Nicholas J. Spykman e la nascita del realismo politico americano

Nicholas J. Spykman and the birth of the american political realism Though indisputably one of the fathers of the american political realism, Nicholas J. Spykman has been long neglected in the study of international relations (the academic field to which he belonged). This article argues that Spykman is still worth paying attention for (at least) the four following reasons. Firstly, Spykman’s political thought is one of the clearest and earliest formulations of the tenets of the political realism in the american international relations theory. Secondly, Spykman’s Geopolitics is an healthy reminder of the importance of the geographical factors in the international politics while shunning the geographical determinism which has undermined so much geopolitical thinking of the last century. Thirdly, Spykman’s Geopolitics provides a useful interpretation of the political and economic globalization unfolding in the Twentieth century as a marked change of the political significance of geography rather than an unprecedented condition of irrelevance of geography. Lastly, Spykman’s ideas on power politics and geopolitical change contributed to the formation of the american «mental map» which presided over the shift of the United States’ foreign policy from isolationism to internationalism.