For a long time, Vidal de la Blache was considered an opponent of Friedrich Ratzel’s ideas, especially in Brazil. Analysis of several Vidal’s texts has shown that it did not exist and that Ratzel had a important influence in some of the French geographer conceptions. This is the fact that the article aims to detach, besides exposing the reasons of putting this “rivalry” and analyzing Vidal’s writings to demonstrate this last one’s respect for the Prussian geographer conceptions.
Vidal de la Blache; Friedrich Ratzel; Possibilism; Determinism