It is well known among philosophers that Heidegger was a member of the Nazi party and that this is an event that has to be taken into account in any interpretation of his work. For some people as Richard Polt points out in his excellent book on Heidegger, this means that Heidegger’s thought need not be bothered with. As he notes, this is a case of “bad man = bad philosopher” (attributed to Gilbert Ryle). For others, the opposite might be true; that Heidegger’s membership and active involvement needs to be nuanced, put in context, or perhaps divorced from the work.

A similar although lesser known case exists in geography around the person of Walter Christaller. A new and I believe, highly significant paper on Christaller is forthcoming from the Annals of the AAG by my colleagues Trevor Barnes and Claudio Minca. The paper is about the links between spatial theory and…