In the 1920s, architect Hermann Soergel had a wild idea to build a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar, drain water into the Sahara Desert, and form lots of new land in the Mediterranean basin to colonize.
Soergel's purpose in this plan was political: to unite Europe and Africa (and the Americas) against Asia. Of course, this plan was never more than an idea, which Soergel published in 1929. Link -via io9
The master plan at work was that the world would be divided into three economic spheres in the future, all beginning with the letter “A”: American, Asia, and the new land to be created by Soergel, “Atlantropa”, which was the former Europe expanded into the new dry beds of the Mediterranean and North Africa. And also of course Egypt, which would be covered with "thousands" of canals and become semi-submerged by the new borders of the meandering sea. This would be the way for Europa to compete with the rest of the world in the future.
Soergel's purpose in this plan was political: to unite Europe and Africa (and the Americas) against Asia. Of course, this plan was never more than an idea, which Soergel published in 1929. Link -via io9
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I recall there being some variation on this plan in Philip K. Dick's *Man in the High Castle*.
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