion of his field study in U.S.A. and Mexico, he returned to Germany in 1875 and was appointed as the Professor of Geography in 1876 at the University of Leipzig. In 1878 he published a book on North America. The book for which Ratzel is acknowledged the entire world over Anthropogeographie was completed between 1872-1899. The main focus of this monumental work is on - the effects of different physical features and locations on the style of life of the people. This environment-dominated-man response approach was reserved in his second volume. This second approach was influenced by the chorological approach.

Ratzel's deterministic approach became very popular outside Germany, especially in France, England and the United States. Miss Allen Churchill Semple was one of his students and a staunch supporter of his environmental superiority philosophy.

He applied Darwin's concept to human societies. This analogy suggested that groups of human being must struggle to survive in particular environments as much as plant and animal organisms must do. This is known as 'Social Darwinism'. Thus Ratzel's basic philosophy was also survival of the fittest in a physical environment. In 1897 Ratzel wrote 'Political Geography' in which he compared 'state' to an organism. He emphasized that a state, like some simple organism, must either grow or die and can never stand still. It was this philosophy of 'living space' which created the controversy of superior and inferior races, which advocates that the superior people (nations) have a right to expand their territory (kingdom)'living space' at the expense of inferior neighbors. He was a protagonist saying when a state extends its frontiers at the expense of a weak state this is a reflection of internal strength. The superior nations thus by ruling over the inferior peoples fulfill a natural organic necessity. It was Ratzel's philosophy which governed the German policy in 1930 and resulted into the Second World War.

It was Ratzel who tried to build a 'fundamental unity in diversity.' The controversy of dichotomy of the Physical Vs. Human geography was started during Ratzel time. There were scholars like George Gerald, who emphasized that geography is the study of earth-body as a whole without reference to man. Gerald was of the opinion that exact laws can be made only if man is excluded from geography, because the behavior of man is highly unpredictable. This radical approach of declaring physical geography as the sphere of geography was mooted by Ratzel who explained that man is an important ingredient of the discipline of geography. He stressed the principle of unity in diversity, stating that in diverse physical conditions, man is adjusting himself, and therefore, in order to have a complete view of the geographical horizon of the earth we have to synthesize the diverse physical and cultural phenomena.

To summarize, we believe that Ratzel's Anthropogeographic was a seminal work and the amount of intellectual debate it created on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean makes it exemplar. Ratzel's view about geography dominated for decades - a tribute to his ability as a teacher and scholar.

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