In
“Geographical Location as a Factor of History,” and “Pirate Costs of the
Mediterranean,” Semple greatly oversimplifies many differences in cultures and
history by reducing them to differences in geography. Her theories are very
alluring, but eventually come up short in many respects - mostly by ignoring a
multitude of equally important factors besides geography. She makes many
interesting points about the forces that cultures/nation states are subject to,
and how they are factors of geography, but she takes them too far. She talks
about how places that are off the beaten path geographically, and separated
from their neighbors by (for example) seas, are guarded from “outside
interference and infusion of foreign blood,” and that these “more secluded
nooks… make for a temporary halt or permanent rest” where humanity is “held
still and it crystallizes into a nation.” But, as far as Europe goes, there are
not many places more peripheral than the British Isles, and they have had their
gene pool contributed to, throughout their history, by any group of people
within 500 miles that owned a boat. In addition to that they are the opposite
of crystallized as a nation. There are two or three countries on each of the
main islands that have been warring in one sense or another since forever, and each
one of those is divided again into many different groups who see themselves as
distinct from the others. The English language itself is a good example of a
cultural stew. Here it is obvious how Semple ignores, to a great degree, other
factors like technology (boats) and religion when explaining cultural
differences. Obviously we cannot have expected Semple predict the future
history of technology, but to me that is where her shortcomings are most
obvious. The cultural impact that places like New York and Hollywood have through
the use of communications technology has allowed the United States to project “our
values” around the world. In this case technology has totally eclipsed the
spatial component to cultural influence that Semple presents, and instead
introduced one where material wealth and technological access takes over. She
also tends to look at the world (which in these papers doesn’t really extend
past places where there is a significant European history/influence) as if the
motivations of the nation state are universal, as if all actors have in mind
the same goals. And, she cleverly discounts any examples that don’t conform to
her ideas by saying that the society in question is not “mature and
historically significant” or something to that affect. If her theories were
accurate and you were to impose them on a hypothetical world where all people
shared one, similar geography you would expect to find one largely uniform
culture. I think we can all agree that that would not be that case though.
Semple also says in “Pirate Coasts…” that some pirating was due
to impoverished hinterlands and an unfertile littoral that forced its
malnourished population into piracy, but I have read about Polynesian and
neighboring cultures, where according to Semple pirating should be a way of
life, that stresses on the food supply were dealt with, much of the time,
through exploration, population control, and cultural structures that promoted
trading, not warfare.
