When Mackinder delivered his 1904 lecture, the new age he presented was one in which the continental and maritime worlds would struggle for global dominion. He even began to envisage the possibility of a world state. This ambitious lecture greeted the coming world war with enthusiasm. We could say that it represented the thinking of “Mackinder in his prime.” After the First World War, however, his theory underwent an important change. This is evident in Democratic Ideals and Reality, published in 1919, which in fact expresses the thinking of the “older Mackinder.” This shift had two key aspects:
麦金德发表1904年的演讲的时候，展现的新时代乃是大陆与海洋世界争夺全球统治权的时代，他甚至开始构想全球国家的可能性。这个演讲雄心勃勃，对即将到来的世界大战欢心鼓舞。可以说，这篇演讲代表了“壮年麦金德”的思想。然而，经过第一次世界大战后，他的理论发生了重要的变化。这就体现在1919年《民主的理想与现实》里，这其实体现了“老年麦金德”的思想。这个转变的关键在两个方面：
On the one hand, he moved from emphasizing the binary opposition between land and sea to viewing the world from outer space. From this perspective, he proposed the concepts of the “World-Island” and the “Round World.” Although these concepts revolved around Eurasia, they viewed the world from outer space and thus regarded humanity as an indivisible whole.
一方面从强调大陆与海洋之间二元对立，转向从从太空的角度看世界，由此提出了“世界岛”和“环形世界”的概念，这些概念虽然围绕欧亚大陆展开，但却是从太空的角度世界，从而将人类看作是一个不可分割的整体。
On the other hand, he shifted from geostrategic thinking about how the maritime world could compete for global dominion to considering how it could maintain world peace under Western rule once that dominion had been secured. Behind this shift was a change in the leading political actor, from the British Empire to an Anglo-American alliance. Thus, while the United States was regarded as a “great Eastern power” in the 1904 lecture, it occupied a central and crucial position in the 1919 book.
另一方面从海洋世界如何争夺全球统治权的地缘战略思考，转向了海洋世界获得全球统治权之后如何维持西方治下的世界和平，而这个转变的背后就是政治主角从大英帝国转向了美英联盟。所以，在1904年演讲中，美国被看作是“东方大国”，而在1919年的著作中美国占据了核心重要地位。
Accordingly, in his 1919 book Democratic Ideals and Reality, what he called “democracy” increasingly encompassed an idea of balance: a balance among various natural forces, social forces, and ways of life. He championed the “League of Nations” because he did not want a single immensely powerful country to step forward and organize the world order. Instead, he desired equilibrium, believing that equilibrium could in fact preserve world peace.
因此，在1919年的《民主》一书中，他所说的“民主”更多地包含了一种平衡的观念，是各种自然力量、社会力量和生活方式之间的平衡。他之所以推崇“国际联盟”，就是不希望世界上有一个非常强大的国家来出面组织秩序，反而是渴望均衡，认为均衡的结果反而能保持世界的和平。
To this end, he also criticized so-called industrial capitalism and its consequences, placing particular emphasis instead on certain new developments emerging within socialism and agrarian socialism. The transformation from “Mackinder in his prime” to the “older Mackinder” stemmed to a great extent from his realist thinking. Mackinder had already recognized that for any country to seek to become a world state ruling the entire globe meant possessing absolute technological and geographical superiority. The inevitable result would be geopolitical conflict throughout the world.
为此，他也对所谓的工业资本主义及其结果进行了批判，反而特别强调社会主义、农业社会主义里涌现出来的一些新东西。从“壮年麦金德”到“老年麦金德”的转化很大程度上是源于他的现实主义思考。麦金德已经看到只要是任何一个国家想成为一个统治全球的世界国家，就意味着在技术上和地缘上优越绝对的优势，其结果必然导致地缘政治上的整个世界冲突。