Yves Lacoste facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yves Lacoste
|
|
|---|---|
Lacoste in 1972
|
|
| Born | September 7, 1929 Fez, Morocco
|
| Known for | Forensic analysis of the US bombing campaign of the Red River Delta |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of Paris 8 |
| Thesis | Transformational Analysis (1955) |
Yves Lacoste (born 7 September 1929) is a famous French geographer. He is well-known for his strong beliefs and his important work in a field called geopolitics. Geopolitics looks at how geography and politics are connected.
Yves Lacoste was born in Fez, Morocco. His father was a geologist, who studies rocks and the Earth, and his mother was a librarian. He grew up in Morocco before moving to France for his higher education at the Sorbonne university.
After finishing his studies in geography, Lacoste started teaching in Algeria. He was involved in movements that wanted countries to be independent from colonial rule. Later, he returned to France and continued his research. He focused on how some countries were "underdeveloped" and the history of the Maghreb region in North Africa.
In 1979, he earned his highest degree with a study called "Unity and Diversity of the Third World." In 1989, he started a research center that is now called the French Institute of Geopolitics. Lacoste is known for his new ways of looking at geography. He combines natural features of the land with political situations in his studies. He also started a journal called Hérodote.
He is recognized around the world for his work. In 2000, he received the Vautrin-Lud prize, which is a very important award in geography. Throughout his life, Lacoste has taught and shared his ideas about geopolitics in the media.
Life and Key Ideas
In 1976, Yves Lacoste started the French geopolitics journal Hérodote. He also published a very influential book titled La Géographie ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre. The main idea of this book was that geography is a type of knowledge used in military plans and political power.
Lacoste became famous internationally in 1972 during the Vietnam War. He published a detailed geographical study of the US bombing in the Red River Delta. He agreed with the North Vietnamese government's claims that the US was purposely targeting the river's water systems. This was an attempt to cause floods and harm many civilians, which was considered a war crime.
Today, he is still a co-editor of Hérodote with Beatrice Giblin. He also leads the French Institute of Geopolitics at the University of Paris VIII.
What is Geopolitics?
Yves Lacoste played a big part in bringing the word geopolitics back into use in French and English. This word had a bad reputation because it was linked to the Nazi regime and a German geographer named Karl Haushofer.
Lacoste focuses on how power struggles happen over different areas of land. He defines geopolitics as the study of these rivalries. These struggles can happen on many levels, from worldwide conflicts to local disagreements over a small area.
In an earlier book, La Géographie du sous-développement, Lacoste also explained how geography can help us understand why some countries are less developed than others.
Important Books
Yves Lacoste has written many books that share his ideas about geography and geopolitics. Here are some of his well-known works:
- Les Pays sous-développés (1959)
- Géographie du sous-développement (1965)
- Ibn Khaldoun - Naissance de l'histoire du Tiers-Monde (1965)
- La Géographie ça sert d'abord à faire la guerre (1976) ISBN: 2-7071-0815-4
- Contre les anti-tiersmondistes et contre certains tiersmondistes (1985)
- Géopolitique des régions françaises (1986)
- vol 1: La France septentrionale
- vol 2: La Façade atlantique
- vol 3: La France du sud-est
- Dictionnaire de Géopolitique (1993) ISBN: 2-08-035101-X
- Dictionnaire géopolitique des États (1994) ISBN: 2-08-035104-4
- La Légende de la terre (1996) ISBN: 2-08-035446-9
- Vive la Nation - Destin d'une idée géopolitique (1998) ISBN: 2-213-59613-1
- L'Eau des hommes (2002) ISBN: 2-7022-0628-X
- De la Géopolitique aux Paysages. Dictionnaire de la Géographie (2003) ISBN: 2-200-26538-7
- Maghreb, peuple et civilisation (2004) ISBN: 2-7071-4432-0
- Géopolitique. La longue histoire d'aujourd'hui (2006) ISBN: 2-03-505421-4
- L'Eau dans le monde : les batailles pour la vie (2006) ISBN: 2-03-582578-4
- Géopolitique de la Méditerranée (2006) ISBN: 2-200-26840-8
See also
In Spanish: Yves Lacoste para niños
