Checkerboards and Shatterbelts: The Geopolitics of South America - Softcover

Kelly, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0292743289 ISBN 13: 9780292743281

Publisher: University of Texas Press, 1997

Synopsis

Geography has always played a major role in world politics. In this study, Philip Kelly maps the geopolitics of South America, a continent where relative isolation from the power centers in North America and Eurasia and often forbidding internal terrain have given rise to a fascinating and unique geopolitical structure.

Kelly uses the geographical concepts of "checkerboards" and "shatterbelts" to characterize much of South America's geopolitics and to explain why the continent has never been unified nor dominated by a single nation. This approach accounts for both historical relationships among South American countries and for such current situations as Brazil's inability to extend its authority across the continent from Atlantic to Pacific, its traditional competition with Argentina, its territorial expansion toward the continental heartlands, its encirclement by neighbors fearful of such expansion, and its recent rapprochement with Argentina.

An important component of this book is the incorporation of the thinking and writing of South American geopolitical analysts, which leads to an interesting inventory of viewpoints on frontier conflicts, territorial expansion, industrial development, economic cooperation, and United States and European relations. Kelly's findings will be important reading for geographers, political scientists, and students and scholars of Latin American history.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Kelly uses the geographical concepts of 'checkerboards' and 'shatterbelts' to characterize much of South America's geopolitics and to explain why the continent has never been unified nor dominated by a single nation.Kelly's findings will be important reading for geographers, political scientists, and students and scholars of Latin American history.

About the Author

Philip L. Kelly is Chair of the Division of Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0292743289
• ISBN 13: 9780292743281
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 252