Environmental determinism has been widely criticized as a tool to legitimize colonialism, racism,

and imperialism in Africa, North America, South America, and Asia.[2]Environmental determinism
enabled geographers to scientifically justify the supremacy of white European races and the
naturalness of imperialism.[10] The scholarship bolstered religious justifications and in some cases
superseded them during the late 19th century.
Many writers, including Thomas Jefferson, supported and legitimized African colonization by arguing
that tropical climates made peoples uncivilized. Jefferson argued that tropical climates encouraged
laziness, relaxed attitudes, promiscuity and generally degenerative societies, while the frequent
variability in the weather of the middle and northern latitudes led to stronger work ethics and civilized
societies.[12]
Ellen Churchill Semple, a prominent environmental determinism scholar, applied her theories in a
case study which focused on the Philippines, where she mapped civilization and wildness onto
the topography of the islands.[10] Other scholars argued that climate and topography caused specific
character traits to appear in a given populations. Scholars thereby imposed racial stereotypes on
whole societies.[10] Imperial powers rationalized labor exploitation by claiming that tropical peoples
were morally inferior.

Neo-environmental determinism examines how the physical environment predisposes societies and
states towards particular trajectories of economic and political development. It explores how
geographic and ecological forces influence state-building, economic development, and institutions. It
also addresses fears surrounding the effects of modern climate change. [19] Jared Diamond was
influential in the resurgence of environmental determinism due to the popularity of his book Guns,
Germs, and Steel, which addresses the geographic origins of state formation prior to 1500 A.D. [20]
Neo-environmental determinism scholars debate how much the physical environment shapes
economic and political institutions. Economic historians Stanley Engermanand Kenneth
Sokoloff argue that factor endowments greatly affected "institutional" development in the Americas,
by which they mean the tendency to more free (democratic, free market) or unfree (dictatorial,
economically restrictive) regimes.
In economics a country's factor endowment is commonly understood as the amount
of land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship that a country possesses and can exploit
for manufacturing. Countries with a large endowment of resources tend to be more prosperous than
those with a small endowment, all other things being equal. The development of sound institutions to

access and equitably distribute these resources, however, is necessary in order for a country to
obtain the greatest benefit from its factor endowment.