What is Geopolitics and Why Does It Matter?

February 25, 2015
Stan and Arlene Ginsburg Family Foundation Lecture Series
Ronald J. Granieri
Executive Director, FPRI Center for the Study of America and the West

To celebrate FPRI's 60th Anniversary, we have devoted this year’s Ginsburg Series to lectures on geopolitics and how it can be used to understand the greatest challenges facing the United States today. FPRI’s founder, Robert Strausz-Hupé, introduced the term, “geopolitics,” into the American vocabulary in 1942 with the publication of his book Geopolitics: The Struggle for Space and Power. Simply put, geopolitics offers a perspective on contemporary international affairs that is anchored in the study of history, geography and culture, or as FPRI’s James Kurth has put it, in the study of the “realities and mentalities of the localities.” Strausz-Hupé embedded that perspective in FPRI and it remains today our method or, to use today's language, our “brand.”

In the first event of this series, join FPRI's Ron Granieri, as he examines the meaning, the method, and the importance of using geopolitics to study conemporary world affairs. Granieri is the Executive Director of FPRI's Center for the Study of America and the West and is the host of Geopolitics with Granieri, our monthly, members-only series held at FPRI and on the web. He is also the Director of Research at The University of Pennsylvania's Lauder Institute. Granieri received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago.