[Sidenote: Political versus social geography.]

The land is a more conspicuous factor in the history of states than in
the history of society, but not more necessary and potent. Wars, which
constitute so large a part of political history, have usually aimed more
or less directly at acquisition or retention of territory; they have
made every petty quarrel the pretext for mulcting the weaker nation of
part of its land. Political maps are therefore subject to sudden and
radical alterations, as when France's name was wiped off the North
American continent in 1763, or when recently Spain's sovereignty in the
Western Hemisphere was obliterated. But the race stocks, languages,
customs, and institutions of both France and Spain remained after the
flags had departed. The reason is that society is far more deeply rooted
in the land than is a state, does not expand or contract its area so
readily. Society is always, in a sense, _adscripta glebae_; an expanding
state which incorporates a new piece of territory inevitably
incorporates its inhabitants, unless it exterminates or expels them. Yet
because racial and social geography changes slowly, quietly and
imperceptibly, like all those fundamental processes which we call
growth, it is not so easy and obvious a task to formulate a natural law
for the territorial relations of the various hunter, pastoral nomadic,
agricultural, and industrial types of society as for those of the
growing state.

[Sidenote: Land basis of society.]

Most systems of sociology treat man as if he were in some way detached
from the earth's surface; they ignore the land basis of society. The
anthropo-geographer recognizes the various social forces, economic and