characterized bypopulationgrowth and a stablecultural identity. Ratzel’s great
admirer, the Swedish scholar Rudolf Kjellen, carried the metaphor even further in
his study entitledThe State as an Organism, published during the First World War.
Kjellen believed that the state was sustained by “organs” just as a living body would
be, and that over time more powerful states would simply absorb weaker ones,
leading eventually to a global politicalgeography consisting of only a few large
powerful states, thereby applying the concept of “survival of the fittest” to
international relations. Political geographers today mostly reject the application of
organic theory to the functions of the state and relations between countries as an
oversimplification of much more sophisticated processes.
Organic Theory 251Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406)
A Muslim social scientist, Khaldun was a broad thinker and writer who had a significant influ-
ence beyond theboundariesof the Islamic realm. His seminal work was a multi-part history
of the world, in which he expounded several theories concerning the dynamics of human civ-
ilization, the impact of environment on human society, and the foundation ofcultural iden-
tity. He profoundly shaped the thinking of many geographers who followed him, as one may
find the antecedents of theorganic theoryof the state in his writings, as well as early
notions ofenvironmental determinism, especially in his comparison of urban residents
and nomadic peoples. He was heavily involved in the political intrigues of his time, both in
Muslim Spain and North Africa, and served in numerous posts for a multitude of rulers. Even
as an elderly man, he engaged in a series of famous and intense negotiations with the Central
Asian despot Amir Timur (Tamerlane). His political experience provided a vantage point from
which he made many keen observations concerning relationships and the human condition,
and many regard him as one of the first scholars to apply a strong sociological perspective
to the study and analysis of history and geography.