Тhe impact of Werner Sombart`s Merchants and Heroes on the conception of geopolitical dualism of tellurocracy and thalassocracy

Abstract

This paper examines the connection between the war pamphlet ?Merchants and Heroes? (1915) of Werner Sombart, one of the greatest European sociologists of the 20th century, and geopolitical theories about the conflict between land and sea powers. Although Sombart?s pamphlet emphasizes the spiritual-moral and cultural-sociological dualism between Germany and England in the First World War, where the first represents the characteristics of heroes and idealists and the other of merchants and opportunists, the paper shows that this conflict was primarily a war for the territories - a geopolitical conflict, and, only secondary, a cultural-normative conflict. Historical anal?ysis shows that German geostrategic actions before the Great War (in their colonial policy) and during the Great War were not in opposition, but very similar to Great Britain`s policies. Therefore, it can be assumed that the war between Germany and Great Britain 435 broke out because of the rivalries based on their similarities, both in actions and pretensions. Moreover, Wilhelmine Germany was almost copying Britain?s colonial expansion, so it became the greatest threat to Great Britain`s geostrategic interest. Further, the research established the links between the views of Sombart and Karl Schmitt and, later, with the oversized opposition between land and sea powers as ?the second law of geopolitics? in the views of some geopolitical thinkers during the 20th century. The paper shows that the sources of both views are the same and that they lie in the German romantic-idealistic youth subculture movements at the turn of the 20th century adopted in academic circles before the Great War, primarily in the philosophy of Kurt Hiller and sociology of George Simmel, from which they were accepted by Werner Sombart.