Why review a biography of Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904)? He is the founder of anthropogeography, which he considered “an introduction to the application of geography to history,” and the father of political geography. Although less-known than Humbolt, Ratzel toured North and Central America. In 1878 he published a book of interest about Mexico. In my own study of Bolivian historiography and the development of modern Bolivian revolutionary thought I discovered that Ratzel had a heavy influence on Bolivian thinkers, including historians. The Ratzel influence in Latin America is great and remains a valid topic of study.
Ratzel, in his early youth a newspaper reporter and then a distinguished professor, wrote 27 large books and more than 300 articles. The Wanklyn booklet is not a definitive biography; the Steinmetzler book of 1956 (Bonn) comes closer to this goal. But this newest bio-bibliographic book is a valuable study. It gives in a few pages the basic data; it explains Ratzel and Ratzelian concepts; it gives the whole (with minor exceptions—Ratzel was an enthusiastic writer of scholarly necrologies) Ratzel bibliography. It fails to outline the influence of Ratzel on non-European thought, especially on the scholars of the emerging underdeveloped, countries who had been one of the favorite topics of his writing and research. On the whole, however, this is a welcome summary.
