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Michael Eisner

Michael Dammann Eisner (born March 7, 1942) is an American businessman and former chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of The Walt Disney Company from September 1984 to September 2005. Prior to Disney, Eisner was president of rival film studio Paramount Pictures from 1976 to 1984, and had brief stints at the major television networks NBC, CBS, and ABC.

Eisner's 21-year stint at Disney saw the revitalization of the company's poorly performing animation studios with successful films such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast  (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994), a period known as the Disney Renaissance. Eisner additionally broadened the company's media portfolio by leading the acquisitions of ABC, most of ESPN and The Muppets franchise. Eisner also led major investments and expansion of the company's theme parks both domestically and globally, including the openings of Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios) in 1989, Euro Disney (now Disneyland Paris) in 1992, Disney's Animal Kingdom in 1998, Disney's California Adventure Park and Tokyo DisneySea in 2001, Walt Disney Studios Park in 2002 and Hong Kong Disneyland in 2005.

Eisner's final years at Disney were tumultuous: a string of box-office bombs in the early 2000s, public feuds with former associates such as Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steve Jobs, and dissatisfaction with Eisner's management style culminated in the "Save Disney" campaign organized by Roy E. Disney, during which Eisner rapidly lost the confidence of much of Disney's Board of Directors. As a result of the pressure from the campaign, Eisner announced in March 2005 that he would step down as CEO prematurely, handing day-to-day duties to Bob Iger before formally leaving the company in September 2005. He went on to create the stop-motion animated sitcom Glenn Martin, DDS in 2009.

Early life and education
Eisner was born to an affluent, secular Jewish family in Mount Kisco, New York. His mother, Margaret (née Dammann), whose family founded the American Safety Razor Company, was the president of the Irvington Institute, a hospital that treated children with rheumatic fever. His father, Lester Eisner, Jr., was a lawyer and regional administrator of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. His great-grandfather, Sigmund Eisner, established a very successful clothing company that was one of the first uniform suppliers to the Boy Scouts of America and his great-grandmother, Bertha Weiss, belonged to an immigrant family that established the town of Red Bank, New Jersey. Eisner has one sister, Margot Freedman.

He was raised on Park Avenue in Manhattan. He attended the Allen-Stevenson School kindergarten through ninth grade followed by The Lawrenceville School in 10th through his senior year and graduated from Denison University in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. He is a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity and credits much of his success to his time at Keewaydin Canoe Camp for boys in Vermont.

ABC and Paramount
After two brief stints at NBC and CBS, Barry Diller at ABC hired Eisner as assistant to the national programming director. Eisner moved up the ranks, eventually becoming a senior vice president in charge of programming and development. In 1976, Diller, who had by then moved on to become chairman of Paramount Pictures, recruited Eisner from ABC and made him president and COO of the movie studio. During his tenure at Paramount, the studio produced films such as Saturday Night Fever, Grease, the Star Trek film franchise, Ordinary People, Raiders of the Lost Ark, An Officer and a Gentleman, Flashdance, Terms of Endearment, Beverly Hills Cop, and Footloose, and TV shows such as Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Cheers and Family Ties.

Diller left Paramount on September 30, 1984, and, as his protégé, Eisner expected to assume Diller's position as studio chief. When he was passed over for the job, though, he left to look for work elsewhere and lobbied for the position of CEO of The Walt Disney Company.

The Walt Disney Company
Following the deaths of founders Walt Disney in 1966, and Roy O. Disney in 1971, The Walt Disney Company narrowly survived several takeover attempts. Its shareholders Sid Bass and Roy E. Disney brought in Eisner (as CEO and chairman of the board) and former Warner Bros. chief Frank Wells (as president) to replace Ron W. Miller in 1984 and strengthen the company. Eisner brought in Jeffrey Katzenberg as Walt Disney Studios chairman.

A couple of years after becoming chairman and CEO, Eisner became the host of The Wonderful World of Disney, making him the public face of the company as well as its top executive. Eisner was not a performer by profession, and studio management did not believe he could do the hosting job. After filming a test video with his wife Jane and a member of his executive team (which required multiple takes) Eisner "came across as stiff and awkward ... Disney executives ... were pretty much unanimous that the test was a failure....Eisner stubbornly persisted in the face of almost unanimous criticism." Eisner hired Michael Kay, a director of political commercials for then-U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, to help him improve his on-camera performance. As a result, Eisner was well-recognized by children at the company's theme parks who often asked him for autographs.

During the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s, Eisner revitalized Disney. Beginning with the films Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) which was brought to Disney by Jeffrey Katzenberg and The Little Mermaid (1989) a Ron Clements idea that Eisner originally panned, its flagship animation studio enjoyed a series of commercial and critical successes. Disney also broadened its adult offerings in film when it acquired Miramax Films in 1993. Under Eisner, Disney acquired many other media sources, including ABC, most of ESPN, Fox Family (now known as Freeform) and The Muppets franchise. The ABC purchase in particular reunited Eisner with his former employer.

In the early part of the 1990s, Eisner and his partners set out to plan "The Disney Decade" which was to feature new parks around the world, existing park expansions, new films, and new media investments. While some of the proposals were completed, most were not. Those completed included the Euro Disney Resort (now Disneyland Paris) which was vastly over budget, and had low attendance and was acknowledged by Eisner to be his "real financial disappointment", Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney's Hollywood Studios), Disney's California Adventure Park (now Disney California Adventure), Disney-MGM Studios Paris (eventually opened in 2002 as Walt Disney Studios Park), and various film projects including a Who Framed Roger Rabbit franchise. However, the lackluster success of Disney's Animal Kingdom in the years after its opening, general stagnation in Disney's revenues and various corporate issues and disputes would dampen Eisner's later career.

In 1993, Katzenberg had lobbied to become Eisner's second in command, which would have meant moving Frank Wells from president to vice chairman, to which Eisner 'replied that Wells would feel "hurt" in that scenario'. Coincidentally, Wells died in a helicopter crash in 1994. When Eisner did not appoint Katzenberg to Wells' now available post, tensions arose between the two that led to Katzenberg's resignation. At the time, Eisner refused to pay Katzenberg his contractual bonus' despite Katzenberg's offer to accept $60 million as a settlement, much less than was actually owed. Katzenberg was forced to take the issue to court, who ruled in his favor. The final settlement was $280 million. Katzenberg went on to found DreamWorks SKG, with partners Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. Eisner recalled that "Roy E. Disney, who did not like him at all — I forget the reason, but Jeffrey probably did not treat him the way that Roy would have wanted to be treated — said to me, 'If you make him the president, I will start a proxy fight.'"

Eisner then recruited his friend Michael Ovitz, one of the founders of Creative Artists Agency, to be President with minimal involvement from Disney's board of directors (which at the time included Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier, the CEO of Hilton Hotels Corporation Stephen Bollenbach, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, Yale dean Robert A. M. Stern, and Eisner's predecessors Raymond Watson and Card Walker). Ovitz lasted only 14 months, partly due to outright hostility from Sandy Litvak and Steve Bollenbach and a lack of support by Eisner, and left Disney in December 1996, via a "no fault termination" with a severance package of $38 million in cash, and 3 million stock options worth roughly $100 million, at the time of Ovitz's departure. The Ovitz episode engendered a long-running derivative suit, which finally concluded in June 2006, almost 10 years later. Chancellor William B. Chandler III of the Delaware Court of Chancery, despite describing Eisner's behavior as falling "far short of what shareholders expect and demand from those entrusted with a fiduciary position...", found in favor of Eisner and the rest of the Disney board because they had not violated the duty of care owed by a corporation's officers and board to its shareholders.

"Save Disney" campaign and retirement
Despite his record of success while serving as President, CEO and Chairman of The Walt Disney Company, Eisner was also known for his habit of integrating much of his Paramount films with Disney. These moves were seen as unfavorable, and led to Eisner’s isolation from other Disney executives by 1995. On November 30, 2003, Roy E. Disney, the son and nephew of co-founders Roy O. Disney and Walt Disney, respectively, resigned from his positions as Disney vice chairman and chairman of Walt Disney Feature Animation. His reasons for resigning was his feeling that there was too much micromanagement within the studio, flops with the ABC television network, the company's growing timidity in the theme park business, the Walt Disney Company turning into a "rapacious, soul-less" company, Eisner's refusal to establish a clear succession plan, as well as the studio releasing a string of box-office movie failures starting in the year 2000, such as The Emperor's New Groove and Treasure Planet, and the company's well-publicized distribution disputes with long-time production partner Pixar Animation Studios and its CEO Steve Jobs, with whom Disney had produced such animated feature film hits as Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo, which were critically acclaimed and financially successful for both partners.

On March 3, 2004, at Disney's annual shareholders' meeting, a surprising and unprecedented 43% of Disney's shareholders, predominantly rallied by former board members Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, withheld their proxies to re-elect Eisner to the board. This vote followed a stunning rebuke of Eisner and his executive and chairman practices by both the Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass, Lewis, a shareholder advisory service. Disney's board then gave the chairmanship position to board member George Mitchell. However, the board did not immediately remove Eisner as chief executive.

On March 13, 2005, Eisner announced that he would step down as CEO one year before his contract expired, and handed off day-to-day duties to Bob Iger, who had been serving as Disney's President and Chief Operating Officer and had just been selected by the directors as the CEO-designate. Eisner did not initially promote Iger as a successor until after the board put pressure on Eisner to resign. To reporters and contrary to his actual intentions, Eisner remarked that "I would not have agreed to [leave] if it hadn't been Bob. Because of governance, they wanted a big search and everything. ... And by the end of the search, it was clear that I was able to convince the board—our newly constructed board—that Bob was great." Within Disney, though, Eisner was telling Board members that Iger lacked "stature". On September 30, Eisner resigned both as an executive and as a member of the board of directors, and, severing all formal ties with the company, he waived his contractual rights to perks such as the use of a corporate jet and an office at the company's Burbank headquarters.

While Eisner did much to stabilize and promote Disney in his early years as CEO, his performance in later years garnered much criticism. "Beginning with the lavish, even reckless spending on Euro Disney, and continuing with the poorly planned and executed foray into the Internet, and perhaps worst of all, the acquisition of the Fox Family cable network - each of which is a more than $1 billion mistake - Eisner squandered Disney's assets. ... This is even before considering the exit of Jeffery Katzenberg, the failure to honour his contract, and the hiring and firing of Michael Ovitz, personnel and judgment errors, which, in the cost to Disney and the vitriol and publicity they generated, are without parallel in American business history. ... Eisner controlled and manipulated the board by keeping members isolated, preferring to communicate one-on-one; selectively doling out information, access and benefits ... and ruthlessly dispatching anyone who dared challenge him."

In his book The Ride of a Lifetime, Bob Iger quotes Eisner answering criticism for micro-managing as saying: "Micromanaging is underrated".

In January 2006, Disney's corporate headquarters in Burbank was renamed to Team Disney – The Michael D. Eisner Building in Eisner's honor.

Post-Disney
On October 7, 2005, Eisner was a guest host for the Charlie Rose talk show. His guests were John Travolta and his ex-boss, Barry Diller. Impressed with Eisner's performance, CNBC President Mark Hoffman hired Eisner in early 2006 to host his own talk show, Conversations with Michael Eisner. The show mostly featured CEOs, political leaders, artists and actors, until its cancellation in 2009. Eisner was also an executive producer of the show.

In March 2007, Eisner's investment firm, The Tornante Company, launched a studio, Vuguru, that produces and distributes videos for the Internet, portable media devices and cell phones. In October 2007, Eisner, through his Tornante Company investment firm, partnered with Madison Dearborn Partners in the acquisition of Topps Company, the bubble-gum and collectibles firm. He produced a mockumentary style show about his takeover of the Topps Company, called "Back on Topps." In January 2022, he sold Topps to Fanatics following its loss of the Major League Baseball licensing rights. His investment firm has funded the critically acclaimed Netflix series BoJack Horseman.

The College of Education at California State University, Northridge is named in his honor.

In 2009, Eisner used his own money to produce a claymation show called Glenn Martin, DDS.

He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2012.

Portsmouth Football Club (2017–present)
In March 2017, came the revelation that Eisner was interested in a takeover of Portsmouth F.C., a football club in the south of England that had fallen on hard times after years of poor ownership, before being taken over by its fans. The club released a statement on March 23, 2017, that Eisner and his Tornante Company were in an exclusivity agreement. On August 3, 2017, came confirmation that Eisner and his Tornante Company had completed their purchase for a reported fee of £5.67 million.

Personal life
After college in 1964, he met his future wife, Jane Breckenridge, a Unitarian of Swedish and Scottish descent. They have three sons: Breck, Eric and Anders Eisner.

Books

 * Work in Progress (1998) (ISBN 0-375-50071-5)
 * Camp (2005) (ISBN 978-0446533690)
 * Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed (2010) (ISBN 978-0-06-173236-2)
 *  DisneyWar by James B Stewart (2005) (ISBN 0-684-80993-1)

Awards and recognition

 * 1994 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
 * 2001 Honor Award from the National Building Museum
 * 2004 UJA-Federation of New York's Steven J. Ross Humanitarian of the Year Award
 * Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2008.
 * Inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame on March 1, 2012.

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Jimmy Reed

Mathis James Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with a wide variety of audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), "Baby What You Want Me to Do" (1960), "Big Boss Man" (1961), and "Bright Lights, Big City" (1961) appeared on both Billboard magazine's R&B and Hot 100 singles charts.

Reed influenced many other musicians, including Elvis Presley, Hank Williams Jr., and the Rolling Stones, who recorded his songs. Music critic Cub Koda describes him as "perhaps the most influential bluesman of all," due to his easily accessible style.

Biography
Reed was born in Dunleith, Mississippi. He learned the harmonica and guitar from his friend Eddie Taylor. After several years of busking and performing there, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1943. He was then drafted into the U.S. Navy and served in World War II. He was discharged in 1945 and returned briefly to Mississippi, marrying his girlfriend, Mary (henceforth known as Mama Reed). Mama Reed would be an uncredited background singer on many of his recordings, notably the hits "Baby What You Want Me to Do", "Big Boss Man" and "Bright Lights, Big City". He then moved to Gary, Indiana, to work at an Armour meat-packing plant.

By the 1950s, Reed had established himself as a popular musician. He joined the Gary Kings with John Brim and played on the street with Willie Joe Duncan. Reed failed to gain a recording contract with Chess Records, but signed with Vee-Jay Records through Brim's drummer, Albert King. At Vee-Jay, Reed began playing again with Eddie Taylor and soon released "You Don't Have to Go", his first hit record. It was followed by a long string of hit songs.

Reed maintained his reputation despite his rampant alcoholism; his wife sometimes had to help him remember the lyrics to his songs while recording. In 1957, Reed developed epilepsy, though the condition was not correctly diagnosed for a long time, as Reed and doctors assumed it was delirium tremens. When Vee-Jay Records closed, his manager signed a contract with the fledgling ABC-Bluesway label, but Reed never produced another hit. In 1968, he toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival.

Reed died of respiratory failure in 1976, in Oakland, California, eight days short of his 51st birthday. He is interred in the Lincoln Cemetery, in Blue Island, Illinois. Reed was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Influence
The Rolling Stones have cited Reed as a major influence on their sound, and their early set lists included Reed's songs "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby", "The Sun Is Shining" (played by the Stones at the 1969 Altamont concert), "Bright Lights, Big City", and "Shame, Shame, Shame". "Little by Little", the B-side of their February 1964 UK hit single "Not Fade Away" was a pastiche of "Shame, Shame, Shame". "Honest I Do" was included on their first album, The Rolling Stones (subtitled England's Newest Hit Makers in America), in 1964 (the U.S. edition also included "Little by Little"). For their 2016 release, Blue & Lonesome, they recorded a version of Reed's "Little Rain".

The Yardbirds recorded "I Ain't Got You" for the B-side of their second single "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" with guitarist Eric Clapton. With Jeff Beck, they recorded the Reed-inspired instrumental "Like Jimmy Reed Again", which was released on a reissue of their album Having a Rave Up. The Animals considered Reed one of their main sources of inspiration and recorded versions of "I Ain't Got You" and "Bright Lights, Big City". Van Morrison's group Them covered "Bright Lights, Big City" and "Baby, What You Want Me to Do", both of which are on the album The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison. "Big Boss Man", sung by Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, was regularly performed by the Grateful Dead in the 1960s and early 1970s and appears on their live album Grateful Dead

Elvis Presley recorded several of Reed's songs, having a hit with "Big Boss Man" in 1967 and recording several performances of "Baby, What You Want Me to Do" for his 1968 TV program. (Presley's 1964 hit "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby" is a different song from that recorded by Reed.) "Baby, What You Want Me to Do" was also covered by Wishbone Ash on their 1973 album Live Dates. Johnny and Edgar Winter performed it live in 1975 and included it on their album Together. Omar Kent Dykes and Jimmie Vaughan released the album On the Jimmy Reed Highway as a tribute to Reed. Bill Cosby covered four of Reed's songs, "Bright Lights, Big City", "Big Boss Man", "Hush Hush" and "Aw Shucks, Hush Your Mouth", for his 1967 album, Silver Throat: Bill Cosby Sings.

The Steve Miller Band covered five of Reed's songs: "You're So Fine" (originally recorded by Reed as "Honey, Where You Going?"), on the 1968 album Sailor, and "I Wanna Be Loved (But by Only You)", "Big Boss Man", "Caress Me Baby" and "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby", on the 1986 album Living in the 20th Century.

Bob Dylan paid tribute to Reed with the song "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" on his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Jimmy Reed


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Trapezium

Trapezium, plural trapezia, may refer to:

 * Trapezium, in British and other forms of English, a trapezoid, a quadrilateral that has exactly one pair of parallel sides
 * Trapezium, in North American English, an irregular quadrilateral with no sides parallel
 * Trapezium (bone), a bone in the hand
 * Trapezium Cluster, a group of stars in the Orion Nebula
 * Trapezia (genus), guard crabs
 * Trapezium (novel), a Japanese novel by Kazumi Takayama

title: Trapezium


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Geopolitics

Geopolitics is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of states: de facto independent states with limited international recognition and relations between sub-national geopolitical entities, such as the federated states that make up a federation, confederation, or a quasi-federal system.

At the level of international relations, geopolitics is a method of studying foreign policy to understand, explain, and predict international political behavior through geographical variables. These include area studies, climate, topography, demography, natural resources, and applied science of the region being evaluated.

Geopolitics focuses on political power linked to geographic space, in particular, territorial waters and land territory in correlation with diplomatic history. Topics of geopolitics include relations between the interests of international political actors focused within an area, a space, or a geographical element, relations which create a geopolitical system. Critical geopolitics deconstructs classical geopolitical theories, by showing their political/ideological functions for great powers. There are some works that discuss the geopolitics of renewable energy.

According to Christopher Gogwilt and other researchers, the term is currently being used to describe a broad spectrum of concepts, in a general sense used as "a synonym for international political relations", but more specifically "to imply the global structure of such relations"; this usage builds on an "early-twentieth-century term for a pseudoscience of political geography" and other pseudoscientific theories of historical and geographic determinism.

Alfred Thayer Mahan and sea power
Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) was a frequent commentator on world naval strategic and diplomatic affairs. Mahan believed that national greatness was inextricably associated with the sea—and particularly with its commercial use in peace and its control in war. Mahan's theoretical framework came from Antoine-Henri Jomini, and emphasized that strategic locations (such as choke points, canals, and coaling stations), as well as quantifiable levels of fighting power in a fleet, were conducive to control over the sea. He proposed six conditions required for a nation to have sea power:

 * 1) Advantageous geographical position;
 * 2) Serviceable coastlines, abundant natural resources, and favorable climate;
 * 3) Extent of territory
 * 4) Population large enough to defend its territory;
 * 5) Society with an aptitude for the sea and commercial enterprise; and
 * 6) Government with the influence and inclination to dominate the sea.

Mahan distinguished a key region of the world in the Eurasian context, namely, the Central Zone of Asia lying between 30° and 40° north and stretching from Asia Minor to Japan. In this zone independent countries still survived – Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, China, and Japan. Mahan regarded those countries, located between Britain and Russia, as if between "Scylla and Charybdis". Of the two monsters – Britain and Russia – it was the latter that Mahan considered more threatening to the fate of Central Asia. Mahan was impressed by Russia's transcontinental size and strategically favorable position for southward expansion. Therefore, he found it necessary for the Anglo-Saxon "sea power" to resist Russia.

Homer Lea
Homer Lea, in The Day of the Saxon (1912), asserted that the entire Anglo-Saxon race faced a threat from German (Teuton), Russian (Slav), and Japanese expansionism: The "fatal" relationship of Russia, Japan, and Germany "has now assumed through the urgency of natural forces a coalition directed against the survival of Saxon supremacy." It is "a dreadful Dreibund". Lea believed that while Japan moved against Far East and Russia against India, the Germans would strike at England, the center of the British Empire. He thought the Anglo-Saxons faced certain disaster from their militant opponents.

Kissinger, Brzezinski, and the Grand Chessboard
Two famous national security advisors from the Cold War period, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, argued to continue the United States' geopolitical focus on Eurasia and, particularly Russia, despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Both continued their influence on geopolitics after the end of the Cold War, writing books on the subject in the 1990s—Diplomacy and The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. The Anglo-American classical geopolitical theories were revived.

Kissinger argued against the belief that with the dissolution of the USSR, hostile intentions had come to an end and traditional foreign policy considerations no longer applied. "They would argue … that Russia, regardless of who governs it, sits astride the territory which Halford Mackinder called the geopolitical heartland, and it is the heir to one of the most potent imperial traditions." Therefore, the United States must "maintain the global balance of power vis-à-vis the country with a long history of expansionism."

After Russia, the second geopolitical threat which remained was Germany and, as Mackinder had feared ninety years ago, its partnership with Russia. During the Cold War, Kissinger argues, both sides of the Atlantic recognized that, "unless America is organically involved in Europe, it would later be obliged to involve itself under circumstances which would be far less favorable to both sides of the Atlantic. That is even more true today. Germany has become so strong that existing European institutions cannot strike a balance between Germany and its European partners all by themselves. Nor can Europe, even with the assistance of Germany, manage […] Russia" all by itself. Thus Kissinger believed that no country's interests would ever be served if Germany and Russia were to ever form a partnership in which each country would consider itself the principal partner. They would raise fears of condominium. Without America, Britain and France cannot cope with Germany and Russia; and "without Europe, America could turn … into an island off the shores of Eurasia."

Nicholas J. Spykman's vision of Eurasia was strongly confirmed: "Geopolitically, America is an island off the shores of the large landmass of Eurasia, whose resources and population far exceed those of the United States. The domination by a single power of either of Eurasia's two principal spheres—Europe and Asia—remains a good definition of strategic danger for America. Cold War or no Cold War. For such a grouping would have the capacity to outstrip America economically and, in the end, militarily. That danger would have to be resisted even if the dominant power was apparently benevolent, for if its intentions ever changed, America would find itself with a grossly diminished capacity for effective resistance and a growing inability to shape events." The main interest of the American leaders is maintaining the balance of power in Eurasia.

Having converted from an ideologist into a geopolitician, Kissinger retrospectively interpreted the Cold War in geopolitical terms—an approach which was not characteristic of his works during the Cold War. Now, however, he focused on the beginning of the Cold War: "The objective of moral opposition to Communism had merged with the geopolitical task of containing Soviet expansion." Nixon, he added, was a geopolitical rather than an ideological cold warrior.

Three years after Kissinger's Diplomacy, Zbigniew Brzezinski followed suit, launching The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives and, after three more years, The Geostrategic Triad: Living with China, Europe, and Russia. The Grand Chessboard described the American triumph in the Cold War in terms of control over Eurasia: for the first time ever, a "non-Eurasian" power had emerged as a key arbiter of "Eurasian" power relations. The book states its purpose: "The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book." Although the power configuration underwent a revolutionary change, Brzezinski confirmed three years later, Eurasia was still a mega-continent. Like Spykman, Brzezinski acknowledges that: "Cumulatively, Eurasia's power vastly overshadows America's."

In classical Spykman terms, Brzezinski formulated his geostrategic "chessboard" doctrine of Eurasia, which aims to prevent the unification of this mega-continent."'Europe and Asia are politically and economically powerful…. It follows that… American foreign policy must…employ its influence in Eurasia in a manner that creates a stable continental equilibrium, with the United States as the political arbiter.… Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and that struggle involves geo- strategy – the strategic management of geopolitical interests…. But in the meantime it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also of challenging America… For America the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.'"

Emil Reich
The Austro-Hungarian historian Emil Reich (1854–1910) is considered to be the first having coined the term in English as early as 1902 and later published in England in 1904 in his book Foundations of Modern Europe.

Mackinder and the Heartland Theory

Sir Halford Mackinder's Heartland Theory initially received little attention outside the world of geography, but some thinkers would claim that it subsequently influenced the foreign policies of world powers. Those scholars who look to MacKinder through critical lenses accept him as an organic strategist who tried to build a foreign policy vision for Britain with his Eurocentric analysis of historical geography. His formulation of the Heartland Theory was set out in his article entitled "The Geographical Pivot of History", published in England in 1904. Mackinder's doctrine of geopolitics involved concepts diametrically opposed to the notion of Alfred Thayer Mahan about the significance of navies (he coined the term sea power) in world conflict. He saw navy as a basis of Colombian era empire (roughly from 1492 to the 19th century), and predicted the 20th century to be domain of land power. The Heartland theory hypothesized a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland—which would not need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to remain coherent. The basic notions of Mackinder's doctrine involve considering the geography of the Earth as being divided into two sections: the World Island or Core, comprising Eurasia and Africa; and the Peripheral "islands", including the Americas, Australia, Japan, the British Isles, and Oceania. Not only was the Periphery noticeably smaller than the World Island, it necessarily required much sea transport to function at the technological level of the World Island—which contained sufficient natural resources for a developed economy.

Mackinder posited that the industrial centers of the Periphery were necessarily located in widely separated locations. The World Island could send its navy to destroy each one of them in turn, and could locate its own industries in a region further inland than the Periphery (so they would have a longer struggle reaching them, and would face a well-stocked industrial bastion). Mackinder called this region the Heartland. It essentially comprised Central and Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Western Russia, and Mitteleuropa. The Heartland contained the grain reserves of Ukraine, and many other natural resources. Mackinder's notion of geopolitics was summed up when he said:

"Who rules Central and Eastern Europe commands the Heartland. Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island. Who rules the World-Island commands the World."

Nicholas J. Spykman was both a follower and critic of geostrategists Alfred Mahan, and Halford Mackinder. His work was based on assumptions similar to Mackinder's, including the unity of world politics and the world sea. He extends this to include the unity of the air. Spykman adopts Mackinder's divisions of the world, renaming some:
 * 1) The Heartland;
 * 2) The Rimland (analogous to Mackinder's "inner or marginal crescent" also an intermediate region, lying between the Heartland and the marginal sea powers); and
 * 3) The Offshore Islands & Continents (Mackinder's "outer or insular crescent").

Under Spykman's theory, a Rimland separates the Heartland from ports that are usable throughout the year (that is, not frozen up during winter). Spykman suggested this required that attempts by Heartland nations (particularly Russia) to conquer ports in the Rimland must be prevented. Spykman modified Mackinder's formula on the relationship between the Heartland and the Rimland (or the inner crescent), claiming that "Who controls the rimland rules Eurasia. Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world." This theory can be traced in the origins of containment, a U.S. policy on preventing the spread of Soviet influence after World War II (see also Truman Doctrine).

Another famous follower of Mackinder was Karl Haushofer who called Mackinder's Geographical Pivot of History a "genius' scientific tractate." He commented on it: "Never have I seen anything greater than those few pages of geopolitical masterwork." Mackinder located his Pivot, in the words of Haushofer, on "one of the first solid, geopolitically and geographically irreproachable maps, presented to one of the earliest scientific forums of the planet – the Royal Geographic Society in London" Haushofer adopted both Mackinder's Heartland thesis and his view of the Russian-German alliance – powers that Mackinder saw as the major contenders for control of Eurasia in the twentieth century. Following Mackinder he suggested an alliance with the Soviet Union and, advancing a step beyond Mackinder, added Japan to his design of the Eurasian Bloc.

In 2004, at the centenary of The Geographical Pivot of History, famous Historian Paul Kennedy wrote: "Right now with hundreds of thousands of US troops in the Eurasian rimlands and with administration constantly explaining why it has to stay the course, it looks as if Washington is taking seriously Mackinder's injunction to ensure control of the geographical pivot of history."

Friedrich Ratzel
Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904), influenced by thinkers such as Darwin and zoologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, contributed to 'Geopolitik' by the expansion on the biological conception of geography, without a static conception of borders. Positing that states are organic and growing, with borders representing only a temporary stop in their movement, he held that the expanse of a state's borders is a reflection of the health of the nation—meaning that static countries are in decline. Ratzel published several papers, among which was the essay "Lebensraum" (1901) concerning biogeography. Ratzel created a foundation for the German variant of geopolitics, geopolitik. Influenced by the American geostrategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, Ratzel wrote of aspirations for German naval reach, agreeing that sea power was self-sustaining, as the profit from trade would pay for the merchant marine, unlike land power.

The geopolitical theory of Ratzel has been criticized as being too sweeping, and his interpretation of human history and geography being too simple and mechanistic. Critically, he also underestimated the importance of social organization in the development of power.

The association of German Geopolitik with Nazism
After World War I, the thoughts of Rudolf Kjellén and Ratzel were picked up and extended by a number of German authors such as Karl Haushofer (1869–1946), Erich Obst, Hermann Lautensach, and Otto Maull. In 1923, Karl Haushofer founded the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (Journal for Geopolitics), which was later used in the propaganda of Nazi Germany. The key concepts of Haushofer's Geopolitik were Lebensraum, autarky, pan-regions, and organic borders. States have, Haushofer argued, an undeniable right to seek natural borders which would guarantee autarky.

Haushofer's influence within the Nazi Party has been challenged, given that Haushofer failed to incorporate the Nazis' racial ideology into his work. Popular views of the role of geopolitics in the Nazi Third Reich suggest a fundamental significance on the part of the geo-politicians in the ideological orientation of the Nazi state. Bassin (1987) reveals that these popular views are in important ways misleading and incorrect.

Despite the numerous similarities and affinities between the two doctrines, geopolitics was always held suspect by the National Socialist ideologists. This was understandable, for the underlying philosophical orientation of geopolitics did not comply with that of National Socialism. Geopolitics shared Ratzel's scientific materialism and geographic determinism, and held that human society was determined by external influences—in the face of which qualities held innately by individuals or groups were of reduced or no significance. National Socialism rejected in principle both materialism and determinism and also elevated innate human qualities, in the form of a hypothesized 'racial character,' to the factor of greatest significance in the constitution of human society. These differences led after 1933 to friction and ultimately to open denunciation of geopolitics by Nazi ideologues. Nevertheless, German Geopolitik was discredited by its (mis)use in Nazi expansionist policy of World War II and has never achieved standing comparable to the pre-war period.

The resultant negative association, particularly in U.S. academic circles, between classical geopolitics and Nazi or imperialist ideology, is based on loose justifications. This has been observed in particular by critics of contemporary academic geography, and proponents of a "neo"-classical geopolitics in particular. These include Haverluk et al., who argue that the stigmatization of geopolitics in academia is unhelpful as geopolitics as a field of positivist inquiry maintains potential in researching and resolving topical, often politicized issues such as conflict resolution and prevention, and mitigating climate change.

Disciplinary differences in perspectives
Negative associations with the term "geopolitics" and its practical application stemming from its association with World War II and pre-World War II German scholars and students of geopolitics are largely specific to the field of academic geography, and especially sub-disciplines of human geography such as political geography. However, this negative association is not as strong in disciplines such as history or political science, which make use of geopolitical concepts. Classical geopolitics forms an important element of analysis for military history as well as for sub-disciplines of political science such as international relations and security studies. This difference in disciplinary perspectives is addressed by Bert Chapman in Geopolitics: A Guide To the Issues, in which Chapman makes note that academic and professional International Relations journals are more amenable to the study and analysis of Geopolitics, and in particular Classical geopolitics, than contemporary academic journals in the field of political geography.

In disciplines outside geography, geopolitics is not negatively viewed (as it often is among academic geographers such as Carolyn Gallaher or Klaus Dodds) as a tool of imperialism or associated with Nazism, but rather viewed as a valid and consistent manner of assessing major international geopolitical circumstances and events, not necessarily related to armed conflict or military operations.

Montesquieu and climate theory
French geopolitical doctrines broadly opposed to German Geopolitik and reject the idea of a fixed geography. French geography is focused on the evolution of polymorphic territories being the result of mankind's actions. It also relies on the consideration of long time periods through a refusal to take specific events into account. This method has been theorized by Professor Lacoste according to three principles: Representation; Diachronie; and Diatopie.

In The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu outlined the view that man and societies are influenced by climate. He believed that hotter climates create hot-tempered people and colder climates aloof people, whereas the mild climate of France is ideal for political systems. Considered one of the founders of French geopolitics, Élisée Reclus, is the author of a book considered a reference in modern geography (Nouvelle Géographie universelle). Alike Ratzel, he considers geography through a global vision. However, in complete opposition to Ratzel's vision, Reclus considers geography not to be unchanging; it is supposed to evolve commensurately to the development of human society. His marginal political views resulted in his rejection by academia.

Ancel, Braudel, and the rejection of determinism
French geographer and geopolitician Jacques Ancel (1879–1936) is considered to be the first theoretician of geopolitics in France, and gave a notable series of lectures at the European Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Paris and published Géopolitique in 1936. Like Reclus, Ancel rejects German determinist views on geopolitics (including Haushofer's doctrines).

Braudel's broad view used insights from other social sciences, employed the concept of the longue durée, and downplayed the importance of specific events. This method was inspired by the French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache (who in turn was influenced by German thought, particularly that of Friedrich Ratzel whom he had met in Germany). Braudel's method was to analyse the interdependence between individuals and their environment. Vidalian geopolitics is based on varied forms of cartography and on possibilism (founded on a societal approach of geography—i.e. on the principle of spaces polymorphic faces depending from many factors among them mankind, culture, and ideas) as opposed to determinism.

Lacoste and the renaissance of French geopolitics
Due to the influence of German Geopolitik on French geopolitics, the latter were for a long time banished from academic works. In the mid-1970s, Yves Lacoste—a French geographer who was directly inspired by Ancel, Braudel and Vidal de la Blache—wrote La géographie, ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre (Geography first use is war) in 1976. This book—which is very famous in France—symbolizes the birth of this new school of geopolitics (if not so far the first French school of geopolitics as Ancel was very isolated in the 1930s–40s). Initially linked with communist party evolved to a less liberal approach. At the end of the 1980s he founded the Institut Français de Géopolitique (French Institute for Geopolitics) that publishes the Hérodote revue. While rejecting the generalizations and broad abstractions employed by the German and Anglo-American traditions (and the new geographers), this school does focus on spatial dimension of geopolitics affairs on different levels of analysis. This approach emphasizes the importance of multi-level (or multi-scales) analysis and maps at the opposite of critical geopolitics which avoid such tools. Lacoste proposed that every conflict (both local or global) can be considered from a perspective grounded in three assumptions:
 * 1) Representation: Each group or individuals is the product of an education and is characterized by specific representations of the world or others groups or individuals. Thus, basic societal beliefs are grounded in their ethnicity or specific location. The study of representation is a common point with the more contemporary critical geopolitics. Both are connected with the work of Henri Lefebvre (La production de l'espace, first published in 1974)
 * 2) Diachronie. Conducting an historical analysis confronting "long periods" and short periods as the prominent French historian Fernand Braudel suggested.
 * 3) Diatopie: Conducting a cartographic survey through a multi-scale mapping.

Connected with this stream, and former member of Hérodote editorial board, the French geographer Michel Foucher developed a long term analysis of international borders. He coined various neologism among them: Horogenesis: Neologism that describes the concept of studying the birth of borders, Dyade: border shared by two neighbouring states (for instance US territory has two terrestrial dyades : one with Canada and one with Mexico). The main book of this searcher "Fronts et frontières" (Fronts and borders) first published in 1991, without equivalent remains untranslated in English. Michel Foucher is an expert of the African Union for borders affairs.

More or less connected with this school, Stéphane Rosière can be quoted as the editor in Chief of the online journal L'Espace politique, this journal created in 2007 became the most prominent French journal of political geography and Geopolitics with Hérodote.

French philosopher Michel Foucault's dispositif introduced for the purpose of biopolitical research was also adopted in the field of geopolitical thought where it now plays a role.

Russia
The geopolitical stance adopted by Russia has traditionally been informed by a Eurasian perspective, and Russia's location provides a degree of continuity between the Tsarist and Soviet geostrategic stance and the position of Russia in the international order. In the 1990s, a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vadim Tsymbursky (1957–2009), coined the term "island-Russia" and developed the "Great Limitrophe" concept.

Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov (retired), a Russian geopolitics specialist of the early 21st century, headed the Academy of Geopolitical Problems (Академия геополитических проблем), which analyzes the international and domestic situations and develops geopolitical doctrine. Earlier, he headed the Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.

Vladimir Karyakin, leading researcher at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, has proposed the term "geopolitics of the third wave".

Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian political analyst who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff wrote "The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia" in 1997, which has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and foreign policy elites and it has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia and powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin.

China
According to Li Lingqun, a major feature of the People's Republic of China's geopolitics is attempting to change the laws of the sea to advance claims in the South China Sea. Another geopolitical issue is China's claims over Taiwan, amounting to a geopolitical rivalry between the two independent states.

Various analysts state that China created the Belt and Road Initiative as a geostrategic effort to take a larger role in global affairs, and undermine what the Communist Party perceives as a hegemony of liberalism. It has also been argued that China co-founded the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank to compete with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in development finance. According to Bobo Lo, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been advertised as a "political organization of a new type" claimed to transcend geopolitics. Political scientist Pak Nung Wong says that a major form of geopolitics between the US and China includes cybersecurity competition, policy regulations regarding technology standards and social media platforms, and traditional and non-traditional forms of espionage.

One view of the New Great Game is a shift to geoeconomic compared to geopolitical competition. The interest in oil and gas includes pipelines that transmit energy to China's east coast. Xiangming Chen believes that China's role is more like Britain's than Russia's in the New Great Game, where Russia plays the role that the Russian Empire originally did. Chen stated, "Regardless of the prospect, China through the BRI is deep in playing a 'New Great Game' in Central Asia that differs considerably from its historical precedent about 150 years ago when Britain and Russia jostled with each other on the Eurasian steppes." In the Carnegie Endowment, Paul Stronski and Nicole Ng wrote in 2018 that China has not fundamentally challenged any Russian interests in Central Asia.

Notable Institutions

 * Harvard Kennedy School of Government
 * King's College London
 * London School of Economics
 * Munk School of Global Affairs
 * Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
 * Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
 * School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University
 * Sciences Po Paris
 * SOAS, University of London
 * University of Cambridge
 * University of Oxford
 * National Resilience Institute

title: Geopolitics


text:
Karl Haushofer

Karl Ernst Haushofer (27 August 1869 – 10 March 1946) was a German general, professor, geographer, and diplomat. Haushofer's concept of Geopolitik influenced the ideological development of Adolf Hitler. Rudolf Hess was also a student of Haushofer, and during Hess and Hitler's incarceration by the Weimar Republic after the Beer Hall Putsch, Haushofer visited Landsberg Prison to teach and mentor both Hess and Hitler. Haushofer also coined the political use of the term Lebensraum, which Hitler also used to justify both crimes against peace and genocide. At the same time, however, Gen. Haushofer's half-Jewish wife and their children were categorized as Mischlinge under the Nuremberg Laws. Their son, Albrecht Haushofer, was issued a German Blood Certificate through the influence of Rudolf Hess, but was arrested in 1944 over his involvement with the July 20th plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Nazi Party. During the last days of the war, Albrecht Haushofer was summarily executed by the SS for his role in the German Resistance.

After being interrogated by Fr. Edmund A. Walsh, who recommended to Robert H. Jackson that Haushofer be prosecuted at the Nuremberg Trials for complicity in Nazi war crimes, Karl and Martha Haushofer died together in a suicide pact outside of their home in the American Zone of Occupied Germany.

Life and early career
Haushofer belonged to a family of artists and scholars. He was born in Munich to Max Haushofer Jr, a well-known professor of economics, politician and author of both academic and literary works, and Adele Haushofer (née Fraas). His grandfather was the landscape painter Max Haushofer Sr. On his graduation from the Munich Gymnasium (high school), in 1887, Haushofer entered the 1st Field Artillery regiment "Prinzregent Luitpold" of the Bavarian Army and completed Kriegsschule, Artillerieschule and War Academy (Kingdom of Bavaria). In 1896, he married Martha Mayer-Doss (1877–1946) whose father was Jewish. They had two sons, Albrecht Haushofer and Heinz Haushofer (1906–1988). In 1903, he accepted a teaching position at the Bavarian War Academy.

In November 1908, Haushofer was ordered to Tokyo as a military attaché to study the Imperial Japanese Army and as a military advisor in artillery instruction. He travelled with his wife via India and South East Asia and arrived in February 1909. He was received by Emperor Meiji and became acquainted with many important people in politics and the armed forces. In autumn 1909, he travelled with his wife for a month to Korea and Manchuria on the occasion of a railway construction. In June 1910, they returned to Germany via Russia and arrived one month later. However, shortly after returning to Bavaria, he began to suffer from a severe lung disease and was given a leave from the army for three years.

During his convalescence, from 1911 to 1913, Haushofer would work on his doctorate of philosophy from Munich University for a thesis on Japan titled Dai Nihon, Betrachtungen über Groß-Japans Wehrkraft, Weltstellung und Zukunft ("Reflections on Greater Japan's Military Strength, World Position, and Future"). He established himself as one of Germany’s foremost experts regarding the Far East, and co-founded the geopolitical monthly Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (ZfG), which he would co-edit until it was suspended towards the end of World War II.

Haushofer continued his career as a professional soldier after the annexation of Bavaria by Germany, serving in the army of Imperial Germany and returning to teach War History at the Military Academy in Munich.

During World War I, he commanded a brigade on the Western Front. But he was disillusioned with Germany's readiness for the tests of warfare.

When the United States entered the war, it cemented two especially bitter hatreds for Haushofer. The first was for the U.S. America was a "deceitful, ravenous, hypocritical, shameless beast of prey," he wrote. "Americans are truly the only people on this world that I regard with a deep, instinctive hatred."

At the same time, Haushofer developed an especially virulent strain of anti-semitic feeling. In letters to his wife Martha, whose own father was Jewish, Haushofer wrote of Jewish "treason against Volk, race and country." He repeated false but common slanders alleging that Jews declined to fight for their country of citizenship, and were guilty of war profiteering.

The solution to these ills besetting Germany, he declared, would be a powerful and charismatic leader. "A man! A kingdom, an imperial crown for a man worthy of the name!" "You see how ready for a Caesar I am," he wrote in another letter to Martha, "and what kind of a good instrument I would be for a Caesar, if we had one and if he knew how to make use of me."

Haushofer would both find and influence Germany's next Caesar. After retiring from the army with the rank of generalmajor (major general) in 1919, he forged a friendship with the young Rudolf Hess, who became his scientific assistant and later rose to be the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, second in authority only to Hitler.

In 1919, Haushofer successfully defended his second dissertation, and became Privatdozent for political geography at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and was made a professor in 1933, although he declined a formal position and salary, because that would have affected his military pension.

Geopolitik and relationship with Hitler
Haushofer entered academia with the aim of restoring and regenerating Germany. He believed the Germans' lack of geographical knowledge and geopolitical awareness to be a major cause of Germany’s defeat in World War I, because Germany had found itself with a disadvantageous alignment of allies and enemies. His specialty was to combine the fields of geography, history, economics, demography, political science, and anthropology into a new discipline that came to be called Geopolitik. Haushofer himself could not plainly describe this "new science," but its principal thrust was the view the state as a person or organism, shaped over time by its unique geography and history into a specific national character. In this context he coined the term Lebensraum - "room to live" - to describe the territory that a healthy and expanding state needed to sustain its population. This notion would be adopted by Hitler and the Nazi party in its most aggressive and militaristic interpretation.

In 1923, Hilter was jailed following his failed "Beer Hall Putsch," and Rudolf Hess surrendered to be imprisoned alongside his leader in Landsberg Prison.

Haushofer became a teacher of politics and philosophy to both Hess and Hitler. According to scholar Holger Herwig, "Like a dry sponge, Hitler soaked up what Haushofer offered."

Haushofer's son Albrecht considered that his father's most powerful contribution to Hess and Hitler was his own substantial credibility as a soldier and scholar: "One has to imagine what it meant in the Bavaria of that time," he wrote, "when a man of my father’s stature [general and professor] and popularity constantly traveled out to Landsberg."

From 1925 to 1931 and from 1933 to 1939, Haushofer broadcast monthly radio lectures on the international political situation. That Weltpolitischer Monatsbericht made him a household name in contemporary Germany, and he came to be known in circles far removed from academia. He was a founding member of the Deutsche Akademie, of which he served as president from 1934 to 1937. He was a prolific writer, publishing hundreds of articles, reviews, commentaries, obituaries and books, many of which were on Asian topics, and he arranged for many leaders in the Nazi party and in the German military to receive copies of his works.

After the establishment of the German Nazi government, Haushofer remained friendly with Hess, who protected Haushofer's wife from the racial laws of the Nazis, which deemed her a "half-Jew". During the prewar years, Haushofer was instrumental in linking Japan to the Axis powers, acting in accordance with the theories in his book Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean.

Under Hitler's regime, Haushofer became both rich and immensely influential. But his influence and his public profile shrank abruptly after his patron, Rudolf Hess, flew to Scotland in May 1941 in a doomed effort to make peace with the United Kingdom. Hess was purged from the Nazi Party, and the Haushofer family, with its close relationship with Hess and its Jewish background, once again came under suspicion.

In 1944 Haushofer's son Albrecht was implicated in the July 20 Plot to assassinate Hitler. Karl was arrested on 28 July 1944, and imprisoned for a month at Dachau before he was released.

Albrecht went into hiding but was arrested on 7 December 1944 and put into the Moabit prison in Berlin. Karl wrote a personal letter to Hitler pleading for mercy for his son, but never sent it. During the night of 22–23 April 1945, with only days remaining in the war, he and other prisoners, among them Klaus Bonhoeffer, were walked out of the prison by an SS death squad and shot on the orders of Josef Goebbels. When his brother Heinz found his body, Albrecht was still clutching a sheaf of papers on which he had written dozens of poems in his last days trying to make sense of his life, his father's work, and the war. Those eighty poems were eventually published as The Moabit Sonnets. In the thirty-eighth sonnet, titled "The Father," Albrecht indicts his father for helping to unleash the horrors of Nazi brutality:

Karl Haushofer was devastated by Albrecht's death. And yet - even though the Nazis had murdered his beloved son, and their war had left Germany in ruins around him, Haushofer continued to blame "New York's finance Jews" for the destruction of his beloved Munich.

He was repeatedly arrested by the American forces he so detested. Beginning on 24 September 1945, Karl Haushofer was informally interrogated by Fr. Edmund A. Walsh on behalf of Nuremberg Trials prosecutor Robert H. Jackson to determine whether Haushofer should also stand trial. Fr. Walsh ultimately reported to Jackson that Haushofer was both legally and morally guilty of complicity in Nazi war crimes. Citing "the role of geopolitics in corrupting education into a preparation for war", Walsh accused Haushofer and his associates of being "basically as guilty as the better-known war criminals." In his later memoir of the Nuremberg Trials, Walsh further alleged that "The tragedy of Karl Haushofer" was his participation in the "nationalizing" of academic scholarship and of turning Geopolitik into a weapon supplying "an allegedly scientific basis and justification for international brigandage."

Death
On the night of 10–11 March 1946, Karl Haushofer and his wife committed suicide in a secluded hollow on their Hartschimmelhof estate at Pähl/Ammersee. Both drank arsenic and his wife then hanged herself from a tree branch.

Haushofer left a detailed map to help his son, Heinz, find the bodies. In a suicide note, he declared that he wanted "no form of state or church funeral, no obituary, epitaph, or identification of my grave... I want to be forgotten and forgotten."

Fr. Walsh visited their graves and wrote in his diary, "I could not help but think of the deep tragedy of this death by night, alone, in a lonely gulley, of the last of the geopoliticians! What an inscrutable destiny, that after 19 [years of] teaching and warning [the] U.S.A. about the teachings of Haushofer, I should today be kneeling over his suicide's body in one of the loneliest spots in Bavaria!"

Geopolitics
Haushofer developed Geopolitik from widely varied sources, including the writings of Oswald Spengler, Alexander Humboldt, Karl Ritter, Friedrich Ratzel, Rudolf Kjellén, and Halford J. Mackinder.

Geopolitik contributed to Nazi foreign policy chiefly in the strategy and justifications for lebensraum. The theories contributed five ideas to German foreign policy in the interwar period:
 * organic state
 * lebensraum
 * autarky
 * pan-regions
 * land power/sea power dichotomy.

Geostrategy as a political science is both descriptive and analytical like political geography but adds a normative element in its strategic prescriptions for national policy. While some of Haushofer's ideas stem from earlier American and British geostrategy, German geopolitik adopted an essentialist outlook toward the national interest, oversimplifying issues and representing itself as a panacea. As a new and essentialist ideology, geopolitik resonated with the post-World War I insecurity of the populace.

Haushofer's position in the University of Munich served as a platform for the spread of his geopolitical ideas, magazine articles, and books. In 1922, he founded the Institute of Geopolitics in Munich, from which he proceeded to publicize geopolitical ideas. By 1924, as the leader of the German geopolitik school of thought, Haushofer would establish the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik monthly devoted to geopolitik. His ideas would reach a wider audience with the publication of Volk ohne Raum by Hans Grimm in 1926, popularizing his concept of lebensraum. Haushofer exercised influence both through his academic teachings, urging his students to think in terms of continents and emphasizing motion in international politics, and through his political activities. While Hitler's speeches would attract the masses, Haushofer's works served to bring the remaining intellectuals into the fold.

Geopolitik was essentially a consolidation and codification of older ideas, given a scientific gloss:

The key reorientation in each dyad is that the focus is on land-based empire rather than naval imperialism.
 * Lebensraum was a revised colonial imperialism;
 * Autarky a new expression of tariff protectionism;
 * Strategic control of key geographic territories exhibiting the same thought behind earlier designs on the Suez and Panama Canals; a view of controlling the land in the same way as those choke points control the sea
 * Pan-regions (Panideen) based upon the British Empire, and the American Monroe Doctrine, Pan-American Union and hemispheric defense, whereby the world is divided into spheres of influence.
 * Frontiers – His view of barriers between peoples not being political (borders) or natural placements of races or ethnicities but as being fluid and determined by the will or needs of ethnic/racial groups.

Ostensibly based upon the geopolitical theory of American naval expert Alfred Thayer Mahan, and British geographer Halford J. Mackinder, German geopolitik adds older German ideas. Enunciated most forcefully by Friedrich Ratzel and his Swedish student Rudolf Kjellén, they include an organic or anthropomorphized conception of the state, and the need for self-sufficiency through the top-down organization of society. The root of uniquely German geopolitik rests in the writings of Karl Ritter who first developed the organic conception of the state that would later be elaborated upon by Ratzel and accepted by Hausfhofer. He justified lebensraum, even at the cost of other nations' existence because conquest was a biological necessity for a state's growth.

Ratzel's writings coincided with the growth of German industrialism after the Franco-Prussian war and the subsequent search for markets that brought it into competition with Britain. His writings served as welcome justification for imperial expansion. Influenced by Mahan, Ratzel wrote of aspirations for German naval reach, agreeing that sea power was self-sustaining, as the profit from trade would pay for the merchant marine, unlike land power. Haushofer was exposed to Ratzel, who was friends with Haushofer's father, a teacher of economic geography, and would integrate Ratzel's ideas on the division between sea and land powers into his theories, saying that only a country with both could overcome this conflict.

Haushofer's geopolitik expands upon that of Ratzel and Kjellén. While the latter two conceive of geopolitik as the state as an organism in space put to the service of a leader, Haushofer's Munich school specifically studies geography as it relates to war and designs for empire. The behavioral rules of previous geopoliticians were thus turned into dynamic normative doctrines for action on lebensraum and world power.

Haushofer defined geopolitik in 1935 as "the duty to safeguard the right to the soil, to the land in the widest sense, not only the land within the frontiers of the Reich, but the right to the more extensive Volk and cultural lands." Culture itself was seen as the most conducive element to dynamic special expansion. It provided a guide as to the best areas for expansion, and could make expansion safe, whereas projected military or commercial power could not. Haushofer even held that urbanization was a symptom of a nation's decline, evidencing a decreasing soil mastery, birthrate and effectiveness of centralized rule.

To Haushofer, the existence of a state depended on living space, the pursuit of which must serve as the basis for all policies. Germany had a high population density, but the old colonial powers had a much lower density, a virtual mandate for German expansion into resource-rich areas. Space was seen as military protection against initial assaults from hostile neighbors with long-range weaponry. A buffer zone of territories or insignificant states on one's borders would serve to protect Germany. Closely linked to that need was Haushofer's assertion that the existence of small states was evidence of political regression and disorder in the international system. The small states surrounding Germany ought to be brought into the vital German order. These states were seen as being too small to maintain practical autonomy even if they maintained large colonial possessions and would be better served by protection and organization within Germany. In Europe, he saw Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece and the "mutilated alliance" of Austro-Hungary as supporting his assertion.

Haushofer's version of autarky was based on the quasi-Malthusian idea that the earth would become saturated with people and no longer able to provide food for all. There would essentially be no increases in productivity.

Haushofer and the Munich school of geopolitik would eventually expand their conception of lebensraum and autarky well past the borders of 1914 and "a place in the sun" to a New European Order, then to a New Afro-European Order, and eventually to a Eurasian Order. That concept became known as a pan-region, taken from the American Monroe Doctrine, and the idea of national and continental self-sufficiency. That was a forward-looking refashioning of the drive for colonies, something that geopoliticians did not see as an economic necessity but more as a matter of prestige, putting pressure on older colonial powers. The fundamental motivating force would be not economic but cultural and spiritual. Haushofer was, what is called today, a proponent of "Eurasianism", advocating a policy of German–Russian hegemony and alliance to offset an Anglo-American power structure's potentially dominating influence in Europe.

Beyond being an economic concept, pan-regions were a strategic concept as well. Haushofer acknowledges the strategic concept of the Heartland Theory put forward by the British geopolitician Halford Mackinder. If Germany could control Eastern Europe and subsequently Russian territory, it could control a strategic area to which hostile seapower could be denied. Allying with Italy and Japan would further augment German strategic control of Eurasia, with those states becoming the naval arms protecting Germany's insular position.

Relationship with Nazi leaders
Biographers of both Haushofer and of Hitler disagree somewhat on the extent of Haushofer's influence on Hitler: Ian Kershaw writes that "[his] influence was probably greater than the Munich professor was later prepared to acknowledge," while Joachim C. Fest says that Haushofer's contributions to Hitler's ideation were important, but that "Hitler's version of [Haushofer's] ideas was distinctly his own." Haushofer told Walsh that he viewed Hitler as a half-educated man who never correctly understood the Geopolitik principles explained by Hess, and saw Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (in office: 1938-1945) as the principal distorter of geopolitik in Hitler's mind.

Most writers on Haushofer agree that at the very least, through his teaching and his writing, he gave to Hitler and the Nazis intellectual legitimacy - providing Hitler and his cronies with a political and philosophical vocabulary that they would use to justify the goals that they pursued with war and terror. After World War II, Haushofer would deny that he had taught Hitler, and claimed that the National Socialist Party perverted Hess's study of geopolitik.

Although Haushofer accompanied Hess on numerous propaganda missions and participated in consultations between Nazis and Japanese leaders, he claimed that Hitler and the Nazis only seized upon half-developed ideas and catchwords. Furthermore, the Nazi party and government lacked any official organ that was receptive to geopolitik, leading to selective adoption and poor interpretation of Haushofer's theories. Ultimately, Hess and Konstantin von Neurath, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs (in office: 1932-1938), were the only officials Haushofer would admit had a proper understanding of geopolitik.

Father Edmund A. Walsh, professor of geopolitics and dean at Georgetown University, who interviewed Haushofer after Allied victory in preparation for the Nuremberg trials, disagreed with Haushofer's assessment that Hitler and the Nazis terribly distorted geopolitik. He cites Hitler's speeches declaring that small states have no right to exist, and the Nazi use of Haushofer's maps, language and arguments. Even if distorted somewhat, Walsh felt that was enough to implicate Haushofer's geopolitik.

Various more damning allegations about Haushofer's involvement with political extremism have been presented over the years. Louis Pauwels, in his book Monsieur Gurdjieff, describes Haushofer as a former student of the Greek-Russian mystic George Gurdjieff. Others, including Pauwels, claimed that Haushofer created a Vril society and that he was a secret member of the Thule Society. It was theorized that Haushofer had co-written, or helped to write, Mein Kampf. Rumors floated that Haushofer was Hess's father, or, conversely, that the two men were lovers. Holger dismisses these unproven allegations as "mythmaking" and "rumors."

Aware of some of these accusations, after the war Haushofer denied assisting Hitler in writing Mein Kampf, saying that he only knew of it once it was in print, and that he never read it. But Walsh found, as scholars have since, that even if Haushofer did not directly assist Hitler, discernible new elements appeared in Mein Kampf, as compared to previous speeches made by Hitler. Geopolitical ideas of lebensraum, space for depth of defense, appeals for natural frontiers, balancing land and seapower, and geographic analysis of military strategy entered Hitler's thought between his imprisonment and the publishing of Mein Kampf. Chapter XIV, on German policy in Eastern Europe, in particular displays the influence of the materials Haushofer brought Hitler and Hess while they were imprisoned. Hans Frank, the governor general of wartime Poland, quoted Hitler as telling him, "Landsberg was my university education at state expense."

Haushofer was never a member of the Nazi Party, and did voice disagreements with the party. Haushofer came under suspicion because of his contacts with left-wing socialist figures within the Nazi movement (led by Gregor Strasser) and because of his advocacy of essentially a German–Russian alliance. The Nazi left-wing had some connections to the Communist Party of Germany and some of its leaders, especially those who were influenced by the National Bolshevist philosophy of a German–Russian revolutionary alliance, as advocated by Ernst Niekisch (1889-1967), Julius Evola (1898-1974), Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), Friedrich Hielscher (1902-1990) and other figures of the "conservative revolution". Haushofer did profess loyalty to the Führer and make anti-Semitic remarks. However, his emphasis was always on space over race; he believed in environmental rather than racial determinism. In contrast to his personal hostility towards Jews, he declined to associate himself with anti-Semitism as a state policy, especially because his wife was half-Jewish. Haushofer claimed that after 1933 much of what he wrote was distorted under duress: his wife had to be protected by Hess's influence (who managed to have her awarded "honorary German" status). ), and his son and grandson were imprisoned for two and a half months.

Several authors have explored more obscure angles on the contact between Haushofer and the Nazi establishment. Suggestions such as Haushofer's connection to Gurdjieff's occultism, or that he had studied Zen Buddhism, or had been initiated at the hands of Tibetan lamas – are subject of debate.

The influence of Haushofer on Nazi ideology is dramatized in the 1943 short documentary propaganda film, Plan for Destruction, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

Works

 * Das Japanische Reich in seiner geographischen Entwicklung. Wien: L. W. Seidel & Sohn, 1921.
 * Geopolitik des Pazifischen Ozeans: Studien über die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Geographie und Geschichte. Heidelberg: Kurt Vowinckel Verlag, 1925; Bremen: Dogma, 2013.
 * Bausteine zur Geopolitik. Heidelberg: Kurt Vowinckel Verlag, 1928.
 * Weltpolitik von heute. Berlin: Zeitgeschichte-Verlag Wilhelm Undermann, 1934 (online).
 * Napoleon I. Lübeck: Coleman, 1935.
 * Kitchener. Lübeck: Coleman, 1935.
 * Foch. Lübeck: Coleman, 1935
 * Weltmeere und Weltmächte. Berlin: Zeitgeschichte-Verlag, 1937.
 * Deutsche Kulturpolitik im indopazifischen Raum. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1939.
 * Geopolitische Grundlagen. Berlin and Wien: Industrieverlag Spaeth & Linde, 1939.
 * Grenzen in ihrer geographischen und politischen Bedeutung. Heidelberg, Berlin and Magdeburg: Vowinckel, 1939.
 * Wehr-Geopolitik: Geographische Grundlagen einer Wehrkunde. Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1941.
 * Japan baut sein Reich. Berlin: Zeitgeschichte-Verlag Wilhelm Undermann, 1941.
 * Das Werden des deutschen Volkes: Von der Vielfalt der Stämme zur Einheit der Nation. Berlin: Propyläen-Verlag, 1941.
 * Der Kontinentalblock : Mitteleuropa, Eurasien, Japan. Berlin: Eher, 1941.
 * Das Reich: Großdeutsches Werden im Abendland. Berlin: Habel, 1943.
 * De la géopolitique. Paris: Fayard, 1986.
 * English Translation and Analysis of Major General Karl Ernst Haushofer's Geopolitics of the Pacific Ocean: Studies on the Relationship between Geography and History. Lewiston, New York and Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. ISBN 0-7734-7122-7.

title: Karl Haushofer


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Tobey Maguire

Tobias Vincent Maguire (born June 27, 1975) is an American actor and film producer. He starred as the title character in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007), and later reprised the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021).

Maguire started his career in supporting roles in the films This Boy's Life (1993), The Ice Storm, Deconstructing Harry (both 1997), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). His leading roles include Pleasantville (1998), Ride with the Devil (1999), The Cider House Rules (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), Seabiscuit (2003), The Good German (2006), Brothers (2009), The Great Gatsby (2013), and Pawn Sacrifice (2014).

Maguire received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Brothers (2009). He established his own production company in 2012 called Material Pictures, and co-produced Good People (2012), Pawn Sacrifice (2014), and Babylon (2022).

Early life and family
Tobias Vincent Maguire was born on June 27, 1975, in Santa Monica, California, to Wendy Brown and Vincent Maguire. His parents (who are both of Scottish ancestry) married shortly after his birth but separated when he was two years old, and Maguire spent much of his childhood living with various family members.

During his childhood, Maguire entertained the idea of becoming a chef and wanted to enroll in a home economics class as a sixth grader. His mother offered him $100 to take a drama class instead, and he agreed. The transient nature of his school years began to take a toll on Maguire emotionally, and after another relocation for his freshman year, he dropped out of high school and did not return. Instead, he pursued an acting career. By 2000, he had obtained his General Educational Development, noting that during his school days, "I was not doing school; I was showing up, but... not really giving myself."

1989–1995: Early career
Maguire's first appearance in a feature film was in 1989's The Wizard. He plays one of Lucas Barton's goons (one of three competitors at a video game competition) and had no lines. He worked as a child actor in the early 1990s, often playing roles much younger than his chronological age, and as late as 2002 he was still playing teenagers while in his mid-20s. He appeared in a variety of commercials and TV and movie roles, working opposite such actors as Chuck Norris (Walker, Texas Ranger), Roseanne Barr (Roseanne), and Tracey Ullman (Tracey Takes On...). Eventually, he was cast as the lead in the FOX TV series Great Scott!, which was canceled nine weeks later.

During many of his auditions, Maguire found himself auditioning for roles opposite another rising actor, Leonardo DiCaprio. The pair quickly became friends and made an informal pact to help each other get parts in their movies/TV shows/other projects. For example, both auditioned for the same part in the 1990 TV series based on the 1989 comedy Parenthood. DiCaprio was cast, and Maguire later got a guest role at least partly on DiCaprio's recommendation. The same scenario played itself out during casting for the 1993 movie This Boy's Life (featuring Robert De Niro as the lead); DiCaprio got the main teen role of character Tobias "Toby" Wolff and Maguire got a part as one of his friends.

1995–2002: Acclaim
By the mid-1990s, he was working steadily but was also becoming involved in the hard-partying lifestyle of some of his fellow young actors. In 1995, he requested director Allan Moyle to release him from his part in the movie Empire Records. Moyle agreed, and all of Maguire's scenes were deleted from the final film. Maguire then sought help for a drinking problem from Alcoholics Anonymous; he has been sober ever since.

As part of his recovery from alcoholism and learning to deal with his self-described "addictive and compulsive nature", Maguire changed his career path slightly to obtain roles where he and DiCaprio would not always be in competition for the same part, and the move paid off when given the role of Paul Hood, a teenage boarding school student whose narration anchors the action, in Ang Lee's 1997 film, The Ice Storm. This led to a variety of lead roles in films such as Pleasantville, The Cider House Rules, and Wonder Boys.

In the 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas he portrayed a hitchhiker who meets Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo during their drive to Las Vegas.

In Ride with the Devil (1999), Maguire portrayed Jakob Roedel, opposite Jewel Kilcher. Here he played the son of a unionist German immigrant who joins his southern friends in the Missouri riders, avenging the atrocities committed against Missourians by Kansas Jayhawkers and redleggers.

In 2001, Maguire took a role that featured his youthful-sounding voice, a beagle puppy named Lou, in the family movie Cats & Dogs.

2002–2013: Spider-Man and stardom
In 2002, Maguire starred in Spider-Man, based on the popular Marvel Comics superhero, Spider-Man. The film was a major success and made him a star. He reprised the role in the sequels Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and also voiced Spider-Man for the video game adaptations of the films.

His performance as Spider-Man earned him glowing reviews. Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribune wrote that "with his big, round, soulful eyes, Maguire always has been able to convey a sense of wonder, and his instinct for understatement also serves him well here." Due to script and production complications, a proposed fourth Spider-Man movie did not materialize. Sony's Columbia Pictures decided to reboot the franchise. The film, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, was released on July 3, 2012, with a different actor, Andrew Garfield, playing the lead.

Maguire had a lead role as the jockey John M. "Red" Pollard in Seabiscuit, about the famous racehorse Seabiscuit. In 2006, he starred in his first villainous role as Corporal Patrick Tully opposite George Clooney and Cate Blanchett in Steven Soderbergh's The Good German, based on the Joseph Kanon novel of the same name. He is also a producer whose production credits include 25th Hour (2002), Whatever We Do (2003), and Seabiscuit (2003), for which he served as executive producer.

In 2008, he made a cameo appearance in the action comedy film Tropic Thunder as a gay 18th century monk with his eye on Father O'Malley (Kirk Lazarus, the character played by Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder) in the faux trailer for Satan's Alley. He was a last-minute replacement in the role, and due to previously-scheduled commitments was only available to be on set for two hours to film his scenes. Near the end of Tropic Thunder, it is revealed that Maguire's character has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Satan's Alley, which he loses to Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) for his role in Tropic Blunder, presented by Kirk Lazarus.

In 2009, he starred alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman in the Jim Sheridan-directed war drama Brothers as Sam Cahill, a prisoner of war who returns from Afghanistan and starts believing that his wife has become romantically involved with his brother. He received critical acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the film. Of the nomination, Maguire said, "I had no expectation about getting a nomination, but I was watching nonetheless. My wife and my son got really excited. I was sort of surprised – I was like, 'Oh, wow.' And I couldn't hear the latter part of my name." Maguire lost to Jeff Bridges for his role in Crazy Heart. Gyllenhaal himself has said that Maguire's acting in Brothers had influenced him. Maguire was also initially set to star as The Writer in Life of Pi (2012), directed by Ang Lee but was cut from the film during production for being "too recogniseable" and was replaced by Rafe Spall, with Lee deciding to reshoot the scenes he had shot with Maguire.

In 2012, Maguire was a co-producer of Good People. That same year, he also established his own production company, Material Pictures, which secured independent financing in 2013 to help it produce more feature films. Maguire and DiCaprio once again performed together, in Baz Luhrmann's remake of The Great Gatsby (2013); DiCaprio played the title role, while Maguire played the story's narrator, Nick Carraway.

2013–present: Limited work
His next film, Pawn Sacrifice (2014), was also co-produced by Material Pictures. It was a Cold War thriller based on the true story of American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer, played by Maguire. The film details the events leading up to and including the world chess championship in 1972, when Fischer challenges Soviet chess grandmaster and world champion, Boris Spassky, acted by Liev Schreiber. It received mostly positive reviews. Maguire reunited with Alec Baldwin after Cats & Dogs (2001) in the animated movie The Boss Baby (2017), where he voiced the adult version of Tim Templeton.

Maguire reprised his role as Peter Parker / Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), alongside successors Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield. He appeared in Damien Chazelle's ensemble film Babylon, where he was also an executive producer.

Personal life
Maguire has been a vegetarian since 1992; in 2009, he became a vegan. He has made changes in his diet to either gain or lose weight for film roles: he dramatically decreased his calorie intake for Seabiscuit, followed by a rapid increase to regain weight for Spider-Man 2. Maguire has been sober since age 19, having experienced "some difficulty" with alcohol in his late teens.

Maguire met jewelry designer Jennifer Meyer in 2003 while he was shooting Seabiscuit at Universal Studios, and they became engaged in April 2006. Their daughter was born in November that year. Meyer's father, Universal studios head Ronald Meyer, reportedly helped Maguire regain his job after being fired from Spider-Man 2 in 2003. Maguire and Meyer married on September 3, 2007, in Kailua Kona, Hawaii. Their second child, a son, was born in May 2009. On October 18, 2016, the couple announced their separation after nine years of marriage. In 2020, Meyer filed for divorce after four years of separation.

Tournament poker controversy
In 2004, Maguire took up tournament poker. He has finished in the money in several events and has been tutored by poker professional Daniel Negreanu. Maguire was seen on ESPN's coverage of the 2005, 2006, and 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event Championship. He was one of many celebrities, along with Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck, who participated in Molly Bloom's high-stake poker games at The Viper Room in the mid-2000s, and received negative press coverage for allegedly demanding Bloom "bark like a seal" for a $1,000 poker chip after a tournament he won. Maguire's actions at the game, as well as those of other celebrities, are portrayed by Michael Cera in the film Molly's Game through the composite character "Player X".

title: Tobey Maguire