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A few weeks later, he left Oxford to launch his climbing expedition in East Africa. The ascent of Mount Kenya and its aftermath. Landing in Mombasa, Mackinder found a country ravaged by famine and received the necessary supplies for his expedition only after some negotiation with local colonial authorities.
He and his party proceeded then to Nairobi, where they recruited native guides and porters for the march to Mount Kenya. The expedition moved northward in late July, hoping to reach the mountain before the end of summer, but the travel was not a pleasant one: porters were often whipped for minor disciplinary infractions, while relations with local villages were tense due to mutual mistrust and the racist attitudes of the white members of the expedition. Swahili porters dressed in Alpine clothes for the climbing of Mount Kenya, After four weeks of march, the expedition reached the surroundings of Mount Kenya and began the ascent of its peak, despite the relative lack of food supplies and proper climbing equipment.
The task was successfully completed on September 13, with Mackinder exhilarated by the natural spectacle of the glacier summit at noon. However, eight porters were shot for insubordination and the return to Nairobi was plagued by the same problems and tensions of the outward journey.
But Mackinder did not show any regret for the human cost of his adventure. The first move was to appoint a capable assistant reader and lecturer for physical geography. Herbertson was mainly interested in regional geography and this provided a valid complement to the more global outlook of his senior colleague.
One year later, Mackinder became officially the new director of the LSE and this limited his involvement in academic activities at Oxford, though he was dutifully reappointed as reader in geography by university authorities.
By , the School was attended by more than students and released regular diplomas and certificates at the end of the year.
These results helped to launch a bid for the establishment of a full professorship of geography at the university. There were some quarrels about the initiative, but the position was finally awarded to Herbertson, who enjoyed the support of most of his colleagues.
After this development, Mackinder left the School to pursue his growing political interests, which led him to join the tariff reform campaign of Joseph Chamberlain and to become a Unionist MP for Glasgow in From to , he was also chairman of the Imperial Shipping Committee, putting his academic expertise and organisational skills in direct service of the British Empire.
Mackinder in Oxford: a mixed legacy. On the one hand, the university was pivotal for his political and intellectual formation, nurturing both his patriotic enthusiasm for the British Empire and his ambitious view of geography as a broad universal subject. The RGS lecture of would have been impossible without the cultural influence of J.
Seeley and the other great exponents of the Oxford historical tradition. As their most celebrated works, it was a clear attempt to paint the history of the world on a large canvas, providing useful and reassuring answers to a nervous imperial nation.
His personal debt to the university was thus very significant. Yet Oxford was also a source of deep frustration for Mackinder. A full professorship and a proper honors degree in geography were recognised only in the s.
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