Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and tables
- Notes on contributors
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: changing images of Germany
- 2 Power as a German problem: a historical survey
- 3 The liberal internationalist self and the construction of an undemocratic German other at the beginning of the twentieth century
- 4 From emulation to enmity: the changing view of Germany in Anglo- American geopolitics
- 5 Federalism versus sovereignty: the Weimar Republic in the eyes of American political science
- 6 Germany’s fight against Versailles and the rise of American realism: Edwin Borchard between New Haven and Berlin
- 7 The tale of the ‘two Germanies’: twentieth- century Germany in the debates of Anglo- American international lawyers and transitional justice experts
- 8 The silent presence: Germany in American post- war International Relations
- 9 Deutschtum and Americanism: memory and identity in Cold War America
- 10 ‘Civilian power’ seen from abroad: the external image of Germany’s foreign policy
- 11 Conclusion: International Relations theory and Germany
- Select bibliography
- Index
4 - From emulation to enmity: the changing view of Germany in Anglo- American geopolitics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 December 2025
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures and tables
- Notes on contributors
- Foreword
- 1 Introduction: changing images of Germany
- 2 Power as a German problem: a historical survey
- 3 The liberal internationalist self and the construction of an undemocratic German other at the beginning of the twentieth century
- 4 From emulation to enmity: the changing view of Germany in Anglo- American geopolitics
- 5 Federalism versus sovereignty: the Weimar Republic in the eyes of American political science
- 6 Germany’s fight against Versailles and the rise of American realism: Edwin Borchard between New Haven and Berlin
- 7 The tale of the ‘two Germanies’: twentieth- century Germany in the debates of Anglo- American international lawyers and transitional justice experts
- 8 The silent presence: Germany in American post- war International Relations
- 9 Deutschtum and Americanism: memory and identity in Cold War America
- 10 ‘Civilian power’ seen from abroad: the external image of Germany’s foreign policy
- 11 Conclusion: International Relations theory and Germany
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter traces changing geopolitical views of Germany and their academic and political influence. The geopolitician Halford J. Mackinder remained impressed with Germany’s advances in geography and spatial literacy, while increasingly seeing that superior knowledge as part of the threat posed by an insurgent Wilhelmine Empire. By the 1940s, though, German geography, through the popular image of Karl Haushofer, had been re-interpreted as a pathological throwback. Anglo-American geopolitics that would greatly influence the post-1945 construction of a new global order relied heavily on both positive and negative images of Germany. In this sense, the vision of Germany and its geopolitics was the foil against which the post-war settlement was framed.
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- Prussians, Nazis and PeaceniksChanging images of Germany in International Relations, pp. 64 - 81Publisher: Manchester University PressFirst published in: 2025
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