PREFACE
This book, whatever its value, is the outcome of more than the merely feverous thought of War time; the ideas upon which it is based were published in outline a good dozen years ago. In 1904, in a paper on 'The Geographical Pivot of History,' read before the Royal Geographical Society, I sketched the World-Island and the Heartland; and in 1905 I wrote in the National Review on the subject of 'Man-power as a Measure of National and Imperial Strength,' an article which I believe first gave vogue to the term Man-power. In that term is implicit not only the idea of fighting strength but also that of productivity, rather than wealth, as the focus of economic reasoning. If I now venture to write on these themes at somewhat greater length, it is because I feel that the War has established, and not shaken, my former points of view.
1st February 1919.
