When Brian Berry served notice in 1969 that political geography had become a ‘moribund backwater’, he expressed succinctly what many sensed but none would say in public. There is no single explanation for the demise of political geography, but central to the whole experience was the simple fact that political geography ceased to be political. The old political geography was a product of specific political and social conditions; its primary concern with national boundaries was not an abstract interest, but the direct outgrowth of empire building and imperial conquest. In the latter part of the 19th century, the acquisition of colonial territories and the setting of expansive colonial boundaries was one of the primary goals of competing national powers in Europe and elsewhere. In the 20th century, the focus turned toward imperial expansion of the advanced nation-states themselves, and this led, albeit under different circumstances, to two world wars, and a number of smaller skirmishes. With questions of national boundaries at the forefront of international politics, it is hardly surprising that political geography prospered. It offered itself as the study of national boundaries; political geographers examined the ingredients of stable boundaries and the many social, cultural, economic and political forces that could result in instability, and in this way produced a body of knowledge with a direct political affiliation. It is impossible to date precisely the beginnings of demise for political geography, but the process was certainly well under way in the years following World War II. It is not that economic expansion ceased in this period, quite the contrary. Rather, with the onset of decolonization and the rapid internationalization of capital, the expansion of national economies was no longer accomplished through directly political-that is, territorial-means. Insofar as it did not change, the old political geography was left addressing the questions of a bygone age. The old political geography had been political in the full sense. The politics of territorial expansion were the politics of nationalism and, in the case of colonial expansion, racism. Thus, again, it should not be surprising, if political geography owed its prominence to the importance of territorial expansion, that the most prominent political geographers should be such ardent nationalists as Sir Halford Mackinder and Karl Haushofer. Political