Geographical Thought R D Dikshit Sir

https://t.
me/joinchat/AAAAAFFALE7Yd2cj6HyKew
GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT
A Contextual History of Ideas
by
R.D. DIKSHIT
Formerly, Professor of Geograpby,
Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak
New Delhi-110001
2011
https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAFFALE7Yd2cj6HyKew
https://telegram.me/UPSC_CivilServiceBooks
� 225.00
GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT: A Contextual History of Ideas

by R.O. Dikshit
© 1997 by PHI Leaming Private Limited, New Delhi. All rights reserved. No part
of this book may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any other
means, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN-978-81-203-1182-4
The export rights of this book are vested solely with the publisher.
Tenth Printing ••• • •• April, 2011
Published by Asoke K. Ghosh, PHI Learning Private Limited, M-97, Connaught

Circus, New Delhi-110001 and Printed by Rajkamal Electric Press, Plot No. 2,
Phase IV, HSIDC, Kundli-131028, Sonepat, Haryana.
Contents
•
Preface IX
Introduction 1-16
Anomalous Status of Geography as a Discipline 1
Place of Geography in Classification of the Sciences 3
Three Essential Characteristics of Geographical Work 5
Geography, a European Science 6
Geography and the Rise of the Scientific Revolution 8
The Developing Nature of Geography 9
Organization of the Present Volume 13
The Contextual Approach to History of Ideas 14
1. The First Foundations: Developments upto the Eighteenth

Century 17-37
Contributions of the Greeks and the Romans 17
Geography in the Middle Ages 22
Geography in the Arab Lands 23
The Age of Exploration 25
The Impact of Discoveries 30
The New Geography of the 18th Century 34
Placing Geography in the Classification of Sciences:
The Contribution of Immanuel Kant 35
2. Geography in the Nineteenth Century: The Age of

Humboldt, 1790-1859 38 61
Science and Philosophy at the End of the Eighteenth Century 38
Alexander von Humboldt 42
Carl Ritter (1779-1859) and His Contribution to Geography
as a Discipline 53
Legacy of Humboldt and Ritter 57
Some Eminent Followers 58
3. Geography after Humboldt and Ritter: Developments in

Ge1111any 62-83
The Intellectual Climate of the Time 62
The Crisis of Identity in Geography 63
Developments in Ger111any 65
Rise of Dualism between Physical and Human Geography 65
Vi CONTENTS
Re-establishment of Geography as an Integrated Science:

The Study of Man-Land Relationships 68
Integration through the Concept of Chorology 72
Geography as a Landscape Science 79
4. Geography after Humboldt and Ritter: Developments

Outside Ge,n,any 84-115
Developments in France 84
Developments in Great Britain 89
Developments in Russia 94
Developments in the United States 100
5. Developments in Geography Since World War II:

From Areal to Spatial Analysis 116-133
Sources of Dissatisfaction with Regional Geography 116
The Schaefer-Hartshorne Debate: From Regional
Exceptionalism to Generalization and Theory 118
The Course of Development of Geography as a
Science of Spatial A'i'alysis 121
On the Nature of Positivist Explanation 127
6. Behavioural Persua,ion in Geography and the Rise of

Humanistic Geogr,n>hy 134-158
Behavioural Geography 135
Humanistic Geography 146
The Practice of Humanistic Geography 152
Contributions of Humanistic Geography to Human
Geography 154
7. The Call for Social Relevance in Research: Reorientation

to Political Economy 159-182
The Rise of the Relevance Movement 159
The Political Economy Perspective in Human Geography 168
Geography and Social Justice 172
Modem Geography and Western Marxism: The Subordination
of Space in Social Theory, 1880-1920 176
Geography and Sociology 179
8. The Regional Concept and Regional Geography 183-204

The Region 185
Regional Geography 197
The Grigg-Bunge Debate (1966): "The One and the Only
Revolution in Geography" 200
CONTENTS vii
9. The Historical Explanation in Geography 205-229

The Role of Time and Genesis in Geography 205
Major Areas of Temporal Explanation in Geography 208
Three Realms of Historical Geography: Real, Imagined,
and Abstract Worlds of the Past 217
The Need for Distinguishing between the Role of the
Past in Nature and Culture: Collingwood' s Theory
of Historical Knowing 218
Geosophy and Historical Geography 219
"Ideology", Marxist History and Historical Geography 220
10. Impact of Evolutionary Biology on Geographical Thought

Organization and Ecosystem as Geographical Models 230-241
The Darwinian Theory of Evolution 231
Ecology and Ecosystem as a Geographical Principle
and Method 237
11. Geography and Environmentalism 242-253

Man-Nature Relationship 242
Nature-as-Nurture: The Current View of Man-Environment
Relations 246
12. Place, Space and Locality: The Current Focus in Human

Geography 254-262
Locale, Location and Sense of Place 254
Focus on Localities: The Rise of New Regional
Geography 256
The Locality Research and the Social Science Theory 259
13. The Geography of Gender 263-269

Feminist Geography 263
Feminism and Phenomenological and Humanistic
Approaches in Geography 265
14. Modern versus Post-Modern Geographies 270-282

The Meaning of the Two Terms 270
The Changeover to Post-Modem Geography 276
15. Progress Since World War II: Continuity, Change,

Rapprochement, and Convergence 283-290
Index 291-300
Preface
This book is the outgrowth of over twentyfive years of teaching and

interaction with the graduate students at various universities. It represents
the fruits of my concerted effort to develop a course 'structure' on
geographical thought with a view to enable the student to visualize the
history of geography as a professional field and to stimulate interest in the
conceptual evolution of the subject as a discipline focussed on understanding
man's relation with his environment.
The main focus of the book is on modern geography since the end of
the eighteenth century-the Age of Humboldt-the period to which the
birth of modern geography is generally traced. But the earlier periods
have not been neglected. As such, the book includes discussions on the
development of the content and methodology of geography beginning with
the ancient Greeks (to whom the European tradition of geographical learning
is traced), the Arab ascendancy in geographical learning during the middle
ages (when geographical learning in Europe had suffered complete eclipse
owing to the stranglehold of theocracy), followed by a comprehensive
statement on the age of exploration in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
(when the greatly expanded horizon of geographical knowledge about lands
and peoples across the globe stimulated a renewed spirit of inquiry about
man's relationship with nature). The rising importance of geographical
knowledge, during this period when the earth surface had become a closed
system of interacting parts through the transformation of the previously
intractable oceans into high seas, had greatly added to the prestige of
geography as a branch of learning. Such a perspective on past development
provides the necessary background for a wholesome understanding of the
later developments in concept and methodology.
The approach is all through contextual, so that each phase of
development, and each major thinker and innovator, is placed in the context
of his time, and is viewed against the backdrop of the contemporary
intellectual, socio-economic, and cultural cross-currents. Such an approach
helps us appreciate each conceptual-theoretical advance in its correct
perspective, and thereby highlights the status of geography as a science
actively participating in the resolution of societal problems of the day. The
contextual approach to the study of the history of ideas in geography makes
the study of the subject an attractive and stimulating engagement.
The purpose of this volume is to provide a handy but comprehensive
textbook for students preparing for Honours and postgraduate degrees
in geography in Indian universities. It should be equally useful to students
at this level elsewhere in the Third World. The book is written in an easy
and straightforward style in order that the subject matter becomes easy. to
•
IX
X PREFACE
grasp. Every aspect of the development of geographical thought has been

covered so that this book should stand out as a handy and self-sufficient
text, meeting the course requirements in the different Indian universities.
The wide coverage of the text should also make it a useful guide for the
aspirants for higher competitive examinations. The latest trends in the
discipline up to the 1990s have been discussed in order to make this volume
an up-to-date and comprehensive statement on the subject.
This book has been in the making for a long time. I have enjoyed
writing and discussing it with students and colleagues. I hope it will
succeed in imparting some of this joy to the young geographers in the
making, for whom it is designed. Suggestions for improvement would be
gratefully acknowledged and incorporated in future editions wherever
necessar y.
R.D. Dikshit
Introduction
Geography, as a branch of learning, is focused on understanding the

relationship between man and nature. The edifice of geography as a discipline
is thus built on the experiences of successive generations of mankind (since
the dawn of history) in trying to comprehend the world of which their own
homeland forms but a small part. Viewed thus, history of geography is
fundamentally concerned with the development of human consciousness
about the possibilities and limitations that the external world of nature
presents for man's growth and progress. The thirst for geographical
knowledge is as old as human curiosity, since some of the earliest questions
agitating the mind of primitive man must have related to the character of
his natural surroundings. There is a natural urge in man to gain knowledge
about the lands and peoples living beyond his own territory. Such a curiosity
is at least partly utilitarian since the world beyond the familiar may contain
greener pastures and present greater possibilities for adventure.
The word geography was first used by the Greek scholar Erastosthenes
in the third century B.C. It is derived from the Greek ge (the earth) and
graphe (description), so that geography as a discipline is focused on the
description of the earth surface as the world of man. Thus, according to
Hartshorne (1959), as a discipline, "geography is concerned to provide
accurate, orderly, and rational description and interpretation of the variable
character of the Earth surface". By the phrase "Earth surface", geographers
imply the thin zone extending as far down below the surface as man has
been able to penetrate and as far high above the surface as man normally
goes. Since man's reach above as well as below the earth surface is relative
to the level of technological progress, the thickness of this zone of study
has been progressively increasing. This zone has been the universe of all
human endeavour-all art and science except for space explorations
since 1969.
ANOMALOUS STATUS OF GEOGRAPHY AS A DISCIPLINE

The focus of geography on ;'the earth surface as the world of man" as its
special field of inquiry had put it in a somewhat anomalous position within
the traditional organization of knowledge into distinct disciplines, since
one of the basic premises of the principle of this organization was the
fundamental separation between man and nature. Study of man was the
realm of humanities and the social sciences whereas the sciences focused
on the study of aspects of nature. Geography's difficulty arose from the
1
• https://t.me/joinchat/AAAAAFFALE7Yd2cj6HyKew
2 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
fact that focus on the study of the surface of the earth simultaneously
required focus on man as well as nature since the earth surface comprises
both man-made phenomena, as well as those of natural origin produced by
physical, chemical, and biotic processes. As such, geography could neither
claim status as a pure science nor as a pure human or social science subject.
This was the source of much confusion in the fo11native phase of geography
as a modem discipline in the nineteenth century when division of knowledge
into distinct disciplines was being concretized.
The intensity of the problem was all the more grave because, although
one of the oldest subjects of scholarly speculation, geography was a late
starter as a university level discipline. The first university departments of
geography headed by professors began to be established only in the 1870s
by which time the other disciplines studying man and nature had already
carved out their own specific areas of inquiry. Humboldt and Ritter had
demonstrated the usefulness of geography as an integrated study of the
earth surface as the world of man in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Humboldt claimed for it the status of a universal science. His status as the
greatest living scholar of his time had not posed much difficulty in the
location of geography in the academia in his lifetime. The confusion, however,
greatly intensified by the mid-century after his death which coincided with
the period of maximum concretization of disciplinary division. The result
was that the status of geography vis-a-vis the social sciences on the one
hand and the natural/physical sciences on the other, could be resolved
only in the 1880s through the exertions of many scholars, most prominent
among them being Ratzel and Richthofen in Germany, and Vidal de la
Blache in France, who variously projected it as an integrated study of the
great man-environment system representing the universe of human action
as against the other systematic sciences each of which focused on particular
aspects of the man-environment reality in isolation. The intellectual origins
of geography as a distinct field of study focused on the great man
environment system go back to the ancient Greeks who viewed man as an
integral part of nature, so that geographical description of places in Greek
literature included the treatment of all organic as well as inorganic
phenomena (including man).
Glacken (1967) has identified three different views of the man
environment relationship in the history of Western thought before the
nineteenth century. The earliest was the view of mankind in harmony with
nature; next came the view that,·man's life upon earth is dominated by
nature, to be followed by the view that man dominates nature through
technological intervention. The view of geography as an integrated science
of man-environment relationships is a legacy of the classical Greek period.
However, the changing mood of society on the issue of man-environment
relationships was inevitably reflected in later debates regarding determinism
and possibilism in geographical literature. The former approach held that
nature determines the course of human development and progress whereas
the latter approach held that in the last analysis it is human will and
INTRODUCTION 3
ingenuity that decide in what direction progress shall take place. The
protagonists of this approach believed that nature offers many possibilities,
many possible directions of progress. The direction actually chosen depends
on human choice. In the current phase of environmental protectionism and
advocacy for the maintenance of ecological balance in nature, we are once
again back to the classical Greek tradition in this regard. •
PLACE OF GEOGRAPHY IN CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

The confusion regarding the place of geography in the context of the division
of knowledge into systematic fields had continued to agitate the minds of
scholars until the last quarter of the nineteenth century despite the fact that
German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) had cogently addressed
this question in his twofold scheme of classification of knowledge: one
logical and the other physical. Logical classification grouped i11dividual
items into separate classes on the basis of morphological similarities and
similarity in the processes of origin. This was the basis of the division of
knowledge into a series of systematic sciences (or "natural systems"). Such
a grouping of items for study completely ignored considerations of place
and time of occurrence of the phenomena concerned. Physical classification,
on the other hand, grouped phenomena that belonged to the same place or
the same time. Classification in terms of time is history, that in terms of
space, geography. History reports on phenomena that follow one another
in terms of time, and geography reports phenomena that exist together in
horizontal space on the earth surface. Thus, history is narrative and
geography a description. Together, the two fill up the entire circumference
of human perceptions. Both are integrating disciplines, and for that reason,
history and geography are bound together by mutual relation between
time and space, despite the fact that their bases of integration-history,
time; geography, space-are separate and apparently unrelated.
Reality is simultaneously historical as well as spatial in that the present
day phenomena occurring together in particular places on the earth surface
represent the end product of processes of historical evolution. Likewise, all
historical events had occurred in the contemporary contexts of place and
space. Kant saw man and his works in intimate association with nature
and he gave due recognition to man's role in modifying nature. As May
(1970, pp. 147-151) has analyzed, Kant's concept of geography as the study
of phenomena arranged in space, and of history as the study of phenomena
arranged in time periods, represented a secondary division of his larger
scheme of classification of fields of knowledge for convenience of academic
treatment. The question of creating barriers between different branches of
knowledge was furthest from his thought. For Kant, "Geography is an
empirical science, seeking to present a 'system of nature', and is a law
finding discipline" (James, 1972, p. 144). In his book on Critique of Pure
Reason (1781) Kant had clearly underlined mutuality of time and space
relations when he stated that: "Space is not something objective and real,
nor is it a substance or an accident, or a relation, but it is subjective and

ideal, and proceeds from the nature of the mind by an unchanging law, as
a schema for coordinating with each other absolutely all things externally
sensed" (cited in Richards, 1974). Thus, Kant subscribed to the view of
cognitive structuring of space by the human actor, so that for him there
was no subject-object dichotomy and, by implication, time and space dualism.
This is indeed how geographers view their discipline today. The current
generation of geographers shares a common concern with history in seeking
full contextual explanation of phenomena occurring together in parts of
the earth surface as the world of man. In this sense, geography is focused
on the particular, and involves in-depth study of particular places so that
it may appear idiographic in perspective. Geography simultaneously shares
a common concern with other sciences in identifying the general laws of
organization and behaviour through comparative analyses of particular
types of phenomena (or relations) in different parts of the earth's surface.
Tne general principles so identified form a major input in the comprehension
of the geography of particular places. Geography is, therefore, simultaneously
regional as well as systematic. The fundamental purpose of geography is
to comprehend the earth as the world of man, so that "The history of
geographical ideas is the record of man's effort to gain more and more
logical and useful knowledge of the human habitat and of man's spread
over the earth: Logical in that explanations of the things observed could be
so tested and verified that scholars could have confidence in them; and
useful in that the knowledge so gained could be used to facilitate man's
adjustment to the varied natural conditions of the earth, to make possible
modifications of adverse conditions, or even to gain a measure of control
over them" Games, 1972, p. 4).
Geographical work involves seeking answers to three closely related
sets of questions. These are: What is it? What is it like? What does it mean?
The first relates to location, both absolute (i.e., in terms of latitudes and
longitudes) and relative (i.e., in terms of accessibility of other known places).
Location determines the spatial context in which things are placed�a context
which to a great extent influences the precise character of its physical and
human geography. Places in tropical latitudes have hot climate but places
located on the western margins of landmasses experience a hot and dry
climate while thos,;, on the eastern margins experience a hot and wet climate.
Likewise, location in relation to cities and highways makes a lot of difference
to the nature of place prosperity.
The second question relates to description of the observed phenomena
in a given place. Since every point on the earth surface differs from every
other point in microscopic terms, all observations and therefore, all
descriptions are by nature partial rather than complete. Our observations
are guided by the purpose of the investigation in hand, and are, therefore,
always selective. Furthermore, observations are guided by preconceived
images about phenomena made on the basis of previous knowledge. Mental
images about phenomena are known as co11cepts, as distinguished from
INTRODUCTION 5
direct observations in the field which are called percepts. The for111er represent
theory and the latter, reality. However, the mental structuring of the observer
differs according to each person's cultural background and training.
Accordingly, the nature of the reality presented by different observers may
also differ. This poses an apparent paradox, since though concepts
detennine how the phenomena are perceived, they represent generalizations
based on previous observations which may themselves have been guided
by subjective images of reality. In academic practice, this paradox is resolved
by the fact that:
the trained observer is taught to accept a set of concepts in graduate
school, and then sharpens or changes the concepts during professional
career. In any one field of scholarship, professional opinion at any time
determines what concepts and procedures are acceptable; and these form
a kind of model, or paradigm, of scholarly behaviour. Such a body of
doctrine determines what problems are considered worth investigating,
what kinds of answers are professionally acceptable. But at all times,
accepted concepts and procedures based on them are subject to challenge.
Progress is achieved when one working hypothesis is replaced by another
Games, 1972, p. 7).
The last question, "What does the observed phenomenon mean?",
refers to its meaning in the context of the underlying premise of an orderly
world-that is, of the universe conceived as a system of harmoniously
related parts. In science, orderliness is accounted for in the recognition of
cause and effect sequences taking place in accordance with some general
law. Two different ways of representing cause and effect sequences are
recognized: one deductive and the other inductive. The for111er proceeds
from the general to the particular, and the latter follows the reverse path
from the particular to the general.
THREE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GEOGRAPHICAL WORK

Following Haggett (1994), three essential characteristics of geographical
work may be identified:
1. Emphasis on location. In geography, we try to establish locations
of phenomena on the earth surface accurately and economically on the
map. Thus cartography (or mapmaking) is an essential tool for geographical
work. Through our maps we disentangle different locational factors in
order to delineate specific spatial patterns. By this means we also endeavour
to propose more efficient or more equitable patterns in social and economic
organization of everyday life.
2. Emphasis on society-land relations. Geographical study is by nature
ecological in approach and perspective, so that it emphasizes interrelations
between phenomena, links between different aspects of phenomena in the
local natural environment and the people living in that particular segment
of the earth surface. Here emphasis shifts from spatial variation of
phenomena to the delineation of ecological links between the land and the
people. This ecological relationship represents a kind of vertical bond. The
relationship between the people and their habitat is a two-way affair: The
environment influences human initiative, which in turn modifies the
character of the natural environment so that the environment in particular
places as we find it today is partly natural and partly the product of man's
intervention. In this context it is pertinent to remember that the choice of
scale is the critical element in geographical study since the scale of operation
local, regional or global-is what determines the overall perspective.
3. Emphasis on regional analysis. Regional analysis involves
identification of regions, analysis of their internal morphology, their ecological
linkages, and their relations with other regions near and far. Regional work
involves two different but closely related approaches. In the one we focus
on- areal organization in particular places or areas with a view to gaining
in-depth knowledge of the man-environment reality obtaining therein. The
sum total of such studies focused on particular places in different parts of
the earth surface may provide us valuable knowledge about the totality of
the global man-environment system. Such studies are termed as regional
geography and involve the "total aspect" analysis of particular places. In the
second approach, the researcher may choose any particular theme or element
of the system and analyze it systematically over the earth surface (or large
parts of it) with a view to identifying the general Jaws of its distribution
over the globe. This is called systematic geography. The two are complementary
perspectives. Regional geography provides the raw material on the basis of
which we proceed to identify the general laws of behaviour or organization
which in their turn, illuminate future perspectives in regional study of
particular places by introducing a comparative perspective in research.
GEOGRAPHY, A EUROPEAN SCIENCE

In the words of Stoddart (1986), what distinguishes geography as an
intellectual activity distinct from other branches of knowledge is a set of
attitudes, methods, techniques, and questions, all of which had developed
in Europe towards the end of the eighteenth century. Stoddart dates this
beginning to the year 1769, the year in which Captain Cook first entered
the Pacific, and over a span of ten years before his death in Hawaii in 1779,
he had charted one-third of the coastlines of the world. Cook's voyage was
accompanied by some top ranking scientists, illustrators and collectors so
that following the publication of the accounts of this expedition, empirical
science had suddenly displaced old concerns in geographical writing wherein
myth and imagination were difficult to separate from fact and reality. The
common characteristic of all geographical writing before the year 1778,
when J.R. Forster first published his account of the voyage under the title
Observations Made During a Voyage Around the World, was that none of them
was based on direct observation. Charting out of the observed phenomena
required great deal of rigour. and called for focused concern for realism in
INTRODUCTION 7
illustration and description since the maps and charts were required to
provide precise info,11,ation in order that they could correctly guide the
course of navigators. Now on, "Places came to be seen as composed of
objects which could be recorded and related to each other in an objective
manner, rather than as triggers to mood and to expression" (Stoddart,
p. 34). With a view to facilitating comprehension of the huge amount of
new data about lands and peoples on the earth surface pouring in ever
increasing waves from the voyages of exploration, twofold devices were
developed. One was classification, of which the Swedish botanist Linnaeus
(1707-1778) was the great pioneer, and the other was the invention of the
comparative method.
The expanding frontier of knowledge about the lands and peoples on
the earth surface, and the vastly improved comprehension of the mysteries
of nature had simultaneously led to a changed attitude toward man and
his place in the scheme of nature. It is the extension of the scientific
method of observation, classification and comparison of peoples and
societies that had finally made the rise of geography as the integrated
discipline of the man-environment system possible. This changed attitude
to man and his works had given rise, before the end of the nineteenth
century, to empirical recording of the artefacts and ways of life on a global
scale, as for example in Ratzel's Volkerkunde of 1885-88. Indeed, in his 1778
volume, Forster had recommended that "mankind ought to be considered
as members of one great family; therefore, let us not despise any of them,
though they be our inferiors in regard to many improvements and points
of civilization".
Alluding to the foundation of geography as a modern discipline in
the post-1769 period, Stoddart (pp. 36-37) drew attention to the fact that
Humboldt was born in the year that Cook first entered the Pacific, and
Ritter in the year that he died ten years later, and both Humboldt and
Ritter passed away in the year 1859, the year in which Charles Darwin
published his book: The Origin of Species. The achievement of Humboldt
and Ritter (as the twin founders of geography as a modem discipline)
"was to seize the technical and the conceptual advances of the Pacific
voyages and so to organize and order knowledge as to show its coherence
and significance, Humboldt ecologically, Ritter historically and regionally".
However, "Neither Humboldt nor Ritter fully succeeded in their aims to
demonstrate the fundamental congruity of man and environment" since
"It was their misfortune never to know the key to nature which Darwin
supplied, and which transformed nineteenth-century thought. Today, a
century after Darwin's death on April 19, 1882, we necessarily see evolutionary
order everywhere, with all things interrelated in time and space. It was a
vision denied to critical observers, classifiers, comparers of the previous
decades".
This scientific revolution in Europe coincided with social and
educational upheayals that followed the Industrial Revolution. A new Act
in 1870 had made ele:nentary education compulsory in Britain. Similar
laws were enacted in France and Germany. Institutions of higher learning

proliferated and knowledge was getting rapidly compartmentalized into
subjects or disciplines. Appointment of professors to head independent
depa, bnents of geography in the 1870s symbolized "the new professionalism
of those who called themselves geographers". These developments in the
last thirty years of the nineteenth century have "determined the future
organization" of geography just as the empirical reasoning and observation
of earth's diversity over the preceding century had shaped its content.
A humanistic tum in the study of geography was slowly emerging.
Studies in history and sociology were revealing common trends in the
growth of civilizations from savagery to culture so that the supposed
superiority of Europeans over other people in Africa, Asia and the Americas
was proved to be false. It had greatly shocked the European elite when
investigations showed that "at the end of the nineteenth century ... working
men in the East End of London had a vocabulary smaller than that of the
Melanesian islanders .... This brought to general acceptance a new cultural
relativism which had been completely absent when the first European
voyagers set sail a century before" (Weber, 1974). This changed perspective-e-
the humanistic turn-was pioneered in geography by Elisee Reclus
(1830-1904), a student of Ritter and an anarchist geographer. His lead was
kept alive by the Russian geographer Prince Kropotkin (1842-1921). It is
true that many before these two had drawn attention to man's injustice to
man including Humboldt in his celebrated essay on New Spain. However,
the true significance of Reclus and Kropotkin lay in that they "were acutely
aware of the need for social change...and social justice, and both devoted
their lives to working for it".
To conclude, geography had emerged as a modem discipline as a
consequence of Europe's encounter "with the rest of the world and with
itself, with the tools of the new objective science, and all other geographical
traditions are necessarily derivative and imitative of it. Quantification,
perception and social concern-all were dominant concerns of European
geography in its formative period just as they are today" (Stoddart, 1986,
pp. 38-39). However, such a conclusion does not negate the fact that rise of
geography as an autonomous branch of higher learning especially after
1871, the year which marked the rise of Ge111,any as a great European
power, was inescapably tied with the imperialistic/expansionist needs of
the colonising European powers. Scientific study of geography was promoted
because it provided valuable knowledge through the use of which the
areas and populations in the non-European lands could be more efficiently
controlled and exploited in order to contribute to general affluence in the
mother countries (cf. Gregory, 1989, pp. 350-351).
GEOGRAPHY AND THE RISE OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

Nowadays it is fashionable to question intellectual rigour in geography
and to speak of its for111lessness and conceptual sickliness. However, this
INTRODUCTION 9
was not always so (Livingstone, 1992). History of science reveals that

geographical exploration had played the central role in the rise of modern
science: ''Geographical exploration, with its associated skills in navigation
and cartography, was ...the principal field of human endeavour in which
scientific discovery and everyday technique became closely associated before
the middle of the seventeenth century;... hence its immense significance in
the history of science and of thought" (Parry, 1981, p. 3). Geographical
exploration represented the triumph of experience over authority-the
fundamental ingredient in the emergence of experimental science. The
experimental method, which the geographical explorations encouraged,
"implied that men and women no longer had to believe what was said by
eminent authorities; they could put any statement and theory to test by
controlled experiment" (Cohen, 1985, p. 79).
THE DEVELOPING NATURE OF GEOGRAPHY

Though geography began as a modern discipline only around the turn of
the nineteenth century, the themes that it deals with, have been the focus
of scholarly attention since the dawn of civilization. From this point of
view, each cultural realm had had its own historiography of geography
(viewed in the sense of gaining more and logical and useful knowledge
about the earth), but geography as a discipline pursued the world over in
the current phase of history is the one that had developed in Europe over
the past two centuries. Historiography of geography, in its broadest sense
is, therefore, the European historiography traced in the continuing tradition
since the time of ancient Greeks of the fourth and third centuries B.C. Since
the Greeks believed that the position of planetary bodies exerted a controlling
influence of man's life, scholars devoted a great deal of energy to the
collection of data about the position of these bodies, leading to a fir111
tradition in mathematical measurement in the service of astrology. The
gredt contribution made by scholars in the fourth and third centuries B.C.
lay in that they had contributed to change emphasis from astrology to
astronomy. This represented a great intellectual advance in that whereas in
astrology, if observed facts disagree with the general theory, the facts are
explained away as exceptional occurrences and the theory remains
unchanged; in astronomy, on the other hand, if the observed facts differ
from the general theory, the theory must be revised. This was the first
foundation of the scientific method, and many of its basic procedures were
laid by Plato (the great proponent of the deductive method) and Aristotle
(who pioneered the inductive methodology).
Geographical work in ancient Greece had followed two distinct
traditions. One was the mathematical tradition which was focused on fixing
the location of places on the earth's surface, and the other was the literary
tradition concerned with describing what was actually observed. Ptolmey's
work presented a summary of the first type, and Strabo's that of the second.
Expansion of the Roman empire had stimulated much interest in the pursuit
of geographical knowledge without the use of which this large empire

could not have been effectively governed. The fall of the Roman empire
four centuries after Christ marked the decline of interest in geography.
Following the rising influence of theocracy in the following period, the
spirit of scientific inquiry was dulled since any attempt to question God's
creation was viewed as blasphemy. No science (including geography) could
flourish in such a climate of opinion. Inevitably, preeminence in geographical
knowledge during this period had passed on to the Arabs who were then
the leading trading nations and, therefore, traded far and wide. Many of
the ancient Greek texts were translated into Arabic and thus the Greek
tradition was also kept alive.
In Europe itself, however, things had begun to change for the better
in the Age of Explorations beginning at the close of the fifteenth century
A.O. Following the many exploratory voyages including those of Columbus
and Vasco da Gama, geographical horizons of the Europeans had greatly
increased, and in the period of territorial imperialism that followed, scientific
knowledge about lands and the peoples on the earth surface became the
most sought after intellectual commodity. Knowledge gained from the
explorations was soon to lead to falling down of the stranglehold of theocracy,
and concomittant rise of the spirit of 'academic freedom'-the right of
scholars to seek answers to questions, to publish the results of their
investigations, and to propagate what they believed to be true. The battle
that was started by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) and Nicolaus
Copernicus (1473-1543) was finally won in the middle of the nineteenth
century following the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution, which
shattered the old tradition of thought guided by the concept of a created
•
uruverse.
A major development in the pursuit of scientific knowledge had taken
place in the seventeenth century. This related to the need for specialization
and division of knowledge into separate fields, each focused on the study
of a specific group of phenomena, or processes, and each guided by its
own professional paradigm. This trend had reached its maximum
development in the middle of the nineteenth century. In this separation of
fields of knowledge the fundamental division was that between fields of
study dealing with man and those focused on physical nature, including
biotic phenomena. Under such a scenario, geography as a subject focused
on the integrated study of man and the environment was faced with a
crisis of identity. This crisis had coincided with the passing away of the
twin pioneers of modem geography-Ritter and Humboldt-in 1859. Viewed
thus, Ritter and Humboldt represented (in the words of James) "the
culmination and conclusion of ancient scholarship". The following decade
was a period of great disciplinary confusion. Many pleaded that geography
should focus on the study of man whereas others maintained that geography
should concentrate exclusively on the study of the physical elements of the
earth's environment.
The basic question agitating the minds of geographers was: What was
INTRODUCTION 11
there left for geographers to do after aspects of nature and society were
parcelled out to provide separate domains for a series of systematic
disciplines? The crisis could be resolved only in the 1880s through the
innovative visions of Ratzel and Richthofen, and a little later of Blache. In
the post-1871 period, the sharper focus on acquiring geographical knowledge
to facilitate colonial adntinistration and international trade and commerce
had resulted in the realization that both natural as well as social phenomena
occur in particular geographical (spatial) contexts which to a great extent
determine their precise nature. Many of the essential elements in these
phenomena are caused by their association with all. other aspects of the
total environment whose complexion varies from place to place. To
comprehend this varying reality of the man-environment system, geography
was developed as the study of places wherein a variety of things and
events were examined in their spatial context of unsystematic groupings.
In the process of accomplishing the task of studying places, the geographical
profession had also undertaken the task of bridging the widening gap
between the natural and social sciences a task for which the discipline's
integrated focus on the totality of man and his environment eminently
qualified it. The rising importance of geography to colonial government
and the education of the citizenry greatly increased the prestige of this
discipline so t_hat independent departments of geography headed by
professors were started in many European countries, most notably Ge,,nany
and France. Inevitably, the scholars appointed to head these departments
were people who had obtained training in other disciplines such as history,
geology and biology, so that almost until the Second World War geographers
remained busy trying to establish the status of geography as an independent
discipline distinguished by its own concepts and methodology. The war
had changed the context of progress in science and humanities.
In the postwar period, geography experienced all round development
as its prestige as a useful branch of knowledge had been further enhanced
owing to the valuable service rendered by geographers in course of the
war as well as after it, particularly in the context of interdisciplinary work
called for to resolve issues involving diverse skills in the study of nature
and society. The geographers' locational perspective and their cartographic
expertise had proved particularly useful. This led to liberal funding for
geographical research and education. During this period, geography also
greatly benefited from the development of the General System Theory
(Bertalanffy, 1968) which offered new insights for the study of complex
phenomena as representations of interconnected and interdependent
elements. The application of the theory was greatly facilitated by the
invention of the electronic computer, and by the revolutionary advances in
data collection by satellites orbiting around the earth. Henceforth, the
question regarding what geography does, and the attempts to answer it by
drawing boundaries around it with a view to distinguishing it from other
sciences, became irrelevant. In the changed climate of the postwar period,
the process of separation of disciplines was replaced by "a process of
integration in which each professional field brings its own special skills
and concepts to bear on such major difficulties as poverty, overpopulation,
race relations, and environmental destruction .... The special skills of
geography are those related to the significance of location and the spatial
relations of things and events .... A geographer is a person who asks questions
about the significance of location, distance, direction, spread, and spatial
succession. He deals with problems of accessibility, innovation, diffusion,
density, and other derivatives of relative location" Games, 1972, pp. 13-14).
(Short introductions to these concepts may be found in the various essays
in Dikshit, 1994.)
This by no means implies that things have been quiet on the disciplinary
front in geography over the past half century. Far from it. During this
period, geography has experienced a number of revolutionary conceptual
changes of far-reaching significance . In the immediate postwar period, a
major convulsion had occurred in the form of what is generally known as
the quantitative revolution, focused on mathematical precision in description
and analysis, increased use of symbolic logic, change in emphasis from
description to analysis, and from the study of the particular as unique to
the study of the particular as the general case. This implied changeover
from idiographic to nomothetic perspective in research. It also implied
change in emphasis from areal organization and areal differentiation to
spatial interaction with a view to generating theories of behaviour in space.
Focus on spatial flows meant that geometry became the preferred language
of research, and in that process postwar geography was transformed into
the science of spatial analysis of social and economic phenomena.
Simultaneously, new geography as a spatial science became increasingly
focused on the study of spatial aspects of social and economic phenomena
leading to progressive decline in focus on the study of physical environment.
Thus, postwar geography is preeminently human geography wherein the
study of the physical environment has value in that it provides the much
needed background to the understanding of man's interaction with his
environment leading to better appreciation of human ecology.
By the second half of the 1960s, however, it was realized that geography
as a spatial science had become far too involved in identifying patterns
and flows in abstract spaces and had, as a consequence, lost contact with
everyday reality. This led to a general call for shift in focus from spatial
patterns to behavioural processes that have generated those patterns. This
new turn to geographical study is sometimes referred to as the behavioural
revolution. Though the behavioural emphasis had opened up a psychological
dimension in geographical work by emphasizing the role of cognitive and
decision-making variables in mediating the relationship between
environment and spatial behaviour, much of the work that actually followed
was by way of an adjunct to geography as a spatial science. This tendency
was soon countered by laying emphasis on the central (and active) role
played by the human agency-human awareness, consciousness and
creativity-in the process of man-environment interaction. Emphasis was
INTRODUCTION 13
laid on the understanding of meaning, value and human significance of

life events. Titis heralded the rise of humanistic geography which emphasized
the essential subjectivity of both the investigator and the investigated so
that the studies conducted were idiographic and particularistic rather than
law-seeking. Humanistic geography drew inspiration from the philosophies
of social and human sciences, and it pursued the methodology of
ethnography emphasizing the logical rather than the statistical mode of
inference.
In the 1970s, following the general radicalization of societal perspectives
in the West, relevance became the watchword in human geography (as in
other sciences focused on the study of man and his social organization) so
that the merit of any research now began to be assessed in terms of the
degree to which it contributed to the understanding and resolution of some
of the major economic, environmental, and social problems of the day. The
relevance movement (some refer to it as revolution) differed from the earlier
(postwar) focus on applied geography in that while the former was focused
on the use of science and technology in social-spatial engineering with a
view to increasing efficiency in the exploitation of resources and thereby
contributing to economic prosperity; relevance research was, on the other
hand, focused on rootedness of science in societal mores (i.e., the dominant
perspectives of the day) and it made a focused attempt to introduce the
concept of social justice in clear political terms in favour of the less privileged
sections of society. Until the 1980s the movement had remained divided
into those pursuing research under the public choice theory paradigm, and
others who insisted upon radical Marxist perspectives. By the end of that
decade the two perspectives had converged leading to more useful research
outcomes. Also, clearly visible was a definite move toward rapproachment
between the humanistic and the Marxist perspectives which had earlier
been viewed as alternative paradigms of research. Thus, the post-modernist
geography of the 1990s stands out as a unified discipline that combines the
best of every tradition-regional and systematic, idiographic as well
nomothetic, critical Marxist and humanistic. The current generation of
human geographers subscribes to the consensus that what had appeared
as conflicting perspectives in the course of the discipline's evolution in its
fo11native phases had represented no more than different (but comple
mentary) ways of looking at the totality of life in the world, so that each
perspective had something valuable to contribute towards better
comprehension of the great man-environment system, and thereby, toward
equipping the researcher with better tools of research in the service of
society.
ORGANIZATION OF THE PRESENT VOLUME

This book is designed to cover the entire conspectus of the history of ideas
in geography, beginning with the ancient Greeks, though the primary focus
is on the history of ideas in the modern period that began with Humboldt
and Ritter toward the end of the eighteenth century. Chapter 1 is devoted
to discussion on the First Foundations of Geography and covers the period
from the ancient Greeks to the end of the eighteenth century. It includes
discussions (besides, dealing with the contributions of the Greeks and the
Arabs) on the Age of Exploration and its impact on the study of geography.
Brief discussions on contributions of Varenius and Kant are included.
Chapter 2 is focused on Geography in the Nineteenth Century: The Age
of Humboldt, and covers the period from 1790 to 1859. It includes
discussions on Humboldt, Ritter and Reclus and Guyot. The treatment of
geography after Humboldt and Ritter is divided into two parts . The first
part (Chapter 3) is focused on Developments in Germany in the context of
the emerging crisis of identity in the discipline during the post-1859 period
and the ways to resolve it. Attempts to project geography as an integrated
discipline focused on the study of the man-environment system in ecological
(Ratzel) and in regional or chorological terms (Richthofen) have been
analyzed and explained. A brief discussion of the contribution of
Schluter (who projected geography as the science of landscapes) is also
included.Chapter 4 deals with the post-1859 developments in France (Blache,
Brunhes, Vallaux, and Gallois), Britain (Mackinder and Geddes), Russia
(Kropotkin), and the United States (Davis, Jefferson, Huntington, and
Semple). Tomaintain continuity of thought, developments in American
geography to 1950 are also included with a view to highlighting the
contributions of Barrows and Sauer, and the rise of historical and applied
geography.
The remaining chapters are focused on developments since World
War JI. Chapter 5 deals with the shift in focus from Areal to Spatial analysis
in geographical work. Chapter 6 focuses on the rise of the Behavioural
perspective and Humanistic geography. Chapter 7 is addressed to the Call
for Social Relevance and Reorientation to Political Economy. Chapter 8
deals with the Regional Concept and the development of regional geography;
Chapter 9 with Historical Explanation in Geography, and Chapter 10 is
focused on the Impact of Evolutionary Biology on Geographical Thought,
Chapter 11 on Geography and Environmentalism, and Chapter 12 on Place,
Space and Locality as the dominant focus in current human geography
research. Chapter 13 presents a brief discussion of the Geography of Gender
whereas Chapter 14 is 'focused on Modern versus Post-modern Geographies.
The book concludes with a short overview of developments over the past
half century and the current phase of convergence and rapproachment in
geographical perspectives (Chapter 15).
THE CONTEXTUAL APPROACH TO HISTORY OF IDEAS

As Wright (1926/1966) had noted long ago, history of geography is the
history of geographical ideas. It is a repository of the changing views about
the relationship between man and nature, so that it reflects the development
of human consciousness in the course of man's experience in trying to
INTRODUCTION 15
comprehend the world around him (Berdoulay, 1981). Such a disciplinary

history must necessarily emphasize the development of problems and
theories in the context of the social and intellectual environment in which
the protagonists of these theories had lived and worked. In such a history,
the truth or falsity of any given proposition is no longer the primary concern.
Instead, "we seek to understand how geographers as individual scholars
recognized and grappled with intellectual issues in their time, in particular
intellectual, social, and economic environments" (Stoddart, 1981). For such
a history of geographical thought, the "origins and persistence of error in
geography" Games, 1967) is regarded as enlightening as the history of
wisdom, since many of these errors had provided the source of inspiration
and context for further conceptual progress.
As Berdoulay (1981) has underlined, a contextual approach to the
history of geographical thought is guided by four factors: First, we must
remain conscious all through of the basic fact that, while there is a changing
system of thought, simultaneously there is also continuity of thought in
terms of certain basic ideas. The student of contextual history must always
remain conscious of the fact there is no inherent dichotomy between internal
and external factors influencing scientific change. The two represent a
continuum and are equally important. Secondly, the contextual approach
must not neglect any geographic trend though some of these may not have
acquired any lasting recognition. In other words, the historian of ideas
should guard against assigning superiority to one trend over another since
the lack of success in the fo1111 of posterity may be essentially sociological
or political. Thirdly, the identification for in-depth study of the major issues
which concern a given society is necessary for understanding contemporary
innovations in concept and methodology since science is socially rooted.
Fourthly, as geographic trends are inevitably rooted in social context, it is
important that the historian of ideas does not adopt a narrow concept of
scientific community, since every scholar belongs to a certain circle of affir,ity
which encompasses more than the scientific community in the narrow
sense. The circle of affinity includes specialists of many disciplines as
well as politicians and intellectuals with definite views on societal issues.
Lastly, a contextual approach is less concerned with examining the possible
influence of an idea and more with looking at the reasons behind the
demand for, or use of, that idea. The novelty or originality of an idea
(which when seen in isolation may not appear new or innovative to us
today) is best explained in terms of the synthesis of a particular set of ideas
held in society in the context of its place and time. To conclude, "The
contextual approach ... serves as a comprehensive framework for analyzing
the conjunction of inner logic and content of science and the context in
which the scientist is placed. It is by disentangling the links which unite
change in geographic thought to its context that one is in the best position
to assess, and to learn from, the creative contributions" of individual
scholars (Berdoulay, 1981, pp. 13-14). This is the basic approach adopted in
this book.
REFERENCES
Berdoulay, V. (1981), The contextual approach, in Stoddart, D.R. (Ed.),
Geography, Ideology and Social Concern, Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
pp. 6---16.
Bertalanffy, L. von. (1968), General System Theory: Foundation, Develop111ents
Applications, New York: George Braziller.
Cohen, I.B. (1985), Revolution in Science, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard
University Press.
Dikshit, R.D. (Ed.) (1994), The Art and Science of Geography, New Delhi:
Prentice-Hall of India.
Glacken, C.J. (1967), Traces on the Rhodian Share, Nature and Culture in Wester,,
Thought from Ancient Times to the End of Eighteenth Century, Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Gregory, D. (1989), The crisis of modernity? Human geography and critical
social theory, in Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds.), New Models in Geography,
vol. II, London, Unwin Hyman, pp. 348 385.
Haggett, P. (1994), Geography, in Johnston, R.J. et al. (Eds.), The Dictionary
of Human Geography, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 220-223.
Hartshorne, R. (1959), Perspective on the Nature of Geography, Chicago: Rand
McNally.
James, P.E. (1967), On the origin. and persistence of error in geography,
Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 57, pp. 1-24.
--(1972), All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas, Indianapolis:
The Odessey Press, Chapter 1.
Livingston, D.N. (1992), The Geographical Tradition, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
May, J .A. (1970), Kant's Concept of Geography and Its Relation to Recent
Geographical Thought, Toronto: University of Toronto, Deparbnent of
Geography, Research Paper No. 4.
Parry, J.H. (1981), The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration and
Settlement 1450 to 1650, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Richards, P. (1974), Kant's geography and mental map, Transactions, Institute
of British Geographers, vol. 61, pp. 1-16.
Stoddart, D.R. (1981), Ideas and interpretations in history of geography, in
Stoddart, D.R. (Ed.), Geography, Ideology and Social Concern, Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, pp. 1-7.
-- (1986), On Geography and Its History, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Chapter 2.
Weber, G. (1974), Science and society in nineteenth century anthropology,
History of Science, vol. 12, pp. 260-283.
Wright, J.K. (1926/1966), A plea for history of geography, Isis, (1926),
vol. 8, pp. 477-491. Reprinted in Wright, J.K., Human Nature in
Geography, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard Uni,·ersity Press.
1
The First Foundations: Developments
upto the Eighteenth Century
In its wider connotation as a branch of knowledge concerned with the

satisfaction of human curiosity about the lands and peoples away from
one's home base, speculation regarding mysteries of the physical
environment, and the role it plays in shaping the destiny of man upon the
earth, geography is as old as human civilization. As such, each major cultural
realm has had its own historiography of geography. Modern geography as
practised all the world over today, represents, however, an outgrowth of
the European geographic tradition so that the historiography of modem
geography is essentially an account of the conceptual developments among
Europeans regarding the nature of the earth and its environment and the
way it influences man. Thus, the roots of modem geography are to be
traced back to the thought of the ancient Greeks.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE GREEKS AND THE ROMANS

References to descriptive writings about lands and peoples in different
parts of the earth's surface are found in the oral traditions of classical
Greece and are reflected in the writings of Homer, whom the Greek
geographers had themselves referred to as the father of geography. Odyssey,
Homer's epic poem written sometimes in the ninth century B.C., presents
geographical accounts of the lands and peoples located on the margins of
the world then known to the Greeks. The poem records the wanderings of
Odysseus to return to Ithaca after the fall of Troy, when he was blown off
course by a storm, and it took him twenty years to reach home. The poem
contains a geographical account of the distant places visited by the hero of
the epic in course of his long journey. In it there are references to a land of
continuous sunshine, and later of Odysseus's visit to an area of continuous
darkness. Apparently a Greek poet could not have imagined these
scenes. Somehow accounts about the nature of the earth in the far north of
Europe during the long summer days and the continuous winter darkness
had filtered back to Greece, and were woven with other geographical
threads into an enchanting adventure story. As in the case of Meghdoot of
Kalidas, many have tried to identify the many places referred to in the epic
poem.
17
However, Thales of Miletus-a town located near the mouth of the

Menderes river on the eastern side of the Aegean Sea (which was both a
centre of learning and a flourishing centre of commerce)-who lived in the
seventh and the sixth century B.C., is regarded as the first Greek to have
devoted focused attention to the measurement and location of places on
the surface of the earth. Thales himself was a very successful businessman.
In the course of a business trip to Egypt, he had been greatly impressed by
the geometrical traditions of the Egyptians in the measurement and
computation of areas. He had introduced some of these ideas among the
Greeks. Anaximander, a contemporary of Thales and a few years his junior,
is credited with having first introduced the idea of the sundial consisting
of a pole set vertically over a flat surface to measure the varying position
of the sun by measuring the length and direction of the shadow cast by the
pole. The shadow was shortest at noon and provided an exact north-south
line for determining the correct longitude of the relevant place. Anaximander
is also said to have produced a map of the known world with Greece as
its centre. Thales and Anaximander have jointly been regarded as the
originators of the mathematical tradition in geography in ancient Greece.
The literary tradition in the writing of geography had also developed around
the same time. Hecataeus, a resident of the town of Miletus, and born
around 475 B.C.-about the time that Thales and Anaximander had passed
away·-originated the literary tradition and his book Periods Ges (Description
of the Earth) is regarded as the first known attempt to synthesize available
knowledge about the world in a usable form. Hecataeus is also one of the
earliest writers of prose in classical Greek literature.
The next great name in this context is that of Herodotus (circa 485-
425 B.C.) who is widely known as the father of history, but is also generally
regarded as one of the founders of geography. His history of the Greek
struggle with the "barbarians" included (as digressions) descriptions of
various places visited by the author. Herodotus firmly believed that all
history must be treated geographically and also that all geography must be
studied historically. For him geography provided the stage, or the setting
that gives meaning to historical events. Herodotus had travelled a great
deal. Throughout his travels he had retained a keen interest in the nature
of the landscape so that he not only described geographical phenomena
but also tried to explain them. Examples include his attempt to explain the
annual fluctuations in the flow of the Nile, and the processes involved in
the origins of deltas occurring at the mouth of the Meander (Menderes)
river at Miletus. Herodotus had no interest in the mathematical tradition
and showed no interest in problems like measurement of the earth's
circumference. He accepted the Homeric view of the earth as a flat disc
over which the sun was believed to travel in an arc from east to west.
Plato (428-348 B.C.) also made an important contribution to the
development of geographical ideas. Plato was a great proponent of deductive
reasoning. He insisted that the observable phenomena on the earth's surface
represent poor copies of ideas from which these observable phenomena
THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS: DEVELOPMENTS UPTO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 19
had degenerated. By way of illustration he referred to the case of Attica

(the ancient territory of which Athens was the capital). According to Plato,
the area was originally very fertile and capable of supporting a large
population of men and animals. He wrote that compared to its original
state, the Attica of his time was "like the skeleton of a sick man, all the
flesh and soft earth having been wasted away, and only bare framework of
the land being left'' (cited in Glacken, 1967, p. 121). Contemporary
philosophers in Greece generally accepted the idea that symmetry of fotn,
is one of the essential alttibutes of perfection, and that the most completely
symmetrical for11, was a sphere. It was argued that since the earth had
been created to serve as the home of man, it must have a perfect form, and
therefore it must be a sphere. Plato is regarded as the first scholar who
put forward the concept of a spherical earth located in the centre of the
universe, and the sun and all the other celestial bodies moving around it.
Plato offered no argument or evidence as proof that the earth is round.
Providing the proof for the spherical shape of the earth was left to Aristotle
(384 322 B.C.), who was a student and a member of Plato's academy for
twenty years.
Aristotle is regarded as the pioneer of inductive reasoning and the
inductive approach to acquiring knowledge. He was convinced that the
best method of building a reliable theory was to start with the observation
of facts. lhis required reasoning from the particular to the general, in contrast
to Plato's deductive approach which required the student to proceed from
the general to the particular. Aristotle laid the foundation of what has been
regarded as the world's first paradigm to guide research procedures. He
laid down four fundamental principles of scientific explanation: First, it is
necessary to establish the necessary characteristics (i.e., the nature) of the
phenomenon being investigated; Second, it is necessary to identify the
substance of which it is composed; lhird, it is necessary to identify the
process through which the phenomenon has attained its present form; and
lastly, it is necessary to identify the purpose that the phenomenon concerned
fulfils in the overall scheme of nature. lhis last principle makes Aristotle
stand out as the first teleologist in that he believed that everything was
changing in accordance with a preexisting plan.
Aristotle argued his propositions so convincingly that his research
methodology appeared irrefutable at the time it was presented. His
intellectual status in the contemporary world of scholarship was so high
that his ideas were accepted without question for a long time. (Some of his
ideas were patently false, however. One such was the idea that habitability
on the earth surface is a function of distance from the equator, and that
areas around the equator are too hot for human survival.)
Although Plato and Aristotle gave intellectual leads that contributed
to the development of knowledge about the earth as human habitat, neither
of the two could be identified as a geographer. As contrasted to this,
Erastosthenes (276---194 B.C.) is often referred to as the father of geography
as a branch of knowledge. He is said to have coined the word geography.
The te1111 is derived from ge, meaning the earth, and graphe, meaning
description. Thus was born geography as a field of study which specialized
in presenting reasoned description of the Greek ecumene, and speculated
about the nature of peoples and places beyond the range of knowledge in
contemporary Greece. He wrote the first formal text on geography entitled
Geographica. His estimate of the earth's circumference was remarkably
accurate, and, therefore had proved a major step forward in the development
of knowledge about the earth. Erastosthenes was the chief librarian at the
famous museum at Alexandria-a post that he occupied for about forty
years until his death in 194 B.C. Under his leadership, the museum had
developed into a major centre of astronomical research, a field of knowledge
that was at that time viewed as closely associated with geography.
Erastosthenes identified five climatic zones, one torrid zone, two temperate
zones, and two frigid zones. He also improved upon the Aristotelian idea
on this subject by giving latitudinal boundaries to the five climatic zones.
The torrid zone extended 24° north and south of the equator, and the frigid
zones extended to 24° from either pole. The areas in between were the two
temperate zones.
After the death of Erastosthenes the post of chief librarian of the
museum at Alexandria went to Hipparchus who was the first to divide the
circle into 360 degrees. He also defined a grid of latitudes and longitudes
for the earth, and identified the equator as a great circle that divides our
spherical planet into two equal parts. Hipparchus pointed out that since
the earth makes one complete revolution in 24 hours, it covers a journey
of 360 degrees in a day and so covers fifteen degrees of longitude in one
hour. He also made a significant contribution to the development of map
projections by suggesting ways for overcoming the difficulty of representing
the spherical earth on a flat sheet of paper.
The cartographical cosmographical traditions set by Erastosthenes and
Hipparchus were further advanced by the succeeding generation of students
at the museum. The cumulative knowledge gained through these exertions
culminated in Ptolemy's (9{}-168 A.O.) eight volume work entitled Guide to
Geography. Ptolemy was himself a great astronomer of his time and was the
author of the famous text on classical astronomy entitled Almagest which
had for long remained the most standard reference on the movement of
celestial bodies. His Guide to Geography was also of related interest. By
adopting the system of latitudes and longitudes based on the division of
the circle into 360 degrees, he attempted to give precise location for all the
known places in precise mathematical te1111s. Six out of the eight volumes
of his Guide to Geography consisted of tables of latitudes and longitudes.
The first volume was devoted to a discussion on map projections, and the
eighth volume contained maps of different parts of the world showing all
the places that had been included in volumes two to seven. It is true that
from the perspective of the present, Ptolemy's book would appear as a
monumental collection of errors. It was, however, a piece of great scholarship
at the time when it was originally presented. Ptolemy's calculations of
latitudes and longitudes are found to be wrong since these calculations

had been based on estimated lengths of journeys between places; and these
could never be accurate. Another major source of error was that Ptolemy
had rejected Erastosthenes' almost correct estimate of the earth's circum
ference in favour of Posidonius's (which gave a figure that fell short of the
actual by a little over one-fourth). (Erastosthenes had estimated the earth's
circumference at 252,000 stadii, and Posidonius at 180,000 stadii�one
stadium being equal to 157.5 metres.)
Strabo (64 B.C. to 20 A.D.), born a century-and-a-half before Ptolemy,
had carried forward the tradition of topographical work of Greek geography
as started in the works of Herodotus. His seventeen-volume work named
Geography was largely an encyclopaedic description of the world known to
the Greeks. Unlike the works of most other Greek scholars, Strabo's book
was found almost intact. The first two volumes of his book contain a review
of the work of other geographers since the time of Homer. They give a fair
idea of the nature of geographical writing in ancient Greece. The next eight
volumes were devoted to Europe, six to Asia, and one to Africa.
Strabo's book was written to cater to the needs of a specific group
of readers, namely the officers of the administration, statesmen, and
commanders of the Roman empire. The purpose was to provide a handbook
of information about places and people to help the imperial officers in the
better appreciation and accomplishment of their task. Strabo's book had
laid down a clear foundation for chorological writing in geography.
Explaining the method of writing geography, Strabo wrote:
... just as the man who measures the earth gets his principles from the
astronomer and the astronomer his from the physicist, so too, the
geographer must in the same way take his own point of departure from
the man who has measured the earth as a whole, having confidence in
him and in those in whom he, in his tum, had confidence, and then
explain in the first instance, our inhabited world, its size, shape and
character, and its relation to earth as a whole; for this is the particular
task of the geographer. Then, secondly, he must discuss in a fitting
manner the several parts of the inhabited world, both land and sea,
noting in passing where the subject has been treated inadequately by
those of our predecessors V{hom we have believed to be the best autho
rities on the matters (Strabo, trans., Jones, 1917, pp. 429-431; cited in
James, 1972, p. 47).
Both Strabo and Ptolemy had lived at a time when the Roman empire
was at its zenith. It was the largest centralized empire in history till that
time. The state needed to have exact description of its territories as well as
the other territories it interacted with. This knowledge was necessary both
for effective administration and trade as also for the training of the younger
generation from among whom the future crop of administrators was to be
recruited. The work of the two Greek scholars, besides extending the frontiers
of knowledge, was designed to meet a definite need of society. Geography
was flourishing because it served a useful purpose.
GEOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

During the fifth century A.O., the Roman empire suffered demise. The
central administration had greatly weakened and consequently the
constituent territories gradually became independent. As trade and commerce
declined, the geographic horizons of the people rapidly narrowed down so
that, with the passage of time, the geographical horizon of most people in
Christiandom became confined to their immediate surroundings. Given
the extremely narrow world-view of contemporary European societies, it
was natural that religious orthodoxy should increase. Before Jong, scriptures
had begun to be regarded as the ultimate repository of knowledge of every
kind so that an impression was created that there was no need to learn
anything outside the Holy books. Anything that did not conform with the
"truth" of the scriptures was regarded as the product of a perverse mind
and had, accordingly, to be rejected. Under these conditions, science (and,
therefore, geography) could not develop and the Middle Ages represented
the Dark Age in the history of scientific knowledge in Europe. During this
long period, scientific concepts developed by the ancient Greeks were
reshaped with a view to make them conform with the "truth" preached by
the Church. For example, the idea of a spherical earth was abandoned in
favour of the old concept of the earth as a flat disc, with Jerusalem as its
centre. This dismal state of affairs continued almost until the end of the
twelfth century A.O.
By the end of the eleventh century A.O., overland travel of Christian
pilgrims to Jerusalem across Turkey and Syria had been made very difficult
on account of Muslim domination over these territories. This aroused the
religious sentiments of Christian Europe. A series of military campaigns
were organized with a view to rescue the Holy Land of Jerusalem from the
control of Muslims. Between 1096 and 1270 A.O., eight different crusades
were organized for the purpose. These crusades (religious wars) played a
major role in broadening the geographical horizon of Christian Europe.
Men from different parts of Europe had come together to participate in
them. These participants went back to their homes with new knowledge
and information about the landscapes and customs of many areas beyond
the range of the familiar. This stimulated interest in, and the urge to gain
knowledge about, unfamiliar places. The religious wars, therefore, had led
to a new beginning-a revival of interest in geography as a branch of
knowledge. Expeditions began to be organized to distant places. The most
famous of such expeditions was Marc Polo's voyage to China, the Far East,
and the Indian Ocean undertaken between 1271 and 1295.
The Crusades proved a stimulant to the revival of interest in the
study of peoples and places in far-off lands in another way also. Owing to
the "religious" wars the Muslims had closed the overland routes to India
and beyond to European merchants who had until then participated in the
highly profitable spice trade between India and Europe. Attempts were,
therefore, directed to finding an alternative route to the Indies. Two such
attempts led to the glorious discoveries of Columbus and Vasco de Gama.
GEOGRAPHY IN THE ARAB LANDS

The fall of the Roman empire, and the decline of scientific learning in
Europe was followed by a period of great ascendancy in the Muslim world
which, under the influence of Prophet Mohammed, had been transformed
from a multitude of tribes divided by intertribal feuds into integral
components of a larger all-inclusive identity based on adherence to a common
set of religious beliefs and practices. The followers of Islam soon embarked
upon a course of conquest of the world outside Arabia with a view to
spreading the new religious ideology to the farthest corners of the world.
Persia and Egypt were conquered in 641-642 A.O., and by A.O. 732 the
whole of the West Asian desert region was under their control. They soon
overran the Iberian peninsula and Spain and Portugal remained under
Muslim rule for almost nine hundred years. Muslim influence also extended
eastward into India and parts of south-east Asia. The act of holding on to
such a huge politico-cultural empire had, in itself, become a major stimulant
to the rise of interest in geographical learning. The Arabs held a monopoly
over the spice trade between India and Europe. This trade required a great
deal of travel over land and sea. Travels between places spread over such
a large expanse of territory became the source of considerable extension of
knowledge about geographical environment in tr_opical regions.
Following the widening of its geographical horizon, the Arab world
became fired with a new zeal for scientific learning. Baghdad (founded in
726 A.O.) became a major centre of learning. Its rulers (the Caliphs) employed
learned men of different faiths to make authentic translations of the major
scientific works of their respective languages. Included in these works
were books on astronomy and geography. Scholars were also employed to
calculate the circumference of the earth, and to fix latitudes in the plain of
the Euphrates. The method employed was the one used by Erastosthenes
about a thousand years earlier. Available texts on geography written by the
ancient Greeks (including Ptolemy) were translated into Arabic, and
new texts were got written after duly incorporating the new knowledge
derived from the records of observations made by Arab merchants and
explorers.
Thus, as a result of Ibn-Hakul's voyage to the south of the equator
(made between 943 to 973 A.O.), the wrong notion regarding the inhabitability
of the torrid zone (as perpetuated by Aristotle) was abandoned. Around
the same time, in course of his travels down the east coast of Africa upto
the Mozambique, Al-Masudi had reported the phenomenon of monsoonal
winds. Another contemporary named Al-Maqdisi had established (in 985)
the general truth that the climate of any place is a function not only of its
latitude but also of its position on the east or west side of a landmass . He
is also credited with the knowledge that most of the earth's landmass lies
north of the equator. Al-Idrisi (around 1099-1180 A.O.) made many
corrections to Ptolemy's book. On the basis of the new information collected
by Arab explorers, and some collected from other sources, he produced his
own book on geography (in 1154) in which the Greek idea about the Indian
Ocean as a closed sea was corrected. Also corrected were the positions of
many rivers including the Danube and the Niger.
Another great Arab explorer was Ibn Batuta (1304--1368 A.O.). He
extensively explored regions of North Africa and West Asia, sailed along
the Red Sea, and travelled south along the east coast of Africa to Kilwa, a
point about 10 degrees south of the equator. He had reported that an Arab
trading post was located in the latitude of 20 degrees south thereby
confirming the habitability of the torrid zone. Ibn Batuta had also travelled
overland from Mecca to Persia, Bukhara and Samarkand, and from there
across Afghanistan to Delhi. I-le had visited several islands, including Ceylon
(Sri Lanka), Sumatra, and the Maldives. He also visited China and returned
to Fez, the capital of Morocco, in 1350 A.O. From there he travelled across
the Sahara to Timbuktu on the Niger, gathering valuable information about
Black Muslims on the way. He settled down in Fez in 1353 A.O. after
travelling an estimated 75,000 miles, a world record for his time. On the
request of the king of Morocco, he put down a detailed account of his
travels for posterity.
The last great Muslim scholar who contributed significantly to the
development of geographical knowledge was Ibn-Khaldun (1342-1405 A.O.)
who wrote (in 1377) a detailed introduction to world history published
under the title Muqaddimah. In his introduction to the book he identified
two sets of influences on man's progress (i.e., history): One, the physical
environment, and two, the social environment derived from culture and
belief rather than the natural environment. This distinction between the
two sets of environmental influences on man was a remarkable intellectual
achievement for his time so that Kimble (1938) was prompted to remark
that Ibn-Khaldun had "discovered ... the true scope and nature of
geographical inquiry".
lbn-Khaldun had concentrated on the study of the tribe and the city
the two most important elements in the political organization of the desert
society in the Arab world. He identified the tribe and the city as two
distinct stages in the evolution of social organization in a desert environment.
While the nomads represented an earlier (primitive) stage of social organi
zation, the city dwellers represented the last stage in the development of
social life, almost the point where decay sets into the social organization
owing to the sedentary lifestyle of the urban community. Many credit Ibn
Khaldun with having presented in this way one of the earliest concepts of
the life cycle of the states. Surprisingly, however, Ibn-Khaldun had clung
to the Aristotelian idea about the inhabitability of the equatorial regions.
To the great credit of lbn-Khaldun is the fact that he was the first great
scholar to direct attention specifically to the study of the man-environment
relationships.,
The significance of Arab contribution to the historiography of modern
geography lies in that the development of geographical knowledge in the
Arab world represented, in some ways, a further development over the
original base provided by the geographers of ancient Greece, whose works
had been translated into Arabic, and widely used by Arab scholars. Thus,
while Europe itself had forgotten the Greek heritage in geography, the
Arabs had held the banner aloft and it was largely through contact with
the Arab world, and the translation of their books (including retranslation
of Greek works from the Arabic translations) that geography got revived
as a living science in fifteenth century Europe. Indeed, the countries having
the closest contacts with the Arab world, such as Spain and Portugal,
spearheaded the series of exploratory voyages that ultimately opened the
way to the revival of interest in geographical learning. Large parts of Spain
and Portugal had remained under Muslim rule since the eighth century
A.O. While Portugal had become free in the middle of the thirteenth century,
the Spaniards pushed out the Muslims gradually from the peninsula through
a series of efforts lasting over a century from 1391 to 1492.
Both the Portuguese and the Spaniards had mastered the art of
shipbuilding and navigation, and had launched ambitious programmes of
voyages of exploration with a view to promoting trade and commerce with
the outside world, particularly the spice trade with the Indies, and trade
in gems and precious stones with parts of Africa south of the Sahara. Since
the overland routes in each case were then under the control of the Arabs,
it was necessary to find alternative sea routes, which contemporary science
had shown to be well within the pale of possibility in view of the round
shape of the earth, and the continuity of the oceans.
The importance of the spice trade for contemporary Europe lay in
that owing to the inadequate supply of sugar, spices were required to
make food palatable. Besides, in the absence of refrigeration, meat was to
be stored in dried and salted form. Such meat required spices in order to
be made reasonably palatable. What was more, Genoa and Venice which
had earlier been flourishing centres of trade in spices from India and beyond,
were now deserted as the Arabs had blocked direct contact between Europe
and the regions of supply further east in Asia.
THE AGE OF EXPLORATION

Portugal's Prince Henry "The Navigator" who had (in 1415) succeeded in
capturing the Muslim base at Ceuta on the southern side of the Strait of
Gibraltar, took the first initiative toward wider exploration across the high
seas. From his Muslim prisoners, the Prince had learnt that many of the
most valuable items of merchandise traded in European markets by the
Arabs were brought from areas in Africa to the south of the Sahara. This
inspired him to sponsor sea voyages of exploration along the western coast
of Africa. Around this time-in 1410-two important publications had
appeared in geography. One was the Latin translation of Ptolemy's Geography
made from a copy preserved in Byzantium (Istanbul), and the other was a
book called Imagine Mundi authored by Pierre d'Ally in which he presented
a summary of various geographical writings then existing in the countries
of Christian Europe. The two were very influential in promoting interest in
geographical knowledge and created a favourable climate for the launching

of voyages of exploration, and for developing better techniques of
cartography and map design.
Prince Henry was responsible for establishing a broad-based institute
of geographic research at Sagre near the port of Lagos where a rich library
of all the available literature in geography, cartography, astronomy and
related subjects was stocked, and scholars (including linguists) from all
parts of Europe were invited to teach Portuguese students the art of
navigation, and to inform them about the existing knowledge regarding
the earth and its environment in different parts of the world so that suitable
preparations could be made to meet the contingent situations likely to be
encountered in the process of exploratory voyages then being planned for
the exploration of the western coast of Africa, and to find an alternative
route to the spice islands beyond India. These explorations initiated by
the Prince laid fi1111 foundations for the larger ventures by subsequent
explorers under the patronage of the royal house of Portugal, culminating
in the great voyage of Christopher Columbus (who discovered the new
World in 1492) and the discovery of an alternative sea route to India by
Vasco da Gama in 1498.
Columbus had studied at Sagre, and he had been greatly influenced
by Pferre d'Ally's Imagine Mundi which had suggested that since the earth
was round, a route to China and India could be found by sailing west from
the Canary Islands. It is a different matter though that in the process of
finding an alternative route to the Indies, Columbus landed in America
rather than Asia, his intended destination. Columbus died in 1506 still
believing that he had discovered a part of Asia. The task of finding an
alternative route to Asia by sailing west and then north along the coast of
South America was accomplished by another great Portuguese explorer
three decades later in October 1520. This voyage was perfo111,ed by Magellan
whose name the (Magellan) Strait connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific
now bears.
Voyages across the sea required maps and charts to guide the sailors
in course of their travels. Ptolemy's map was used in the beginning. It was
the task of the royal cartographers to correct the old map in the light of
new information then available. Thus, Venice and Genoa soon emerged as
great centres of cartographic learning. European sailors and merchants
departed from either of the two port towns for their journeys to the eastern
Mediterranean to pick up the cargo brought by Arab ships from the East.
The first globe showing the earth as a sphere was produced by Martin
Behain in 1490, and map projections tackling the problem of representing
the round earth on a flat sheet of paper began to receive attention of scholars
soon after. In 1530, Peter Apian produced a heart-shaped map of the earth
in which both latitudes as well as longitudes were shown as curved lines.
Neither distance nor direction was represented correctly, and the map showed
only one hemisphere. Apian's student, Gerhard Kramer (who later adopted
the name Gerhard Mercator) made a world map in 1538 by joining two
,
heart-shaped projections: for each hemisphere. Mercator earned

celebrity in 1569 when he succeeded in designing a projection that showed
the whole of the earth surface on a single network of latitudes and longitudes.
This was the famous Mercator Projection-the orthomorphic cylindrical
projection. As we know, even though theoretically an orthomorphic
projection, it greatly distorted the shapes of continents, but its great advantage
lay in that on it compass bearings could be shown by straight lines so that
navigators could plot their course without being required to draw
cumbersome curves. The projection could not be easily used until English
geographer Edward Wright (1558-1615) produced the trigonometric table
to reproduce the projection. This improvement made the Mercator projection
universally accepted for maps on which to base navigators' charts.
Focus on improvements in cartographic techniques continued through
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. New projections were devised and
old map projections improved upon. Map makers remained busy revising
old maps in the light of new information obtained from travellers and
explorers. From the time of Magellan (who explored the outlines of South
America between 1518 to 1521), and James Cook (1728-1779) (who through
his three different voyages, performed between 1768 to 1779, drew the
outlines of the Pacific Ocean and eliminated the possibility of the existence
of Ptolemy's Southland), scholars were directly addressing the task of
drawing correct outlines of landmasses and water bodies. They were also
busy devising techniques of surveying and cartography to be able to present
true-to-scale reality of the earth's surface on their maps and charts. This
task was almost complete by the time of James Cook's death in 1779 and
a good deal of new information about world climates, wind regimes, •
distribution of flora and fauna, and patterns of human civilization ov¢r the
earth surface had been obtained. Incorporating the ever increasing
information and data with a view to presenting a correct and mea 'i"ingful
description of the earth surface had become a formidable task. The challenge
posed by the problem attracted a number of leading scientists to the study
of geography.
W hile explorers were busy fixing the outlines of continents and oceans,
and cartographers remained busy in drawing more accurate representations
of the earth surface on maps, the world was experiencing a great revolution
in knowledge about the nature of the universe and the earth's position in
it. The old-time concept of the earth as the centre of the universe was
abandoned in favour of the concept of a heliocentric universe first put
forward by the Polish scholar Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543. The concept
was further refined by Kepler (1571-1630) in 1618 and Galileo (1564-1642)
in 1623. Galileo further revolutionized scientific thinking by formulating
the concept of mathematical order in the universe i.e., an order in which
relationships between phenomena could be described in terms of
mathematical laws rather than verbal logic. A further scientific advance
came in the form of Newton's law of gravitation in 1686. Thus, in the
course of a century and a half, seeds of scientific revolution had been
sown. These heralded the beginning of the rise of specialized branches of

knowledge, each focusing on some particular theme, object, or relationships
between phenomena. The rise of specialized systematic sciences, each
focusing on a particular category of facts or relationships signalled the
demise of the era of universal scholarship and of cosmographies in which
scholars had attempted to bring together all that was known about the
earth and its parts in single volume works in the style set by Strabo.
In view of the rapid flow of new information derived from the
increasing stream of explorations and scientific research, compilation and
synthesis of knowledge in a meaningful manner became an increasingly
challenging task that required a high degree of scholarship. The cosmo
graphers of that period were, therefore, far from mere popularizers. The
first great cosmographer of the age of exploration was the German scholar
Sebastian Munster (1489-1552) who had been engaged, with the help of
120 other authors and artists, in writing a broad-based cosmography
incorporating the latest information on every important aspect for over
eighteen years. The outcome was a six-volume work entitled Cosmographie
Universalis published in 1544. Written in the tradition of Strabo's Geography,
the book earned its author the popular title of "the German Strabo". The
first volume of Munster's cosmography presented a general picture of the
earth on the lines of Ptolemy's Geography, while the remaining five volumes
were devoted to descriptive accounts of the major divisions of the earth's
surface.
Munster's work was a combination of tradition (imaginative stories
about people and places which were part of popular belief) and science
(incorporating new information derived from explorations and scientific
investigations). Thus, his account of America and Africa included stories of
men with heads on their chests, and having a combined animal and human
form. Such beliefs were part of contemporary scholarship and consequently,
Munster's volumes were avidly read necessitating several editions between
1544 and 1550; and the book remained a popular reference for about a
century thereafter. Another leading cosmographer was the German scholar
Cluverius (1580-1622) who had published a six-volume compendium on
universal geography (following the general plan of Munster's work but
better informed) in 1624. The first universal geography to appear in the
English language was written by Nathanael Carpenter (1589-1628) a scholar
at Oxford, who had benefited from his association with Cluverius during
the latter's frequent visits to Oxford. Carpenter's book had appeared in
1625, a year after the publication of Cluverius's book.
From Cosmography to Scientific Geography: Contribution of

Bernard Varenius
In course of time, the tradition of writing cosmographies got concretized
into a coherent body of knowledge that came to be described as "general
geography". Geographia Genera/is (1650) of Bernard Varenius (1622-1650)
(a Dutch scholar) was an outgrowth from the cosmographic tradition even
THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS: DEVELOPMENTS UPTO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTtJRY 29
though it is rightly regarded as a major step forward toward laying the

foundation of scientific geography. Varenius' s book was, according to
Dickinson (1969), the first work "which sought to combine general,
mathematical, and physical geography and chorology". Varenius set forth
clearly the distinction between two forms of geographical scholarship-the
one concerned with the description of particular places (i.e., regional
description), and the other concerned with developing general laws and
hypotheses of wider applicability. He termed the first Special or Particular
Geography (i.e., geography of particular places etc.) and the second as
General Geography.
Varenius was writing at a time when voyages of exploration were
pouring in a flood of new information and data so that one of the major
problems facing contemporary scholars was how to relate specific pieces of
information to general principles. Among geographers, Varenius was the
first to focus attention on this problem; and the solution that he offered
through his Geographia Genera/is was to become the basic tenet of geography
as a branch of knowledge which has ever since retained a twofold division
into Regional and Systematic (or General) geography-the former focused
on the study of particular places, and the latter was devoted to the study
of the nature, and pattern of spatial distribution of particular items of
geographical interest over the earth surface and its parts.
The most creditable part of Varenius's contribution lay in that he
underlined the relationship between the two streams of geographical
scholarship: Special geography provided the results of in-depth study of
particular places and regions which became the raw material (the data) on
the basis of which General geography could pursue its task of depicting
spatial patterns of distribution, and inferring therefrom general hypotheses
and laws explaining why they occur where they do, and thereby providing
valuable inputs for better work in the area of Special (i.e., Regional) studies.
Varenius pointed out that while Special geography was of great practical
value in the pursuit of government and commerce, General geography
provided information on the principles governing the distribution of
particular phenomena on the earth surface so that the administrator and
the businessman may be suitably informed about the nature of the
environment they are likely to encounter in particular parts of earth's surface.
To Bernard Varenius, therefore, General and Special geography did not suggest
a dichotomy or a separation of ways, and division of objectives. To him,
the two represented mutually interdependent parts of geography as a unified
field of scientific ·learning. In this vision of geography, Varenius was far
ahead of his peers. This explains why he had so greatly influenced the
concept and scope of geography in Europe for well over a century.
In the foreword to his book, Varenius had set out a plan for Special
geography, according to which the description of particular places should
be based on celestial conditions, including climate; terrestrial conditions,
including relief, vegetation and animal life; and human conditions including
trade, settlements and forms of government in each country being studied.
It is true though, that Varenius was none too enthusiastic about human
geography since its subject matter could not be put to exact mathematical
analysis for purposes of generating laws of behaviour (Gettfried Lange,
1961, paraphrased in Holt-Jensen, 1980, p. 14).
Like most other great works of scholarship, Varenius's book had been
inspired by the demands of his time. In 1647, Varenius had accepted the
position of a private tutor in a family in Amsterdam, then the commercial
hub of the Netherlands. Here he came in contact with merchants engaged
in international trade. Many of the merchants needed information about
Japan where the Dutch had established a trading post in Nagasaki. This is
what had inspired his first book entitled Regional Description of Japan and
Siam published in 1649. The experience gained in writing a regional
geography of Japan gave Varenius the idea that descriptions of particular
places "could have no standing as contribution to science so long as these
are not related to a coherent body of general concepts". His Geographia
Genera/is was written with a view to promoting the search for and the
building of this much-needed conceptual coherence in geographical
scholarship. His book went through several editions in Latin-two of these
(published in 1672 and 1681) edited by no less a person than Sir Isaac
Newton. An English edition was published in 1693 (Baker, 1955a and 1955b).
Varenius passed away in 1650 at the tender age of 28 so that the
world of scholarship was deprived of many more conceptual leads. Under
lining the methodology of Special vis-a-vis General geography, Varenius
pointed out that while in General geography (dealing mostly with
phenomena of physical origin), most things can be proved by mathematical
laws, in the case of Special geography, with the exception of celestial features
(i.e., climate), things must be proved by experience that is, by direct
observation through the senses (James, 1972, p. 226).
THE IMPACT OF DISCOVERIES
New Answers to Questions about the Origin of the Earth and

Its Surface Features, and Man's Place in Nature
Speculation about the origin of the earth, and man's place in the web of
nature, had for long remained constrained by theocratic domination of
thought in mediaeval Europe. Intellectual thinking had continued to be
conditioned by traditions inherited from ancient Greece as well as from
biblical accounts. All this began to change during the seventeenth century
when steps were initiated to cut the thought process loose from the strangle
hold of biblical beliefs, and to start experimenting with rational methods,
so that geographical exploration had "immense significance in the history
of science and of thought" (Parry, 1981, p. 3).
By the end of the seventeenth century, a good deal of speculation on
the origin of the earth had led to the belief that the earth is a physical
phenomenon that has acquired its present form though natural processes
of change spread over millions of years, and that it was wrong to regard
it as a divine creation. Inspired by the theory of comets given by Edmond
Halley (1656-1742) in 1682, William Whiston (1667-1752) developed the
theory that the earth was made from the debris of ,. comet, and that the
gravitational pull of a second approaching comet had caused the elliptical
orbit of the earth around the sun, and.had led-through the tidal waves
caused by its gravitational pull-to the creation of the continents and ocean
basins. While the crests of the waves were occupied by landmasses
(continents), the troughs became the ocean basins. Later the German scholar
Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) developed the theory that the great
flood that had been caused by the cooling of the earth's atmosphere, had
led to dissolution of materials of the earth's crust. The dissolved rr,aterials
of the crust were deposited on the surface of the earth in the form of a
series of layers so that large parts of the earth surface are covered with
sedimentary strata.
Simultaneously, a good deal of speculation had begun on the origin
of landforms. In 1719, John Strachey (1671-1743) showed that landforms
reflected the rock structure lying underneath them. Subsequently, in 1777
Simon P allas (1741-1811) published geological maps to show that the cores
of most mountain ranges are made of granite. Alongside, ideas about the
mechanics of river flows and valley development were being developed at
a rapid pace. The French scnolar Louis Gabriel Comte Du Buat (1734-1809)
mathematically explained (in 1786) how the flowing water of a river can
establish equilibrium between velocity and the load of sediment being
transported by it. This had led to the idea of "graded river profiles". During
the 18th century James Hutton (1726-1797) popularized the concept of
uniformitarianism, according to which the processes that shape the earth
surface indicate a perpetual process of change "with no vestige of a beginning
and no prospect of an end".
New methods of scientific classification of plant and animal life were
also influential in shaping geographic thought and practice. The most
influential figure in this field was Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus
(1707-1778). He developed a system of classification based on classes, orders,
genera, and species. French naturalist Lamarck (1744-1829) drew attention
to the need for a system of classification of plants and animals in accordance
with their natural characteristics. He challenged the widely believed notion
that plants and animals were created in their present form. Thus, he presented
the· rudiment of a theory of evolution that was later advanced and refined
in a big way by Darwin and others who laboured to explain the mechanism
through which the process of evolution of life forms had taken place. Coupled
with the idea of uniformitarianism of Hutton, the theory of biological
evolution had greatly impressed geographers about the role of time in the
evolution of landfo111ls.
The early part of the eighteenth century also witnessed the first
beginnings of scientific study of man. The German scholar J.P. Sussmilch
(1707-1767), in a book published in 1741, had demonstrated the existence
of statistical regularities in population data. His research showed that the

ratios between the sexes had remained nearly balanced, and that birth and
death rates could be predicted on the basis of past trends. (However, the
idea that numerical information about individuals tends to group around
averages (in accordance with the theory of probability) was put forward by
Lambert Quetelet (1796-1874) only much later in 1848.)
As knowledge about the lands and peoples over the earth's surface
increased, so did speculation about the role of the environment in shaping
human behaviour patterns. French philosopher Jean Bodin (1529-1596) was
one of the first to present a major work on this theme in 1566. Placing
belief in the Greek concept of climatic zones, Bodin formulated the theory
that people in the southern parts of the world (being under the influence
of Saturn) are religiDus by nature; those living in the northern regions
(living under the influence of Mars) were endowed with martial charac
teristics; and only people living in the middle regions (owing to the influence
of Jupiter) were able to evolve a civilized way of life and live under the
rule of law. English geographer Nathanael Carpenter in his Cosmography
(1625) further advanced Bodin's idea regarding climatic zones and their
influence in shaping human behaviour. From these early beginnings of
what may appear to us today as unscientific speculation about the man
nature relationships, progressively evolved more rational scientific analyses
based on detailed observations and comparative case studies. In a piece
published in 1719, the French scholar Abbe de Bos established a definite
relationship between the weather and suicide rates in the cities of Paris
and Rome. His analysis showed that in Paris, suicides were most common
in the period before the onset of winter and just after the end of winter. In
Rome on the other hand, most suicides had occurred in the two hottest
months in summer (Glacken, 1967, pp. 556-558). Until the 19th century the
most influential scholar who worked on this theme was Charles Louis
Montesquieu (1689-1755). In line with the scientific ideas current in his
time, Montesquieu wrote that warm climates favoured growth of despotism
and slavery, whereas colder climates encouraged democracy and freedom
so that, according to him, democracy tended to increase in direct proportion
to _increase in distance from the equator. Despite these crude observations
on the relationship between man and the environment, Montesquieu was
far from a crude determinist (Kriesel, 1968); he had given due allowance to
human initiative and technology in reducing environmental constraints to
human progress.
The progress in scientific thought through the newly acquired habit
of questioning everything in sight represented a new tradition in scholarship.
As James (1972) wrote, all these efforts were "new" in the sense that they
offered new hypotheses, new methods of classification, and new ways of
making use of mathematical principles of explanation. In the development
of this new way of thinking, the ground breaking work was performed by
the French scholar Count Buffon (George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon,
1707-1788), who was director of the Jardin du Roi botanical garden in Paris
from 1739 to 1788. By virtue of the position that he held, Buffon had access
to a large collection of specimens of plants and animals, and to descriptions
written by travellers and explorers. His forty-four volume work on Histoire
Nature/le, Generale et Particuliere (1749-1804) (written in active collaboration
with a large number of scholars) "represents one of the first works resulting
from the reports of voyages of discovery in which attention was turned
from oddities and marvels to a search for regularities and for the laws
governing processes of change. His approach was nonmathematical and ...
strictly inductive ... aimed at finding some kind of order in the flood of
new inforrnation" obtained from the explorations and discoveries (James,
1972, p. 136).
While Buffon subscribed to the idea of a divinely created earth, he
rejected the theory that the final plan of creation was in the mind of the
creator and as such there was no need to look for causes of earth phenomena.
Buffon was the first to focus attention on man as an agent of geographic
change. He developed the idea that the earth has been cooling gradually,
and that part of the warmth on the earth surface was derived from its hot
interior. Buffon subscribed to the theory of climatic determinism inherited
from the ancient Greeks but he was positive that man was not a passive
agent, and that he was capable of adjusting to any climate through his
technology and culture.
Inclusion of panels of trained scientists in the voyages of discovery,
beginning around the last quarter of the seventeenth century, had greatly
promoted scientific knowledge about the earth. The first such scientific
traveller during 1698-1708 was the English astronomer Edmund Halley
(1656-1742), the great scientific genius at deriving order out of complex
data. He was the originator of the mortality tables in 1693, as also of many
graphic methods for showing geographical distribution of physical features
of the earth. His maps and discussions of the trade winds of the Atlantic
(1686) provided the first illustration of wind directions and wind shifts.
He also prepared the first map of magnetic variations using isogonic lines
in 1701.
The father-son team of Johann (1729-1798) and George (1754-1794)
Forster had accompanied Captain James Cook on his second voyage to the
Indian and the Pacific oceans. In the course of this voyage, the two made
botanical observations. It was in the course of this voyage that George
Forster found out that the patterns of temperature on the eastern and western
margins of landmasses are very different so that there was similarity between
the climates of Western Europe and the western coast of North America.
George Forster later played the pivotal role in attracting Alexander van
Humboldt to geography. Another great scientific traveller of this period
was Major James Renne! (1742-1830). He was one of the founders of the
science of oceanography, and had served as the Surveyor General of India
during 1767-1777. His Atlas of Bengal (1779) had gone through several
editions, and it had remained a standard work of reference until around 1850.
The growing spirit of inquiry had, by the last quarter of the eighteenth
century, egged on many scholars to seek scientific answers to the age old
questions regarding man and his life upon the earth. A most prominent
name in this regard was that of Thomas Robert Malthus (1760---1834) who
published his famous essay on population in 1798 in which he set out his
theory about the interdependent relationship between increase in population
and food supply. He noted that population increases in geometrical
progression whereas food supply grows only in arithmetical progression.
As a result, population keeps on increasing until subsistence level is reached,
so that its further increase is checked by famine and epidemics. At one
place in his essay Malthus had used the phrase "struggle for survival", a
term which, several decades later, was to inspire Charles Darwin (1809-
1882) in his explorations toward the theory of evolution of species through
the process of natural selection. In his studies Malthus had showed that
increase in agricultural production could not cope with the natural increase
in population, irrespective of technological inputs. He was also the first to
formulate the economic law of diminishing returns from increased
employment of capital and labour.
THE NEW GEOGRAPHY OF THE 18th CENTURY

The greatly increased information about the lands and peoples around the
world that had accumulated by the middle of the eighteenth century, called
for a new style of geographical writing. Around this time the old descriptive
geographies (cosmographies) were being replaced by more scientifically
informed "universal geographies". Of several such universal geographies
the two best known titles were authored by the French geographer Philippe
Buache (1700---1773) and the German philosopher Anton. Friedrich Busching
(1724-1793). In a book published in 1752, Buache developed the theory that
the earth surface is marked off into a series of major basins bordered by
continuous ranges of mountains forming drainage divides between adjoining
basins. This concept was greatly popularized through the effort of another
German geographer Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727-1799) who identified
these drainage basins as "natural regions" and used them as the basic
framework for writing new geography texts. The theory became so popular
in Britain that river basins were adopted as the preferred units for the
study of areal integrations. (Buache is also said to have been the first to
identify the existence of a land hemisphere with Paris as its centre.)
Busching had published a six-volume work on Europe in 1792. The
work was organized in terms of political units, in the style of Munster, but
was based on updated information. He died in 1793 so that his plan to write
geographical accounts of the remaining continents remained incomplete.
He was the first scholar to have used population density as a geographical
factor, and was perhaps the best known geographer of his time.
Of the many universal geographies to appear in the eighteenth century
perhaps the most influential was the one authored by the Denmark-born
(but banished from that country in 1800) French geographer Conrad Malte-
Brun (1775-1826). His universal geography was an eight-volume work that

was published over the 1810-1829 period. Malte-Brun's work was far better
organized than the works of his predecessors. His first volume had started
with a discussion of the history of geography. The second volume contained
discussions on general concepts including the origin of the earth, types of
map projections, catastrophism, and uniforrnitarianism. He rejected the
theory of climatic deter1ninism. The most creditable feature of Malte-Brun's
book was that throughout it he had incorporated the latest information
derived from the accounts of various voyages of discovery, including that
by Captain Cook.
PLACING GEOGRAPHY IN THE CLASSIFICATION OF SCIENCES: THE

CONTRIBUTION OF IMMANUEL KANT
German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a contemporary of
Malle-Brun. He was professor of logic and metaphysics at the University
of Konisberg. He had lectured there since 1755 on a variety of subjects, and
since 1756 had regularly offered a course of lectures on physical geography
every year until 1796. His attraction to geography was by way of his interest
in explorations for the acquisition of empirical knowledge, as part of his
general philosophical research. However, finding that geography was
inadequately developed, and that it was lacking logical organization, "he
devoted a great deal of attention to the assembly and organization of
materials from a wide variety of sources, and also to the consideration of
a number of problems" (Hartshorne, 1939, p. 38).
Kant's lasting contribution to geography is that he provided a
philosophical foundation for the subject as a field of scientific enterprise.
It was Kant's practice to expose in his introductory lecture the place of
geography among the fields of scientific learning. He pointed out that
there are two different ways of classifying phenomena for purposes of
academic study. In the one, phenomena are grouped according to their
nature (i.e., their inherent characteristics), and in the other, according to
their position of occurrence in·time or space. The first type of classification
of the fields of learning was called logical classification, and the second was
termed as physical classification. Logical classification gave us a series of
systematic sciences, each devoted to the study of particular kinds of
phenomena or activities. Fields of study like the various branches of natural
and physical sciences such as botany, zoology, physics, chemistry etc., as
also economics, political science, and sociology, derived their place as
autonomous branches of study on this basis. On the other hand, physical
classification provided a scientific basis for the historical and spatial
sciences-the former concerned with the arrangement (or positioning) of
phenomena in the time dimension, and the latter with arrangement of
phenomena in the space dimension. Grouping things of diverse character
and origin together on the basis of areal association in a horizontal space
provided the subject matter of geography (in relation to the earth surface)
and astronomy (in relation to celestial space). Grouping of phenomena of

diverse origin and nature in terms of their arrangement in a time sequence
provided the subject matter of history. In short, geography studies
phenomena which lie side by side on the earth surface, and is, therefore,
preeminently a chorological (i.e., areal or spatial) science. History, on the
other hand, studies phenomena which are arranged in a sequence of time
periods and is, as such, a chronological science. As Kant pointed out, both
history and geography are essentially descriptive in approach, history being
a description in a time dimension, whereas geography is description in a
space \iimension.
In Kant's scheme of division of fields of knowledge, geography
occupied an important place. Owing to this, Kant is repeatedly cited by
geographers in regard to justification of the status of their discipline as a
science. Hettner's exposition of geography as chorology in the beginning
of the twentieth century had closely followed the line of argument pioneered
by Kant (even if he actually came to know about the existence of Kant's
lectures at a later date). Hartshorne's Nature of Geography (1939) also followed
the line of thought first formalised by Kant. Through Hartshorne's book
this became the dominant concept of geography as a field of learning until
around 1960 (May, 1970).
Contemporary scholarship in geography has been critical of Kant's
view in that it is "impossible, and to some extent philosophically untenable,
to draw such sharp divisions between the 'sciences' as Kant did. The
systematic sciences study phenomena with reference to time and space and
it is very difficult to separate time and space in studies of human geography"
(Holt-Jensen, 1980, p. 15). Geographers are quite often required to study
areal phenomena in terms of their transformation over time, and persistence
of the past into the present. Likewise, historians cannot neglect spatial
patterns in their study of time sequences and past periods. However, Kant
cannot be blamed if his logically sound scheme of classification of sciences,
and the place of history and geography in it, was used in a way that
created barriers between fields of learning. As discussed in the Introduction
(p. 4) Kant himself did not subscribe to the idea of any such barrier. His
was a great pioneering thought and remains as valid today as it was at the
time it was presented.
REFERENCES
Baker, J.N.L. (1955a), Geography and its history, Advancement of Science,
vol. 12, pp. 188--198.
_ _ _(1955b), The Geography of Bernard Varenius, Transactions and Papers,
Institute of British Geographers, vol. 21, pp. 51-60.
Glacken, C.J. (1967), Traces on the Rhodian Shores, Nature and Culture in Western
T hought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century, Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Hartshorne, R. (1939), The Nature of Geography, Lancaster (PA.): Association

of American Geographers.
Holt-Jensen, A. (1980), Geography: Its History and Concepts, London: Harper
& Row.
James, P.E. (1972), All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas,
Indianapolis: The Odessey Press.
Jones, H.L. (Tr.) (1917), The Geography of Strabo, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.
Kimble, G.H. (1938), Geography in the Middle Ages, London: Methuen.
Kriesel, K.M. (1968), Montesquieu: Possibilistic Political Geographer, Annals
of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 58, pp. 557-574.
Lange, G. (1961), Varenius uber die Grundfrage der Geographie, Petermanns
Geographische Mittesilungen, vol. 105, pp. 274-283.
May, J.A. (1970), Kant's Concept of Geography and its Relation to Recent
Geographical Thought, Depart11,ent of Geography, University of Toronto,
Toronto, Research Publication No. 4.
T hompson, J.0. (1965), History of Andent Geography, New York: Biblo Tannen.
2
Geography In the Nineteenth Century:
The Age of Humboldt, 1790-1859
Kant's association with geography, and his attempt to locate it in the

classification of sciences, gave respectability to the discipline as a scientific
enterprise, but geography had been only marginal to Kant's intellectual
pursuit as a philosopher. He had, nevertheless, prepared the ground and
provided the point from where a new beginning could be made. This task
was taken up and most competently accomplished by another German
scholar, Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a most versatile and prolific
scholar and scientist whose researches had enriched several branches of
science including geology, mineralogy, botany, earth magnetism and
meteorology. Scientific societies all over Europe recognized him as an
outstanding scientist of his time so that he was variously referred to by
his contemporaries as the "monarch of sciences" and "the new Aristotle".
A widely travelled individual of his time, Humboldt made singular
contributions to theory and practice of geography so that many regard him
(along side Carl Ritter) as the founder of modem geography. In many ways
the nature of his contribution to geographical thought an(j practice
represented, in the words of Preston James, both "a beginning and an
end"-the beginning of modern style geography as an analytical science
having its own methodology and way of looking at phenomena horizontally
arranged on the earth surface; and the end of old style cosmographical
geography-part science and part fiction.
In order to have a proper appreciation of Humboldt's contribution to
the development of geography as a science, it is necessary first to summarize
the intellectual cross-currents at the end of the eighteenth century, cross
currents which had influenced his education as a scientist, and in reaction
to which he had developed some of his own ideas and concepts, including
his methodological approach to the study of geography.
SCIENCE A ND PHILOSOPHY AT THE END OF

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Through the eighteenth century, with the increased growth of indus

trialization and rapid expansion of European empires, science had become
38
GEOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE AGE OF HUMBOLDT, 1790-1859 39
increasingly identified with progress in the sense that by extending the

frontiers of knowledge, science had provided mankind with powerful tools
for gaining mastery over the forces of nature wherever these appeared to
hinder his onward march to greater progress. In accomplishing this, science
met two major objectives of Enlightenment-the widening of man's mental
horizon through rational thought, and facilitating human progress through
technological advancement. As such, science became widely accepted as
the means of intellectual liberation.
Since the new science was based on sense-experience and experiment,
by the second half of the eighteenth century, it had become closely identified
with "materialism" and "objectivism" (i.e., study of matter and objects).
Each field of natural science became progressively more and more specialized
in the study of its own particular circle of facts, so that few attempts were
made to promote integrated world views. Indeed, universalism was viewed
as opposed to the specializing spirit of science. The doctrine of facts and
scientific objectivity, the two pillars of the emerging empiricist/positivist
science, led to "claims of independence of scientific method from history
and philosophy alike, while assertions of the amoral status of science were
affi11ned more strongly as the patent immorality of colonial and industrial
society became the target of a movement for reform" (Bowen, 1981, p. 175).
Some of the more important ideas and beliefs that had dominated the
world of scholarship during the Age of Enlightenment may here be briefly
summarized.
Positivist Model of Science and the Doctrine of Facts

The Comtean positivism of the early nineteenth century had its beginning
in the age of enlightenment of the eighteenth century so that many regard
David Hume as "the real father of positivism". To the philosophers of
Enlightenment, the empirical method with its emphasis on sense-experience
appeared as a suitable weapon in their own struggle against superstition,
metaphysics, inequality, and despotism. During this period, the word fact
(derived from the Latin rootfacere, meaning make or do) came to mean not
action but some primary observation based on direct sense-experience.
Thus, empiricism became identified as the "doctrine of facts". In the
introduction to his Histoire Nature/le Buffon (1707-1788) had explained this
doctrine by stating that truth in the physical sciences "rests on facts alone ...a
succession of similar facts constitutes the essence of physical truth". The
truth derived from a large number of particular observations represented,
according to Buffon, "only a probability, but a probability so great that it
is equivalent to certainty. In mathematics we make suppositions, in physical
sciences we propound and establish: In the first, there are definitions, in
the second there are facts; we go from definition to definition in the abstract
sciences, we proceed from observation to observation in the real sciences;
in the first we arrive at evidence, in the second, at certainty" (Buffon, cited
in Bowen, 1981, p. 175). T hus, the doctrine of facts was based on what has
been termed as the sensationalist approach to knowledge. The approach is
called sensationalist since all human experience could be traced back to

individual sensations recorded by one or the other of the senses. Since
acquisition of knowledge in the empirical model of science was through
the study of the particular, or particles, this approach had also sometimes
been known as the atomic approach.
Scientific Materialism and the View of the World as a Machine

Scientific materialism was the view of science that investigated the world
as being composed of material facts-an idea that has been traced back to
the Roman philosopher Lucretius (95-55 B.C.) who had claimed that it was
the action of atoms rather than divine creation that had been responsible
for the formation of the world including the whole range of living beings
(plants, animals and man). This idea had received a fresh lease of life after
Galileo and Descartes advocated the materialist theory of science according.
to which the world was viewed as a functioning machine. Only the human
mind was regarded to be exempt from the operation of the mechanistic
laws. The view of the world as a machine later received support from the
works of Newton, so that in the course of the eighteenth century, efforts
had begun to be made to include man in the materialist model of explanation.
The original idea of Lucretius was more fully developed by the French
scholar La Mattrie (1709-1750) in his book entitled L'Homme Machine (Man
a Machine) in which he had interpreted materialism to include all forms of
life. He argued that matter is the basis of life, and organized matter in
complex bodies produces purposive motion, including human thought. He
rejected the notion of divine order.
La Mattrie's ideas were further developed by d'Holback in his Systeme
de la Nature (1770); and in the work of the French humanist Diderot (1713-
1784) who accepted the materialist interpretation of the universe as
purposeless and subject to mechanical laws and chance, and rejected the
concept of divine order and emphasized that man makes his own morality
in accordance with human physiology and needs.
The Historical Method and the Belief in Progress through Knowledge

One of the major concerns of the philosophers of enlightenment was progress
through knowledge. They emphasized the nature of man as a social being
as well as an individual, and drew attention to the function of science in
society as part of a general improvement in education, happiness and virtue
for humanity. This led to interest in the study of the history of development
of knowledge and of the historical method of analysis.
A most distinguished example of the use of the historical method of
analysis and explanation was presented in Adam Smith's (1723-1790) The
Wealth of Nations (1776), a book that was later to earn him the title of the
"Father of modern economics". Smith's method consisted of seeking clues
from past experiences in different societies to find explanation for and
better understanding of problems in economics. By combining the historical
method with the statistical tradition of "political arithmetic", Smith founded

the first of the new set of sciences dealing with civil and moral aspects, and
thereby focused attention on the need for a more liberal interpretation of
the scientific method. Smith's book demonstrated how the objectivist
particularism of empirical science could be employed in the study of human
groups by supplementing it with the knowledge derived from past
experience through the use of the historical method. He expanded the
scope of the empirical method of science to include the study of historical
examples.
By the end of the 1780s the philosophic movement of Enlightenment
was losing its coherence, and Baconian empiricism had gained ascendency
in the study of the natural sciences. In the revival of positivist empiricism,
the pivotal role was played by Antoine Lavoisier's (1743-1794) French
language text entitled Elementary Treatise in Chemistry published in 1789.
With a view to making chemistry an exact science, he advocated that the
student of science should draw conclusions only from experience and
experiment, and that he should rely on observations as the only source of
ideas. He rejected any concern with the history of previous enquiry as
irrelevant to further research. Lavoisier, therefore, incorporated a strong
anti-historical approach into the positivist model of the exact sciences.
Leibniz and the View of the World as an Organism

Leibniz (1646-1716) rejected the materialistic/mechanistic view of the world.
He maintained that it is impossible to find principles of a true unity in
matter alone or in that which is only passive, since everything in it is only
a collection or mass of parts of infinity. He emphasized that a continuum
cannot be composed of points (material atoms); matter itself must be
composed of parts that are pulled together by active centres of force
somewhat analogous to the soul in the human body. As Crocker (1969,
pp. 11-12) has pointed out, Leibniz thus introduced the concept of a dynamic,
pluralistic universe, which is continuous but changing. He also introduced
the idea of the world as an organism (as contrasted to the idea that the
world was like a machine) in which the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts. Nevertheless, Leibniz was an advocate of rational empiricism so
that he accepted the need for an organized programme of experiments and
observations in science. His opposition was only to the materialistic
mechanistic view of the world and not to the empirical method per se.
The organismic world view of Leibniz was adopted for the study of
plants and animal life by a group of life scientists generally known to
belong to the vitalist school. Later on, under the inspiring lead given by
the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), the model was used
as a methodological device in the study of social organizations.
It is relevant to note the contrast between the lines of approach adopted
by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1776) and Bufton. Linnaeus supported the idea of
fixity of species, and existence of discrete classes of plants and animals
a view quite consistent with the static and mechanistic view of nature. As
contrasted to this, Buffon's Natural History favoured the idea of continuity

of nature as advanced by Leibniz. Though he accepted the need for
classification, Buffon was opposed to the system of discrete classes, since
he had found that in botany a number of plants stand out as anomalies in
classification.
The Idea of Evolution

The idea of progress through gradual change adopted in the study of species
in evolutionary biology derived inspiration from the idea of progress in
the works of some earlier writers, but focused attempts in this direction
were made only by Erasmus Darwin (1731-1851) and Jean Baptiste Lamarck
(1744 1829). In the case of geology, the evolutionary view of development
was clearly proposed by Buffon in the first volume of his Natural History
published under the title Theory of the Earth in 1749. The idea was later put
forward in a forceful manner as the doctrine of uniformitarianism by James
Hutton (1726-1797) in his Theory of the Earth published in 1795. The theory
of social and intellectual evolution of man through gradual improvement
in education and science was repeatedly emphasized by the philosophers
of the period of enlightenment. The cumulative effect of all this was that
the idea of the earth as a divine creation was abandoned and replaced by
the theory that the earth had come into its present form through progressive
change over a long period of time.
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT

Universally acclaimed as the father of modern geography, Alexander von
Humboldt (1769-1859) was one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. A
versatile researcher, he had enriched several branches of science through
original research. Humboldt lived at a time when under the impact of the
empiricist/positivist view of science, scientific research had started to be
treated as a specialized pursuit so that each researcher tended to confine
his interest to a given branch of study. The lines dividing the several branches
of science were yet to get hardened, however. Besides, knowledge was as
yet not so highly specialized that a keen researcher could not master more
than one field of science. Given his training and background (and of course
his talent), Humboldt was eminently qualified to do so. His versatility as
a scientist, and his expertise in several fields of science related to the study
of the earth's environment had drawn him to geography-a subject that
was subsequently to become his major area of interest, and to which he
gave a sound philosophical basis as a field of learning through incremental
advances over the work of his predecessors like Varenius and Kant.
Humboldt's stature as a leading figure in several branches of science,
and his firm grounding in the philosophy and method of new science,
eminently qualified him to play the role of the father figure of modern
geography as a scientific enterprise a synthetic but systematic discipline
with a focused regional perspective.
Humboldt's Career as a Scientist and His Ideas Regarding the

Nature of the Universe
.
Alexander Humboldt was born in 1769 into the Prussian aristocracy. His
father, an officer in the Prussian army, died when Alexander was only ten
years old and he was brought up and educated under the stem guardianship
of his mother who provided the best available education for her two children.
Their early education was under the charge of private tutors at home in
Tegel and near Berlin. In 1787-1788 Alexander went to study at the University
of Frankfurt, but after only a six-month stay there, he returned home at his
mother's instance, to study factory management in Berlin only to leave it
in 1789 to study physics, philosophy and archaeology at the University of
Gottingen. It was here that he met George Forster under whose influence
he developed a lasting interest in field observation and the study of plants.
Humboldt accompanied George Forster on a hiking trip down the
Rhine to the Netherlands and from there by ship to England. As he was to
acknowledge later in his career, this trip initiated him to the study of the
phenomena of nature in relation to each other and to their environment,
and thence to the fundamentals of geography. George Forster (1754-1794)
had accompanied his father Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798) on Captain
Cook's second voyage lasting from 1772 to 1775, and had translated his
father's account of the voyage, first published in 1777 under the title:
Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World. The German translation
had appeared in 1778. As Peschel (1865) wrote, Reinhold Forster was "the
first traveller to give a physical survey of the section of the world he had
seen, and the first to perform the highest function of a geographer, that of
scientific comparisons" (cited in Dickinson, 1969, p. 18). Commenting upon
the craze for collecting facts among his contemporaries, the senior Forster
wrote: "Facts were collected from all parts of the world, yet knowledge
was not increased", because the collection of facts represented "a confused
heap of disjointed limbs, which no art could reunite into a whole." He
stressed the need for a scientific observer "to combine different facts and
to form general views from thence, which might ... guide him to new
discoveries". Plewe has described him as "the first German methodological
geographer in the modern sense".
George Forster shared his father's views and advanced them in his
own writings. Commenting upon his German languages book entitled:
Views of the Lower Rhine (based on travels made in the company of Humboldt
in 1789) Plewe has commented that through this book George Forster
''founded more securely his father's method, and prepared the way for a
systematic development of regional geography". In his Kosmos, Humboldt
has acknowledged George Forster as his friend and teacher, and has stated
that "Through him began a new era of scientific voyages, whose aim was
the comparative study of peoples and regions"
The Study of Plant Organisms in Relation to their Habitat

Humboldt had left Gottingen in 1790 to pursue research in natural sciences.
In accordance with his mother's wishes, he first joined an academy of

commerce in Hamburg to prepare for a career in finance. There his subjects
of study included (besides commerce) botany, rninerology, and geography.
After spending only a year at the commerce academy he shifted to the
Freiberg Academy of Mines where he studied under the renowned geologist
A.G. Werner (1749-1817). Here also, alongside geology and minerology,
Humboldt continued to pursue botany. From his researches and experiments
on underground plant life in mines, resulted a major Latin language work
entitled Florae Fribergensis "in which he showed a characteristic concern
not only with plants themselves but also with the relation of these as
organisms to their environment". In the introduction to this book he had
suggested that geography of plants should form an essential part of what he
called Geognosia in Latin, and translated as Erdkunde in German (a term
that later became the synonym for geography). Plant geography, he wrote,
... traces the connections and relations by which all plants are bound
together among themselves, designates in what lands they are found...
This is what distinguishes geognosy from ... zoology, botany, geology, all
of which form part of the investigation of nature, but study only the
forms, anatomy, processes etc. of individual animals, plants, metallic things
or fossils.
Thus, as Bowen puts it,
in scope and method, Humboldt's Geognosia of 1793 can be regarded as
providing an important model for modem geography. His idea of plant
communities, extended to a study of the distribution and relation of
rocks and animals, suggested the basis for a new science, one concerned
with the interrelationships of organic and inorganic phenomena on earth.
(Bowen, 1981)
Influence of Goethe and Schiller and the Idea of

Harmonlus Unity in Nature
In 1794, Humboldt visited Jena to be with his brother. Here he came in
contact with Goethe and several other leading lights of the Weimar Society
of writers and idealist philosophers, including J.C.F. von Schiller, J.G. Fichte
and F.W.J. Schelling. In their Naturphilosophie this group favoured the
"neoplatonic idea of polar forces in the universe", so that they were opposed
to the mechanistic and materialistic view of science. They emphasized,
instead, the need to look for unity and harmony in nature. This fundamental
idea of the world of nature as an organic structure struck a sympathetic
chord in Humboldt, since he had himself been drawn to similar ideas in
his study of nature in the course of his field trip with George Forster, and
his subsequent writing on plant geography. However, Humboldt did not
share with Goethe and Schiller their distaste for the experimental-empirical
approach to science. He saw no contradiction between an organic (anti
mechanistic) view of the world and the empirical/experimental method of
acquiring knowledge.
Toward the Development of Universal Science

Soon after the publication of his research on underground plants in 1793,
Humboldt had written to a friend about his plan of a twenty-year project
to study plant life on the earth surface "in connection with the whole of the
rest of nature, along with its influence on sentient mankind". Two years
later, he changed his mind in favour of a still more positive view of the
unity of phenomena in nature. As he wrote to his friend Pictet in 1796, in
the six years since his travel to England in the company of George Forster,
he had made extensive field observations in the mountains of Europe and
had studied nature from different points of view; these field observations
had led him to conceive the "idea of a universal science (physique du monde)",
but "the more I feel its need, the more I see how slight the foundations still
are for such a vast edifice". His plan was to develop such a study on an
experimental basis specifically "to reduce experiments to general laws, to
establish harmony among the phenomena" (cited in McPherson, 1972).
Thus the basic idea that finally impelled him to write his monumental
Kosmos half a century later, had already germinated in his mind in the
mid-1790s.
The development of universal science had, however, to wait until
scientific observations and experiments on different aspects of the physical
earth had yielded sufficient insights and material for compilation. With a
view to fulfilling his ambition to establish the physique du monde, Humboldt
plunged into a wide variety of scientific research. His book entitled Aphorisms
on the Chemical Phytiology of Plants was published in 1793. In it he had
adopted the latest approaches to empirical research, and had also
incorporated Lavoisier's teachings in analytical chemistry and his theory
of "exact science". In 1797 were published the results of his experiments
with electricity in the study of animals. He had experimented with the idea
of stimulating the nervous system of various animals with the help of
electrodes. The results were published in a two-volume German language
text on Experiments with Irritated Muscles and Nerve Fibres.
During 1792-1796 Humboldt held an appointment in the Prussian
ministry of mines. On the basis of his excellent perfo1111ance, he quickly
advanced many rungs on the ladder of promotion, but his heart was not
in government service. He yearned for a career as a scientist. When his
mother died in 1796 leaving him an estate yielding a high enough income
to support his scientific activities, he quit his job to be free to start a career
of scientific travel and exploration.
In 1797 he went to Vienna to prepare for an expedition to the West
Indies. From Vienna he went to Paris where he met a number of eminent
scientists at the Institute de France. He met the French botanist Bonpland in
consultation with whom he prepared their plan for travel through Spain to
Madrid in order to seek permission for a scientific voyage to the Spanish
territories in South America. They set off in June 1799. This was the most
ambitious scientific voyage undertaken to that date. The objective was to
collect scientific data on all possible aspects of nature including place location
and altitude so that his luggage included all kinds of available instruments
for making and recording observations. Commenting on the objective of
his voyage to a friend he wrote:
I shall collect plants and fossils, and I shall be able to make astronomical
observations with some excellent instruments; I shall analyze the air by
chemical means... but all this is not the principal object of my voyage.
My attention will never lose sight of the harmony of concurrent forces,
the influence of the inanimate world on the animal and vegetable kingdom
(cited in Bowen, 1981, p. 221).
Thus, the purpose of the voyage remained the fulfilment of his ambition
to lay the foundation of universal science based on the concept of essential
unity of organic and inorganic nature.
Scientific Explorations in South America (1799-1804)

Humboldt's travels in the tropical regions of South America began at Cumana
in Venezuela. From there the two travellers went to Caracas, explored the
settlements, and proceeded to the basin of Valencia (about 50 miles southwest
of Caracas) in which lay a shallow lake of the same name. Here they made
valuable observations on physical consequences of deforestation on the
physical landscape and local economy. In 1800, the two travellers mapped
some 1725 miles of the Orinico River and in that process established
irrefutable proof against Buache's theory of continuous mountain chains,
since in ter11,s of that theory the Orinico should have been separated from
the Amazon by a mountain chain. Humboldt's survey confirmed the earlier
report that one of the channels of the Orinico in its upper reaches flows
into the headwaters of the Rio Negro and through it into the Amazon (an
early example of river capture). Throughout their arduous journey through
tropical forests, the two travellers collected a large number of specimens of
plants and fossils.
In November 1800, they returned to Cumana and from there sailed
for Cuba. In 1801 they sailed for Colombia and arrived at the port of
Cartegena from where they proceeded to explore the Andes in Colombia,
Ecuador, and Peru throughout making elaborate records of altitudes,
temperatures, and latitudes and longitudes at a series of places. On the
basis of these records, Humboldt succeeded in providing a scientific
description of the relations of altitude and air temperature to vegetation
and the nature of agriculture in tropical mountains. From his study of
volcanic rocks in the Andes, he was convinced that A.C. Werner's theory
of the sedimentary origin of all rocks was wrong, and that granites, gneisses
and other crystalline rocks had a volcanic origin. The twosome also climbed
the Chimborazo mountain in Ecuador (which was at that time believed to
be the highest peak in the world) in June 1802, scaling an altitude of 19,286
feet. (Chimborazo is 20,561 feet high and was finally conquered by the
British mountaineer Edward Whymper in 1880). In course of climbing the
mountain peak, Humboldt made observations regarding the effect of altitude
on human physiology.
After reaching Lima, Humboldt travelled along the Peruvian coast

and there investigated the chemical properties of guano (bird droppings),
sent samples to Europe for further examination leading subsequently to its
commercial export as fertilizer. During his journey from Callao to Guayaquil
in Ecuador he kept records of temperature changes in the ocean waters and
was the first to describe movement of ocean waters (i.e., currents), including
the phenomenon of upwelling of cold water from below. His observations
of temperature changes in the ocean waters confirmed the existence of a
cold current along the Peruvian coast. Humboldt named it the Peruvian
Current though it is often referred to as the Humboldt Current.
In March 1803, the two explorers sailed from Guayaquil to the port of
Acapulco in Mexico (then known as New Spain) which by virtue of its
status as the principal colony of the Spanish American Empire (then the
largest in the world) was at the peak of prosperity. Humboldt collected
data on the geography and economics of the colony, including the latest
population statistics. This later formed the basis for Humboldt's regional
account of Mexico. In 1804 the two had reached Habana in Cuba. From
there, they sailed to the USA. They met Thomas Jefferson in Philadelphia,
and on June 30, 1804 started on their return journey.
Sclentlflc Publications Based on the Voyage Data: Maturing of

Humboldt as the Foremost Scientist of his Age
Back in Europe from his South American journey, Humboldt first returned
to Berlin but he soon realized that the environment in Germany at that
time was not conducive to his pursuit of scientific research, particularly
after the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon in the battle of Jena in 1806. In 1807
he got the opportunity to visit Paris on a diplomatic mission, and decided
to stay on there for the next 19 years. It was in Paris that the thirty volumes
of his work Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent were
published (between 1805 and 1834). In the introductory volume of the
series, Humboldt underlined that his objective in reporting the results was
not only to portray the "great phenomena that nature presents in these
regions". The central objective was to understand the nature of their ensemble.
He explained that the series was an extension of a study plan originally
conceived in 1790 in the course of the field trip with George Forster. He
wrote: "The study that I have made of many branches of physical science
has served to extend my first ideas. My voyage to the tropics has provided
me with valuable material for the physical history of the globe". As regards
the scope of his research, Humboldt observed that it "encompassed all
phenomena of nature that are observed both on the surface of this globe
and in the atmosphere that surrounds it". He emphasized that his geography
of plants was an essential part of his universal science, since it "considers
vegetation in relation to local association in different climates".
In the volume on the geography of plants in the voyage series,
Humboldt wrote that his primary objective was "to unite into a single
picture the whole complex of physical phenomena in the equatorial regions''.
Also included in this picture was "man and the effects of his industry". For
Humboldt, there was no dichotomy between the physical and the human
aspects of nature in the study of geognosia (geography). His volume on
New Spain "stands as a significant contribution to the field of human
geography, and even today in the new era of social activism and advocacy
research it remains an outstanding model" (Bowen, 1981, p. 230). With the
help of elaborate statistics Humboldt presented a strikingly succinct picture
of the effects of unequal distribution of wealth and productivity in the
Spanish colony. "This was" according to James (1972, p. 159) "one of the
world's first regional economic geographies, dealing with resources and
products of a country in relation to its population and political conditions".
Volumes XXVIII to XXX of the series, entitled Relation Histoire du Voyage
(translated into English as Personal Narrative) contained a detailed report
on the scientific problems investigated and the results achieved. These volumes
made an enormous impact on the world of scholarship. In his preface to
these volumes Humboldt had written that his aim in his diverse scientific
exertions was "to throw light on a science which had scarcely been outlined
and which is called vaguely enough by the names of Physique du Monde,
Theorie de la Terre or Geographie Physique". This volume was so highly regarded
by contemporary scientists that Charles Darwin, read and reread the account
and, according to his own statement, it had changed the course of his life.
As Preston James (1972, pp. 158-159) has noted, "For a world emerging
from the first shock produced by the impact of discoveries, Humboldt's
books were like a fresh breeze because they were filled not only with
excitement of travel in strange places, but also with reports of careful scientific
investigation, the seeking of answers to questions about the interconnections
among phenomena grouped together in rich diversity on the face of the
earth". Through these volumes Humboldt became a great celebrity in science,
and people from far and wide came to meet him in Paris.
Apart from being a great scientist, Humboldt was also a great humanist.
In his regional studies he frequently drew attention to the prevalent social
injustices. Apart from such a concern shown in his 1811 study on Mexico,
in the third volume of Relation Histoire (and the last in the voyages series)
he included essays on Venezuela and Cuba. In the "Political Essay on the
Island of Cuba" he drew attention to the fact that 83 per cent of the population
was coloured and 50 per cent of them were slaves. He warned: if "the
condition of the coloured people does not soon undergo some salutary
changes ... political power will pass into the hands of those who have strength
to work, the will to be free, and the courage to endure long privations.
This bloody catastrophe will occur as a necessary consequence of
circumstances". In order to properly appreciate the humanist stance of
Humboldt, it must be remembered that in writing on this issue, he was
lending the weight of the foremost scientist of the time to the cause of the
underprivileged, and was thereby setting an example for other scientists
and scholars to engage in crucial issues of social change at a time when
conservative ideas had reigned supreme. It may be relevant to recall that
almost exactly a century-and-a-half separated Humboldt's essay on Cuba

and Zelinsky's iconoclastic Presidential address to the Association of
American Geographers in 1975 that made a fervent call for geographers to
pay attention to questions of societal relevance in research, and to focus on
the problems of poverty and social justice in a spatial context. Humboldt's
essay repr<l$ented a rare example of scholarly boldness in face of the
repression of democratic and reformist aspirations then going on in Prussia.
As a political fallout of Humboldt's humanist writing, his elder brother (a
supporter of the movement for constitutional monarchy) had to leave the
Prussian ministry in 1820.
Return to Berlin and the Writing of Kosmos (1827-1859)

Humboldt returned to Berlin in 1827 to take up appointment as chamberlain
in the court of the Prussian King. By this time, the personal fortune he had
inherited from his mother had been spent in meeting the cost of his travels
and scientific research so that a steady income from government employment
had become necessary. Two years later, he accepted an invitation from the
Czar of Russia for the exploration of Siberia and made many valuable
observations on the climate and soils there.
Humboldt set out to consolidate his ideas about science, its nature
and purpose, and the fruits of his research in illuminating his concept of
universal science. The beginning was made in a series of public lectures in
the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin during 1827-1828 on the subject
that he called "Physical Geography and Man's Effort to Understand the
Cosmos". His lectures were so popular that a second series had to be
delivered in response to public demand. Humboldt declined the offer of
publication of these lectures since he wanted to expand the idea into a
book on physical geography. The lectures had contained ideas that
subsequently crystalized as his Kosmos which, according to one author
(Kellner, 1963, p. 199), followed fairly faithfully the lectures which he had
delivered in 1828.
Humboldt wrote to his friend Varnhagen (in 1834) that he regarded
Kosmos as "the work of my life" in which he had planned to put together
in one unified work all his scientific ideas and researches of a lifetimP --
"representing in a single work, the whole material world-all that is known
to us of the phenomena of heavenly space and terrestrial life".
Kosmos had been projected as a five-volume work of which the last
volume remained incomplete at the time of Humboldt's death in 1859. It
was posthumously assembled and published in 1862 from his notes. The
first volume contained a general presentation of the whole picture of the
universe. The second began by discussing the portrayal of nature by
landscape painters and poets through the ages which was followed by the
history of man's effort to discover and describe the earth since the earliest
times. The third volume was devoted to astronomy and the laws of celestial
space; the fourth dealt with the earth; and fifth and final volume was
projected to contain a general discussion of plant and animal geography as
well as a study of man. Unfortunately Humboldt had not been able to

cover these topics before he passed away.
Humboldt's Contribution to Geography as a Science

Humboldt was the front-rank contributor to several branches of knowledge
including botany, geology, climatology, ecology, physiology and some other
related fields. Besides, he was a great master of the empirical method. His
scientific voyage to South America and his unmatched collection of data on
various aspects of nature was a monument of empirical research. However,
unlike most of his contemporaries (who had combined empiricism with a
materialistic-atomistic view of science and, therefore had tended to see
nature in compartments), Humboldt projected nature as an organic whole
born out of harmonious interrelationship between all living and nonliving
objects existing together in particular territories. It was this belief that had
led him to develop a "universal science" encompassing all aspects of
knowledge moral as well as material-and representing the universe in
its totality. The foundation of a universal science was the specific objective
of his Kosmos. It was the urge to search for unity in science that had attracted
him to geography. A distinguished botanist, geologist, ecologist and
climatologist in his own right, Humboldt stood out most prominently as
the father of modern geography as a discipline devoted to the study of the
earth surface (as a whole as well as in parts) and encompassing the whole
range of nature (including man) as an organically interrelat�d and unified
entity.
Humboldt's view of geography as a science was projected quite early
in his career. In his 1793 book on plant geography, he had clearly stated
that "zoology, botany, and geology all form parts of the investigation of
nature, but they study only the forms, anatomy, process etc . of individual
animals, plants, metallic things or fossils". As against this, plant geography
as a part of geography traces the connections and relations by which all
plants are bound together, and it designates in what lands they are found.
In scope as well as in method, Humboldt's Geognosia had provided an
important model for modern geography as the discipline concerned with
both inorganic as well as organic phenomena on the earth's surface as an
interrelated entity. This 1793 statement was reproduced in Kosmos as a
footnote indicating his continued faith in his original idea of geography.
The study of the earth surface or its areal segments was not, however, an
end in itself. The objective was to conduct comparative analyses with a
view to fo1111ulating general concepts to explain interconnection between
phenomena occurring together in places, and for the distributional patterns
of particular types of phenomena over the earth surface as a whole. According
to him, the central problem in the study of the earth surface was to consider
"the eternal ties which link the phenomena of life, and those of inanimate
nature". To him, the division of knowledge into watertight compartments
of the separate systematic sciences presented a major hindrance. He was
convinced that "the ties which unite these phenomena, the relations which
exist between the various forms of organized beings, are discovered only
when we have acquired the habit of viewing the globe as a great whole"
(Relation Histoire, 1814).
One of Humboldt's major contributions as a scientist and theoretician
of knowledge was to reconcile the epistemology of Kant and Herder
regarding the need for a prior concept of the whole to guide research, with
the concept of scientific empiricism of Lavoisier who rejected all traditions
and hypotheses, and wanted the data to speak for themselves. In his
researches Humboldt crossed the narrow limits of empiricism. In the preface
to his Geognostical Essay (1823) he wrote:
In this... essay, as well as in my researches on the isothermal lines, on the
geography of plants, and on the laws which have been observed in the
distribution of organic bodies, I have endeavoured, at the same time that
I give the detail of phenomena in different zones, to generalize the ideas
respecting them, and to connect them with the great questions in natural
philosophy ... It would degrade the sciences to make their progress depend
solely on the accumulation and study of particular phenomena.
Humboldt derived aesthetic satisfaction through the scientific analysis

of the ways in which things and phenomena on the earth's surface depended
upon each other (Dickinson, 1969, p. 23). This concept of interdependent
unity in nature was called zusammenhang (hanging together).
The philosophical concept of the earth as an organic whole of
interdependent phenomena-a concept that Humboldt shared with Hegel,
Goethe and Schiller-rejected the concept of dualism between man and the
physical world projected by the materialistic-atomistic view of science which
excluded man from the domain of scientific investigation. In line with the
natural philosophers and romantic thinkers of his time, Humboldt viewed
man as part of nature so that he had to be included in any scientific study
of the earth surface. Thus, for Humboldt "The influence exercised upon
man by the forces of nature, and the reciprocal, though weaker, action
which he in his turn exercises on these natural forces" £01ItLed an essential
part of scientific study of the earth surface; because
Dependent, although in a lesser degree than plants and animals, on the
soil, and on the material processes of the atmosphere with which he is
surrounded escaping more readily from the control of natural forces,
by activity of mind, and the advance of intellectual cultivation, no less
than by his wonderful capacity of adapting himself to all climates man
everywhere becomes most essentially associated with terrestrial life
(Kosmos, vol. I, Otte translation, pp. 360-361).
Humboldt had planned to make the fourth volume of Kosmos a two
part work projected to present a complete "physical geography" including
the physical and biological laws of the earth surface as well as the study
of man, but he passed away before the task was completed so that the
place of human geography in his Kosmos remained unresolved even though
his theoretical perspective on this problem had been put forward clearly in
the first volume of Kosmos. (Whereas in the nineteenth century English
usage, physical geography implied a study of the surface features of the

earth, Humboldt and other German scholars ascribed a much wider meaning
to the term: To them it implied the geography of the whole of the natural
world, organic as well as inorganic.)
Since Humboldt firmly believed in the development of science through
cumulative wisdom of successive generations, he set his concept of
geography in the context of the past developments in geography as a science,
beginning with Varenius's Geographia Genera/is which he referred to as a
physical geography "in the true sense of the word". But he was prepared to
break with tradition in extending his own study to the universe instead of
confining the study of the astronomical parts to an introduction. The result
was that "throughout the following century this was regarded by many
geographers, as a retrogressive step and Kosmos was labelled as the last of
the great cosmographies rather than a book pointing the way to the future"
(Bowen, 1981, p. 148).
Most students of the conceptual history of geography regard Humboldt
as the founding father of modern geography-one who was "a pioneer as
well as ahead of his times" (Dickinson, 1969, p. 31). French geographer
de Mortonne (1948) regarded him as the first geographer to define and
apply two essential principles that make geography a "distinctive science"
rather than a collection of facts from the physical and biological sciences.
The first was the "principle of causality" according to which Humboldt
had first observed the complex of spatially arranged phenomena on the
earth surface and then proceeded to explain their causal interconnection
and interdependence. The second was the "principle of general geography"
by which Humboldt sought to compare the location and extent of terrestrial
phenomena on the earth surface with a view to unravelling the principles
that governed their distribution in the world.
Humboldt's method was empirical and inductive. He collected,
classified, and interpreted data pertaining to plants, animals, rocks and
other physical aspects with respect to their origins and geographical
distribution. The observed patterns of distribution were correlated with
the patterns of climate and altitudinal zones over the globe to arrive at a
broad generalization with a view to establishing a general theory. Humboldt
saw no conflict between the inductive and deductive procedures in science.
Thus, in the introductory volume of Kosmos he wrote that
We are still very far from the time when it will be possible to reduce, by
operation of thought, all that we perceive by the senses to the unity of
rational principle. On the other hand, the exposition of mutually connected
facts does not exclude the classification of phenomena according to their
rational connections, the generalizing of many specialities in the great
mass of observations, or the attempt to discover laws.
Owing to his wide-ranging scientific explorations, and his great
contribution to climatology and plant geography, Humboldt is regarded by
many as the father of systematic physical geography (in its English
connotation). The fact of the matter is, however, that Humboldt was above
all a regionalist in the sense that he had focused on the study of areally
arranged phenomena in their interconnections, and in the context of their
spatial distribution in relation to climate and other relevant factors, and
Humboldt's work on Mexico was, according to Dickinson (1969, p. 28) "a
landmark in geographic description" in that, it represented the first of the
systematic geographic descriptions, being "in striking contrast to the
encyclopaedic compilation of the writers from the days of Strabo to the
nineteenth century topographers". For l-Iumboldt there was no dichotomy
between systematic and regional studies, and as Hartshorne wrote (1939,
p . 82), in what has come to be called "comparative regional geography"
Humboldt rather than Ritter was the pioneer.
CARL RITTER (1n9-1859) AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO

GEOGRAPHY AS A DISCIPLI N E
A friend and contemporary, Ritter is generally regarded along with Humboldt
as a cofounder of modem geography. Junior to Humboldt by ten years, he
was born in 1779 in a family of modest means. His father, a physician, had
died while young Ritter was only five years old. His mother was faced
with great difficulty to educate and support her family of five. By a stroke
of good fortune, a German educationist, Christian Salzmann, who was
starting a new experimental school, was in search of a child who had never
been exposed to traditional methods of education, and he chose Ritter as
his pupil.
At that time, rote learning was the prevalent system of education
without any attention to understanding and self-experience. Salzmann
founded his school on the new principles of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, which
emphasized that in the education of the young, clear thinking should be
taught through careful observation of phenomena. Young Ritter was put
under the charge of J.C.F. Guts-Muths who was specially interested in
teaching geography by the new method. As Hartshorne wrote (1939, p. 50),
"Probably no student of his time and few since have been so specially
trained for geography as was Ritter". In Salzmann's school at Schnepfenthal,
right from the beginning, Ritter was trained to observe man's relationship
to his natural surroundings. His teachers encouraged him to formulate for
himself the concept of unity of man and nature; and from the richly varied
landscape of this region of hills and low mountains he derived the idea of
unity in diversity, which became the basic theme of his writing in later
years as he matured into a geographer.
After completing his training in the school, Ritter was employed by
a wealthy banker, Bethmann Hollweg, as a private tutor for his two sons,
and in return he agreed to meet the expenses of Ritter's university education.
With the two Hollweg sons, Ritter went to Frankfurt where he read widely
in history and geography. After one of his pupils died, Ritter accompanied
the remaining boy to the university of Gottingen where during 1814-1816
he himself took further courses in geography, history, physics, chemistry,
botany and minerology.
Ritter's interest in geography had been greatly aroused after a meeting

with Alexander von Humboldt in 1807. He published a two-volume work
on the geography of Europe to serve as background reading for a better
comprehension of the region's history. Six years later he published the
first of the two volumes of his famous Erdkunde (1817-1818). Ritter had
intended to follow it with a third volume on history, but could not do so.
As the book's supplementary title made it clear, Ritter had intended Erdkunde
to serve as a text on "The Science of the Earth in Relation to Nature and
History of Mankind; or General Comparative Geography as the Solid
Foundation for the study of, and instruction in, the Physical and the Historical
Sciences". The book was very favourably received, and it earned Ritter the
post of Professor of Geography at Berlin in 1820. His chief interest in the
study of geography was to provide a sound basis for the writing of history.
However, his elevation to the first professorship in geography in Germany
changed his outlook on the subject as an academic discipline. As professor
of geography in Berlin, Ritter devoted himself to a more thorough study of
geography. This he started with the rewriting of his Erdkunde. A second
edition appeared in 1822-1823 and the idea of a third volume on history
was dropped. Between 1832 to 1838, he added six more volumes to the
Erdkunde series; eleven more volumes were to come between 1838 and
1859. These nineteen volumes together covered only the treatment of Africa
and Asia when Ritter breathed his last in 1859. However, through these
volumes Ritter had succeeded in laying a firm foundation for the writing
of a new style regional geography presenting a complete picture of the
area under study and incorporating all available info1111ation on every aspect
through a thorough sifting and synthesis.
Ritter had repeatedly emphasized that he was trying to present a
"new scientific geography", as contrasted to the traditional lifeless summary
of facts about countries and cities mingled with all sorts of scientific
incongruities. His scientific geography was guided by the concept of unity
in diversity in nature, and his purpose was not merely to prepare an
inventory of phenomena occurring together in particular parts of the earth
surface, but to understand the interconnections and the causal interrelations
among the diverse phenomena that made the areal associations cohesive.
Like Humboldt, Ritter also used the term zusammenhang to refer to the
harmonious unity and interconnection among diverse phenomena on the
earth's surface. In a much-referred essay entitled "Historical Element in
Geographical Science" Ritter defined the task of geography to be: "to get
away from mere description to the law of the thing described; to reach not
a mere enumeration of facts and figures, but the connection of place to
place, and the laws which bind together local and general phenomena of
the earth's surface". According to Ritter, the geographer's task was to trace
causation and interdependence of the spatially distributed phenomena on
the earth's surface.
Ritter named his new scientific geography as Erdkunde (literally
meaning earth science) in preference to Humboldt's Erdbeschreibung (meaning
GEOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THE AGE OF HUMBOLDT, 1790-1859 55
earth description). A close perusal of Ritter's writings shows that there

was never any doubt in his mind about the fact that his geography was
concerned primarily with the study of the earth as the home of man, and,
as such, was focused on the study of the earth's surface. However, the
literal meaning of Erdkunde as earth science proved a source of confusion
in the minds of many geographers in the following decades who were led
to extend the study of geography to include every aspect of the earth.
Ritter's concept of unity in diversity of phenomena on the earth surface
was derived from a Kantian view of the world-the world seen as an
organic whole rather than as a machine a view of which Humboldt himself
had been a strong supporter. On the concept of organic unity in nature,
Ritter wrote: "There is, above all this thought of parts, of features, of
phenomena, the conception of the earth as a whole, existing in itself, for
itself, an organic thing, advancing by growth, and becoming more... perfect".
As Dickinson has noted, Ritter was attracted to view terrestrial units (earth
areas) as organic wholes by reading Humboldt's description of the llanos
and the steppes. However, as contrasted to Humboldt's idea of organic
unity in nature as a rational scientific principle, Ritter's idea of organic
unity was derived from his deep faith in the Christian belief that the earth
was a divine creation, and that God had created every little thing on the
earth surface to serve some need of man. According to him: "As the body
is made for the soul, so is the physical globe made for mankind". To sum
up, whereas both Humboldt and Ritter had adopted the concept of organic
unity in nature as central to their concept of geography, their reasons for
doing so differed greatly. In the case of Ritter the justification for doing so
was derived from theology; in the case of Humboldt it was a central
epistemological issue in his theory of knowledge about the universe.
According to Hartshorne (1939, pp. 60-61) teleology (faith in a divinely
created universe) in Ritter's geography was an attempt to interpret
philosophically that which could not be explained scientifically. In Ritter's
view, there were three fundamental facts of geography for which science
had no explanation. These were: Uniqueness of the earth in the universe;
the earth as the home of that unique creature, man; and the fundamental
explanation of a host of geographic facts-the differentiation in character
among the major land units of the world. However, as Schmidt (1925, cited
in Hartshorne) wrote, irrespective of his teleology, in his study of geography
Ritter did not proceed from preconceived ideas and opinions:
his scientific procedure was directed throughout on temperate, purely
factual comprehension of the facts and their relations ... Ritter strove in
the knowledge of the earth for a comprehension of the divine world plan
in no other way than the natural scientists pursue the thought of evolution.
Ritter insisted that geography must be an empirical science rather
than one deduced from rational principles-from philosophy or a .priori
theories such as the theory of continuous mountain ranges and the belief
that river basins were divided by crestlines of mountain chains. As Ritter
wrote in the first volume of Erdkunde: "We must ask the earth itself for its
laws", i.e., knowledge about the earth should be derived from field
observations (even though he himself was-unlike Humboldt-primarily a
scholar and a teacher rather than a fieldworker). Observations used in the
writing of his books were not obtained directly from the field of his own;
they were based on the works of others who had observed the phenomena
firsthand.
Ritter was a great pioneer of the regional approach in geography,
which he conceptualized as the study of earth areas as organic units deriving
their special character from the nature of the interrelationships obtaining
between the diverse phenomena existing together. His preference for regional
geography-study of areal organization in particular segments of the earth
surface was in no way opposed to the pursuit of general or systematic
geography (i.e., topical studies involving analysis of the distributional
patterns of a particular class of objects or phenomena over the earth surface
with a view to arriving at general theoretical formulations about them).
Ritter acknowledged his indebtedness to Humboldt, whose general studies
had made Ritter's own regional studies of particular regions possible (James,
1972, p. 168).
Ritter regarded regional and systematic studies in geography as the
two sides of the same coin: General geography dealt with the character,
typology, location and extent of different categories of terrestrial phenomena
(both physical as well as human) throughout the world; special or regional
geography described the content and nature of particular areas as organic
(i.e., functionally organized) entities. It is true that Ritter's Erdkunde was
essentially concerned with particular areas, he nevertheless made frequent
statements urging the development of a comparative worldwide approach
to the study of areas in his teaching and research: "He exposed the conceptual
framework of both regional and worldwide geography. He lacked the data
in his time to reach worldwide generalizations about areas, though he
urged that they should be the geographer's ultimate goal" (Dickinson,
1969, p. 46).
It is, therefore, a disservice to geography, and a false representation
of reality, to try to draw differences between the approaches to geography
pur_sued by Humboldt and Ritter. The two men themselves did not recognize
any·such distinctions. Ritter (according to Hartshorne) repeatedly asserted
that Humboldt was his teacher, and wrote that without the work of
Humboldt his own books could never have been produced. Ritter
acknowledged that "Alexander von Humboldt has become, by his thorough
study of nature in Europe, Asia and America, the founder of Comparative
Geography" (Ritter's Comparative Geography, Gage translation, p. 24).
"frying to clarify his approach to the study of geography, Ritter stated:
My aim has not been merely to collect and arrange a larger mass of
materials than any other predecessor, but to trace the general laws which
underlie all diversity of nahrre, to show their connection with every fact
taken singly, and to indicate ... the perfect unity and h.armony which exist
in the apparent diversity and caprice which prevail on the globe, and
GEOGRAPHY 1N THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE AGE OF HUMBOLDT, 1790-1859 57
which seem n1ost marked in the mutual relations of nature and man. Out
of this course of study there springs the science of physical geography,
in which are to be traced all the laws and conditions under whose influence
the great diversity in things... first springs into existence, and undergoes
subsequent modificati()ns (from a letter cited in Gage, Life of Ritter, 1867).
Since Ritter's Erdkunde was designed to provide a basis for tracing
the general laws of physical geography, for him there could be no question
of any conflict between the regional and systematic perspectives in, and
approaches to, geographical studies. In Ritter's (teleological) concept of
unity and harmony in nature,
A supreme Being, an all-wise Creator, was identified as the author of the
plan for building the earth as the home of man, and all through Ritter's
writings and lectures, are words of praise for the divine creation. Even
in the arrangement of continents Ritter saw evidence of God's purpose.
(James, 1972, pp. 168-169).
According to Ritter, Asia represented the sunrise, since it is here that
the early civilizations of man originated. Africa was viewed as representing
the noon where, owing to smoothness of relief and uniformity of climate,
the inhabitants are induced to slumber. Europe was viewed as specially
designed to bring out man's greatest accomplishments-the culmination of
man's development-so that it represented the sunset, the end of the day.
The discovery of America suggested to him the approach of a new sunset
and a new culmination of human achievement. O¼,ing to his teleological
belief, Ritter's consideration of the earth was principally man oriented. This
did not, in any ,vay, lead him to oppose other ways of looking at the
phenomena of the earth surface. He wrote: "Independent of man, earth is
also without him, the scene of natural phenomena; the law of its formation
cannot proceed from man. In a science of the earth, the earth itself must be
asked for its laws" (cited in Hartshorne, 1939, p. 63). This statement makes
it clear that any attempt to involve Ritter in the controversy regarding dualism
between human vs physical geography is doing violence to his personal
stance in this regard. Ritter's concept of teleology was not antiscientific.
LEGACY OF HUMBOLDT AND RITIER

Irrespective of the fact that both Humboldt and Ritter had viewed geography
as a unified science, part regional and part systematic, and equally focused
on the study of man as well as the physical environment that surrounds
him; the generation of geographers that followed them in Germany and
elsewhere had started to view them as representing somewhat parallel
(and conflicting) streams in geography. Regional geography focused on
spatial patterns of human activities in particular parts of the earth surface
and systematic geography focused on the analysis of the nature of spatial
variation in the patterns of distribution of diverse phenomena over the
earth surface with a view to identifying the factors that have created these
patterns. Since most of the phenomena studied under this perspective had
belonged to the physical elements of the earth's environment, systematic

geography became identified as physical geography (that is, as the study
of physical phenomena as distinguished from man and his activities studied
in regional geograpl1y). This was the source of the false notion that Humboldt
and Ritter were opposed in their views on the nature, content, and
methodology of geographical work, and that whereas Humboldt was the
father of modern geography as a systematic science concerned with topical
studies of the physical aspects of the earth surface, Ritter founded regional
geography focused on the study of segments of the earth surface as the
home of particular human groups. The truth is that even though their style
of work had differed, their geographical perspectives (and their works)
were complementary rather than conflicting, so tl1at the two together laid
a clear foundatio11 for modem geography as a discipline that studies both
man as well as his physical environment; and is equally interested in_ the
study of areal association of phenomena in particular segments of the earth
surface as well as detailed analysis of global patterns of distribution of
particular aspects of the physical environment.
As James has noted, Humboldt and Ritter had left quite different
legacies for the future generations of geographers. Humboldt sought answers
to a great variety of specific questions. To cite examples: He tried to develop
a general theory regarding the distribution of average temperatures on the
earth's surface in relation to the distribution of continents and oceans; and
in the course of his South American voyage he attempted to define how
changes in altitude influence the life of plants, animals, and man in a
tropical environment. However, though he was one of the most versatile
scholars of his time, Humboldt founded no school and left no disciples so
that the method of asking questions and seeking answers that he had so
effectively demonstrated in his own research, was not "rediscovered" by
geographers until several decades after his death. As contrasted to this, a
school of followers did develop around Ritter: Through his position as the
holder of the only chair in geography in Germany, Ritter left behind a
band of disciples who enthusiastically applied themselves to the furtherance
of the regional perspective in geography; and some of them undertook
to complete his plan of Erdkunde for the remaining parts of the world
which Ritter had not been able to cover before his death in 1859. This
would partly explain why, despite Humboldt's far greater stature as a
scientist, and his having laid a sound foundation for geography as a field
of scientific enquiry, most geographers pursued geography primarily as
regional description. The fact remains, however, that the two together
"provided an almost complete and modern programme for geography"
(Tatham, 1951, p. 28).
SOME EMINENT FOLLOWERS
Elisee Reclus (1830-1905)

Reclus had studied under !utter in Berlin during 1849-1850. This association
had created in him a deep love for geography. Not only did he follow
Ritter's concept and method of geography, he also made considerable
improvement upon them. Reclus had been expelled from his native France
in 1851 on the charge of holding anarchist views. First he went to England,
then to the United States and South America, and continued travelling and
working until he was permitted to return to France in 1856. The period of
exile was utilized by him to write a two-volume work on geography w1der
the title La Terre, though the book could be published only in 1868-1869.
La Terre, written so soon after his studies under Ritter, strongly mirrored
the ideas and concepts of the master, some of which Reclus later abandoned.
Reclus was exiled a second time in 1871 for holding revolutionary
views. This time Reclus went to Switzerland where he devoted himself to
writing a nineteen-volume work under the title: Nouvelle Geographie
Universe/le. The volumes were written in the period of his exile and stay in
different countries, including Switzerland, Belgium, and the UK. Reclus's
new universal geography has been described as "the last echo of the classical
period when one scholar could present all available knowledge about the
earth as the l1ome of man.... Unlike I{itter's Erdkunde, which is well known
for its numerous obscure passages, Reclus's work was easy to read and
nnderstand" Games, 1972, p. 192). The book was translated into English
nnder the title: Earth and Its Inhabitants and published i11 New York between
1882-189 5. It contained about 3,000 maps. In it Reclus achieved single
handed what Ritter himself had failed to do, that is, to provide a complete
description of the earth's surface on a regional basis.
Reclus was one of those of Ritter's students who had steered clear of
the master's teleological beliefs. Reclus's philosophical approach to man
environment relationships was far more enlightened. On the one hand, he
granted the role of nature as a dominant force in shaping human history,
so that according to him "We have even a right to assert that history of the
development of mankind was written beforehand in sublime lettering on
the plains, valleys and coasts of our continents", but he counter-balanced
such statements by conceding that "Man may modify (his dwelling place)
to suit his own purpose; he may overcome nature, as it were, and convert
the energies of the earth into domesticated forces". According to Reclus,
the student of landscapes must seek to trace "gradual changes in the historical
importance of configuration of the land", and that in the study of the
geography of places it was necessary to "take account of another element
of equal value time". This statement u11derlined a possibilistic view of
man's role in changing the face of the earth.
Arnold Guyot (1807-1884)

Guyot was a Swiss by birth. He had studied geography under Ritter, and
remained a faithful follower of his teacher's concept and philosophy. Guyot •
came to the United States in 1848 to deliver a series of lectures on the "new
geography" in Germany. The lectures were published as a book the following
year, and became the instrument for spreading Ritter's ideas in the New

-------------------
World. Guyot was critical of the traditional descriptive geography then

being taught in American schools, which required the student to memorize
a large number of unrelated facts. Guyot asserted that "new geography"
should not only describe, it should also compare and interpret: It should
be concerned with "the how and wherefore of the phenomena it describes".
Guyot's influence in American geography greatly increased after the
Massachusetts Board of Education invited him to deliver a series of lectures
on the nature and methods of teaching new geography. His influence spread
rapidly to other parts of America, and for decades his textbooks set the
standard for elementary and secondary classes in American schools.
Guyot was appointed professor of geography ar,d geology at the
College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1854, and stayed there until his
retirement in 1880. Unlike l<eclus, Guyot was a strong supporter of Ritter's
teleological ideas so that
Even as the widespread acceptance of the concepts of e,,olutior1 as
developed by Darwin, Wallace, and Huxley swept away the philosophical
ideas of the theologists, Guyot's stand remained unshaken. When he
retired in 1880 the "new geography" he preached was not only old but
its philosophical basis had been largely discredited. (James, 1972, p. 193).
REFERENCES
Bowen, M. (1981), Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Francis Bacon
to Alexander van Humboldt, Cambridge (Mass.): Cambridge University
Press.
Crocker, L.G. (Ed.) (1969), The Age of Enlightennzent, London: Macmillan.
Dickinson, R.E. (1969), Makers of Modern Geography, London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Gage, W.L. (Tr.) (1863), Geographical Studies by the Late Professor Carl Ritter
of Berlin, Boston: Gould and Lincoln.
Guyot, A. (1849), The Earth and Ma11: Lectures on Comparative Physical Geography
in its Relation to the History of Mankind, Boston: Gould and Lincoln.
Hartshorne, R. (1939), Nature of Geography: A Citical Survey of Current Thought
in the Liglrt of the Past, Lancaster, (PA): Association of American
Geographers.
Humboldt, A. von (1845-1862), Kosmos, 5 Vols., Stuttgart: Cotta. (English
translation by E.C. Otte, London: H.G. Bohn.
Kellner, L. (1963), Alexander van Humboldt, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McPherson, A.M. (1972), The human geography of Alexander von Humboldt,
(unpublished Ph.D. thesis submitted at the University of California),
Berkeley (cited in Bowen, 1981).
GEOGRAPHY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THE AGE OF HUMBOLDT, 1790-1859 61
Reclus, E. (1876-1894), La Novelle

• Geographie Universe/le, 19 Vols., Paris:
Hachette. (English translation by E.G. Ravenstein (1878-1894.)
Ritter, C. (1822-1859), Die .Erdkunde, 19 Vols., Berlin: G. Reimer.
Tatham, G. (1951), Geography in the nineteenth century, in Taylor, G. (Ed.),
Geography in the Twentieth Century, London: Methuen, pp. 28-69.
Zelinsky, W. (1975), T he Demigod's dilemma, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, vol. 65, pp. 123-143.
3
Geography after Humboldt and Ritter:
Developments In Germany
THE INTELLECTUAL CLIMATE OF THE TIME

The deaths of Humboldt and Ritter in 1859 marked the end of an era in the
development of geography as a branch of scientific knowledge. Humboldt
and Ritter had stood at the crossroads between the classical and the modem.
In that sense they had jointly represented both a beginning and an end.
The scheme of classification of knowledge presented by Kant (though not
necessarily originated by him), had by now become commonly accepted so
that geography had come to occupy a definite place among the sciences as
a branch of knowledge which brings to bear a spatial perspective to the
study of diverse phenomena on the earth's surface. The rapid explosion of
knowledge following many a voyage of scientific discovery to far-off areas
ut the earth surface, and the analysis of the massive data collected therefrom,
gave rise to a series of systematic sciences, each defined in terms of the
kind of phenomena it studied. This represented Kant's logical division of
knowledge, as contrasted to his scheme of physical division in terms of the
arrangement of phenomena of diverse origin in time (history) or space
(geography). The dual scheme of division of knowledge into a series of
systematic sciences each devoted to a distinct subject matter, and its
classification in terms of the association of diverse phenomena vertically in
terms of time periods of history, or horizontally in terms of geographical
space, implied a final fracturing of the classical view about the unity of
knowledge. Humboldt was the last great figure who could claim universal
scholarship.
The scientific voyages of discovery in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth century had completely revolutionized the biological sciences.
Diverse theories about the nature and origins of plants and animals in
various parts of the earth's surface had begun to be pieced together to
produce overarching theories, culminating in Charles Darwin's The Origin
of Species whose publication in 1859 (coinciding with the death of Humboldt
and Ritter) had contributed to a major change in perspective in every field
of science-natural and physical, human as well as material.
Darwin's The Origin of Species established that organisms on the earth's
surface have evolved through a slow and cumulative process of change;
62
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT AND RITIER: DEVELOPMENTS IN GERMANY 63
and that the evolutionary process of change among different organisms

had not resulted from need or use (as postulated by Lamarck). Referring
to Lamarck's famous example of the giraffe, Darwin noted that the giraffe
did not get his long neck by stretching for fodder. The fact was that the
individual giraffes that were born with longer necks were better equipped
to survive in the Savanna environment than were the short-necked ones,
and so this feature was slowly passed on to later generations. In his
explanation of the mechanism of the evolution of species Darwin
demonstrated that this was far from a straight line process, and randomness
and chance had played a major role in evolution. Confirmation of the role
of randomness and chance in the evolution of life forms cut at the very
base of the long and widely subscribed view that the un_iverse was a divine
creation. Teleology could no longer be sustained as a scientific hypothesis,
and was quickly abandoned. An equally important and radical concept
was the idea of cumulative change through time. These ideas which appear
as simple knowledge today, were highly revolutionary at the time they
were presented, and were influential in changing the thought processes of
contemporary science (Livingstone, 1992, pp. 178-189).
An aspect of the evolutionary theory, of particular importance to
geography, was that it emphasized the need to study phenomena on the
earth's surface in relatio.n to the environment in which they were located,
since only in this way could their struggle for survival and environmental
adjustment be adequately appreciated. This gave a further justification for
the methodology and perspective of geography as a science.
The concept of evolution, which attracted many scholars in branches
of knowledge outside of biology, appeared in the study of landforms as
Davis's cycle of erosion and was also reflected in the concept of mature
soils developed through a slow process of change from parent materials.
Applied to the study of human groups, it became the theory of social
Darwinism of which Freidrich Ratzel was the staunchest supporter in
geography.
THE CRISIS OF IDENTITY IN GEOGRAPHY

A major aspect of the changed perspective in science in the eighteenth
century was the rise of systematic sciences. This meant that the subject
matter that had previously been identified as general geography now became
divided into the domains of a series of natural and physical sciences, as a
result of which geography was faced with a real crisis of identity. Humboldt
had tried to resolve this crisis by emphasizing that after the newly emerging
systematic sciences had divided up the original content of general geography,
there was still a field of study that had not been appropriated by any of
them. This related to the study of interconnections among phenomena of
diverse origins existing together in harmonious relationship in particular
segments of the earth's surface. These interconnections give personality
to particular areas and regions, and only through reference to such
interconnections could the nature and spatial distribution of diverse earth

phenomena e.g., plants and animals, and elements of climate etc. be properly
understood and explained.
The most characteristic feature of the many systematic fields of sciences
that had emerged in the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century
was the method of study adopted by them. Their approach to study consisted
of first isolating the processes or the phenomena that each of them examined,
and then proceeding to formulate an ideal (abstract) model of how each
process works in isolation. In other words, progress in the systematic natural
and physical sciences was achieved by specifically excluding the effect of
the real life situation wherein phenomena of diverse origin and therefore
belonging to the domains of separate sciences, exist together in symbiotic
relationship. Viewed this way, the methods and objectives of the systematic
sciences appeared to be at cross-purposes with the holistic perspective of
geography. Since geography could not identify any particular circle of facts
as its special object of study, it began to lose its claim as a science irrespective
of the unquestioned personal stature of Humboldt as the leading scientist
of his time.
As the study of physical aspects of the earth was parcelled into the
domains of a series of independent sciences, each seeking to isolate processes
pertaining to the particular category that formed its special field of enquiry,
the concept of "natural units" (Lander) comprising physical environment
and man in particular segments of the earth surface as envisaged by Forster
and further refined by Humboldt and Ritter, lost respectability as a field of
scientific interest. Geography, therefore, began to be slowly neglected as a
scientific pursuit, so that Ritter's chair in geography at Berlin remained
vacant for a long time.
Geography experienced revival as an academic discipline only after
the unification of Germany under the leadership of Prussia in 1871 following
realization by the leaders of the government of the need to promote
geographical knowledge about lands and people around the globe with a
view to serving the interests of colonial expansion in the increasingly
competitive world of imperialism.
Under the circumstances, geography was faced with three major tasks:
Continued collection of information about the relatively little-known parts
of the earth and its presentation in a useful form; detailed study of particular
places in order to facilitate the work of officers of government, and serve
the needs of businessmen and military commanders; and formulation of
concepts about spatial association and variation of phenomena on the earth's
surface through empirical generalizations.
Another significant and noteworthy aspect of the empirical-theoretical
model of scientific research, promoted in the course of the rise of new
systematic branches of science, was the insistence that the study of human
and non-human phenomena required very different methods of study, and
as such no field of scientific research could include both. In the intellectual
climate of the times doing so was against the logic of science. The net result
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT AND RIITER: DEVELOPMENTS IN GERMANY 65
for geography was that after the deaths of Humboldt and Ritter in 1859,
geography rapidly lost respectability as a branch of science. This led to a
temporary parting of the ways between physical and human-regional
geography; since the former could be pursued through the analytical method
of natural and physical sciences, whereas the latter was descriptive and
holistic in perspective. Serious attempts at reconciling this dualism between
physical and human, and regional and systematic geography were made
only in the 1880s.
DEVELOPMENTS IN GERMANY
For reasons indicated in the preceding paragraphs, after the death of Ritter,
geography in Germany lost unified focus as a scientific discipline. Questions
regarding its nature and methodology were seldom asked because they
were difficult to answer. However, practical utility of geography to the
army commanders in regard to the scene of military operations, to the
government administrators in the newly acquired German colonial
possessions, and to businessmen for purposes of trade and commerce was
clearly recognized. For each of these purposes, clearly designed maps
incorporating the latest available information were an urgent need.
Accordingly, regional description and cartography became identified as
the primary task of geography at that time. For the time being geography
became "anything that could be put on maps". At the higher levels, as a
field of teaching and research geography remained chiefly concerned with
providing background information about the land and people in particular
places with a view to facilitating a better comprehension of their history.
All this began to change, however, after 1871 when the Prussian government
(conscious of the utility of geography as an aid to colonial administration
and territorial expansion) created a number of new professorships in
geography in several universities across the country as a result of which
geography regained respectability as a field of learning. A brief discussion
of the ideas and works of some of the leaders of German geography in the
last quarter of nineteenth century follows.
RISE OF DUALISM BETWEEN PHYSICAL AND HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
Oscar Peschel (1826-1875)

For about twenty years before his death in 1875, Oscar Peschel had been
the leading academic geographer in Germany. He raised some fundamental
questions concerning the nature of geography, and was critical of the
approaches of both Humboldt and Ritter. Peschel is described by some as
the last great geographer before the discipline was finally overtaken by the
impact of Darwinian ideas. Although most of Peschel's own works had
appeared in print after the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species, the
implication of Darwinian ideas in the interpretation of earthbound
phenomena and human societies had not yet been fully realized.
Peschel had started his career as a journalist in 1849, and was the
editor of Ausland from 1854 to 1870 when he was pursuaded to take up
appointment as professor of geography at the university of Leipzig in 1871.
During his editorship of Ausland, he had regularly published articles on
lands and peoples of the world with a view to promoting geographical
knowledge among the reading public. He himself wrote extensively on the
history of ancient geography, and on the basis of this expertise he was
invited by the historical commission of the Royal Academy of Sciences to
write a book on the history of geography as part of a series on the history
of science in Germany. This book was published under the title Geschishte
der Erdkunde in 1865. It was this book that attracted attention to him as an
academic geographer. From 1866 onward he published a number of
methodological articles in which he took issue with Humboldt and Ritter.
These methodological papers were collected and published as a book in
1870 under the title Neue Probleme der Vergleichenden Erdkunde. As the Belgian
geographer Michotte wrote: "It has been justly said that with this work the
scientific spirit reentered geography" (cited in Hartshorne, 1939, p . 88).
Peschel was very critical of Ritter's method of comparative geography
(vergleichenden erdkunde), especially his practice of comparing entire continents
or large segments of them. Peschel noted that since continents and large areal
units contained great deal of internal diversity (one quite different from the
other) they could not be compared in the proper scientific sense. Comparison
was possible only in respect of clearly identifiable features or characteristics,
such as particular types of landforms, climatic types, or distribution of plant
cover. He demonstrated it with reference to his own study of fjord coasts.
His study had revealed that this type of coastal topography is characteristic
of the western margins of the continents in the higher latitudes. On the basis
of this comparative study, he was able to explain the origins of fjord
topography to be the result of abandoned valleys of former glaciers. Peschel
insisted that comparative geography should have a definite method and
purpose: The geographer pursuing comparative study should seek (with the
help of large-scale maps) similar physical features in different parts of the
earth's surface, compare their characteristics and origins, and try to relate
them all genetically (following the method of comparative anatom}·). Peschel
thus laid a sound basis for comparative research in geography. His method
required the student to begin by studying topographic maps with a view to
identifying "homologies" (i.e., landforms of similar types), and then try to
trace their origins in each of the areas where they occur. Owing to limitations
of data and knowledge about the work of agents of erosion, and the nature
of regional geology, studies pursued by this method had not always been
successful; but that was no fault of Peschel's methodology.
Peschel (1879) attempted to establish physical geography as a science.
He was critical of Ritter for having neglected physical geography, and he
criticized Humboldt for not having attempted a scientific classification of
landforms. He was also critical of Humboldt for creating the impression
that general geography could be equated with the entirety of natural science.
Ritter was further decried for holding a teleological view about the nature
and origins of earth phenomena, and for having subordinated geography
to history by presenting his own works essentially to serve as a tool for
better understanding of history. Peschel believed that physical and human
geography constituted two entirely separate domains of knowledge, and
as such the two could not form part of a single science. He was, thus, the
originator of dualism between physical and human geography, and was
strongly of the view that geography should be pursued primarily as a
study of the physical phenomena of the earth. His methodological view
regarding the distinction between physical and human in the study of
geography notwithstanding, Peschel himself made an in-depth study of
the geographical distribution of the races and cultures of mankind. It is
indeed ironical that his book entitled The Races ofMankind: Their Geographical
Distribution (1876) is the only work of Peschel available in English translation
today (Dickinson, 1969, pp. 56-58).
George Gerland (1833-1919)

Peschel's exhortation that in order to project its status as a science, geography
should identify itself more and more as physical geography, was further
advanced by another contemporary named George Gerland. Gerland was
professor of geography at the university of Strasbourg, and had been the
supervisor of the doctoral thesis of Alfred Hellner. In a long essay published
in 1887 Gerland had gone so far as to suggest that since man could not be
put to scientific analysis, study of man should be taken outside the purview
of geography. Thus, according to Hartshorne (1939, p. 97):
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, under the influence of
specialized sciences, geography for a time appeared to be changing into
a field quite different in character from that which Humboldt and Ritter
had inherited and developed. The emphasis on systematic studies appeared
to divide geography into two halves, one a natural science, the other a
social science, united only in a study of regions that hardly appeared to
be science at all.
Thus, the continuance of geography as a unified field of academic
inquiry incorporating the study of human as well as physical elements of
the earth's surface was in serious crisis.
In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, several attempts
were made to resolve this dualism, and to project geography as an integrated
science concerned with the study of phenomena on the earth's surfac·e
both physical as well as human-in terms of their spatial distributions and
areal associations. The most successful of such attempts were those put
forward by Ratzel, and Alexander von Richthofen. Although Richthofen
was the elder of the two, the first volume of Ratzel's methodologically
epoch-making work Anthropogeographie (1882) was published a year earlier
than Richthofen's epoch-making methodological statement presented in
his 1883 inaugural address for the chair in geography at Leipzig. We discuss
the two in that order.
RE- ESTABLISHMENT OF GEOGRAPHY AS AN INTEGRATED

SCIENCE: THE STUDY OF MAN-LAND RELATIONSHIPS
Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904)

Described as the greatest single contributor to the development of geography
of man, Friedrich Ratzel was born in a middle class German family in 1844.
He pursued advanced study in zoology, first at Heidelberg and then at
Jena. Ratzel's youth had passed through a period of great intellectual
upheaval in the world of science in the wake of the publication of Darwin's
concept about the origins of species. Ratzel had written a dissertation on
Darwin's theory in 1869. He was, however, more interested in field studies
of plants and animals than in the laboratory. He took employment as an
assistant to a French naturalist on his trip to countries around the
Mediterranean, but as war broke out between France and Prussia in 1870,
Ratzel quit the job to join the Prussian army. After the war, he went to
Munich to register as a student. There he came in touch with the famous
naturalist and ethnographer Moritz Wagner and was introduced to his
theory about the importance of migration in the evolution of species.
Ratzel was greatly excited by travel. As part of this interest, he was
drawn to studying how the people of German extractio11 lived and made
use of resources in different parts of the world. His project for such a work
was accepted by the editor of Kolinsche Zeitung, and he was employed as
a roving reporter. This enabled him to travel to several countries in Eastern
Europe inhabited by sizeable numbers of German minorities. He visited
Italy in 1872, and U.S.A. and Mexico in 1874-1875. His visit to the New
World has been described as the turning point in his career. From his study
of various minority groups-European, American, and Chinese he devoted
himself to developing general concepts regarding geographical patterns
resulting from contacts between aggressively expanding communities and
the re!reating indigenous populations. It was such research experience in
regional study that aroused his interest in the study of human geography.
Ratzel's extensive travels in the New World resulted in several
publications. One on Chinese migration appeared in 1876; two volumes on
the United States were published in 1878 and 1880 dealing with the country's
physical and cultural geography with special emphasis on its economic
scene. These books brought to their author considerable popularity and
honour as a scholar. After his return from the New World in 1875, Ratzel
resigned his job as a journalist and took up assignment as a tutor (privat
dozent) in geography at the institute of technology in Munich. He was
made professor of geography in 1880. Ratzel left Munich in 1886 to join the
university of Leipzig as professor of geography. He stayed there until pis
death in 1904.
After completing the publication of the results of his travels to the
United States, Ratzel turned his attention to methodological issues. The
first fruit of his labour came in the form of the first volume of Anthropo
geographie in 1882. The appearance of this book marked a major event in
the history of geography in that it had a direct and far-reaching effect on

the nature and methodology of geography which at that time was faced
with a serious crisis of identity with regard to both its content and practice.
According to Hartshorne (1939, p. 90) the term anfhropogeographie was in
itself misleading in that it suggested the connotation of geography of man
in terms of individuals and races (that is, anthropological geography) whereas
the major thrust of the work concerned the works of man, particularly the
products of man's social life and relationship to the earth. (This was clearly
a reflection of the influence of the ethnographer Moritz Wagner whom he
had met in Munich.) With his sound background in the life sciences, Ratzel
saw in geography the sought-for opportunity for establishing a connection
between natural sciences and the study of man.
Ratzel set out to lay a scientific foundation for the study of man in
geography. In his Anthropogeographie he demonstrated that the geography
of man and his work could as well be put to systematic analysis as the
elements of the non-human (i.e., physical) world. Ratzel was, therefore, in
the true sense of the term, the father of modern human geography as a
field of scientific enquiry.
The second volume of Ratzel's Anthropogeographie was published in
1891. The two volumes had represented two different approaches to the
study of the human element in geography. The first volume was organized
in terms of physical features of the earth, which were studied in terms of
their influence on human culture. The central focus of this volume was to
analyze how far and in what manner man's life upon the earth is shaped
by the physical forces of nature. This was the common procedure adopted
by geographers at that time, though some of Ratzel's contemporaries (most
notably Kirchhoff, 1833--1907) had started studying human geography by
the reverse method; that is, by analysing human activities and human
cultures in relation to the physical environment which, in methodological
terms, implied proceeding in the study of human geography by starting
with man rather than the natural environment. The second volume of Ratzel's
Anthropogeographie was written from this reverse perspective. Strangely,
however, in the English-speaking world, it was Ratzel's first volume rather
than the second that became the dominant input in human geographical
methodology so that he came to be identified by later generations of
geographers with the concept of human geography as the study of the
works of man in terms of influences of the physical environment. This was
the source of the long and erroneously held belief that Ratzel had advocated
a deterministic view of human geography.
The first volume of Anthropogeographie had carried the rather revealing
subtitle "An introduction to the application of geography to history". Thus,
the book was designed to seek the causes of human phenomena in the
natural environment. Clearly enough, Ratzel's approach was influenced by
the theory that the physical environment played an active role in the
evolution of life forms on the earth's surface. This was one of the basic
ideas of the Darwinian theory of evolution. It had great attraction for
geographers in view of the discipline's long-standing concern with the

study of the interconnection between man and his environment. Under the
impact of this revived perspective of evolutionary biology, man began to
be viewed somewhat like an organism that could be studied in the way
that biologists studied the organisms in nature in relation to their physical
environment. This was the beginning of the social Darwinist concept in
human geography. The idea that the Darwinian theory could by analogy
be used as a methodological device in the study of human societies had
been earlier suggested by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-
1903), who drew attention to the close resemblance of human societies to
natural organisms, and speculated that some of the principles of evolutionary
biology could be fruitfully applied to the study of man. This basic idea
became the central theme in Ratzel's Politische Geographie (1897) wherein he
described the state as an organism attached to the land, which like other
organisms in nature passes through a developmental cycle: Like natural
organisms, the states also must grow or die since they cannot stand still.
Like other natural organisms, states were conceptualized to be involved in
an ongoing struggle for survival. This struggle was manifested in the states'
exertions to acquire larger and larger territories as living spaces to support
their growing populations. This was the central idea behind the concept of
Lebensraum (living space), that became so popular in Germany during the
interwar years. The concept implied the right of the more powerful states
to expand their territories at the expense of their weaker neighbours.
The second volume of Ratzel's Anthropogeographie (1891) had carried
the subtitle "The Geographical Distribution of Mankind". This indicated a
reversal of approach to the study of human geography from the one adopted
in his first volume published nine years earlier. Now the focus had shifted
from the physical environment to human groups. In attempting to explain
geographical distribution of cultural phenomena, Ratzel now paid greater
attention to the role of migrations in the diffusion of cultural traits. He
believed that every migration had an area of origin, and a specific cause
and that each followed a particular route to its given destination. The
migrant societies carried their memories, traditions, and skills with them
and the pattern of life adopted in the new area of inhabitance resulted from
two sets of forces--,one from the local geographical environment, and the
other from their remembered culture and technology which motivated them
to use the environment in their own special way. Thus, for a full geographical
explanation of cultural features it was necessary that the geographer should
consider both geographical and historical factors.
Ratzel was the first geographer to clearly formulate the concept of
cultural landscape, which he often referred to as historical landscape since
it is in reality a palimpsest of the preceding historical phases of human
occupancy in any area. He recognized ethnographic groups as geographic
assemblages of interrelated phenomena, and sought to explain them not so
much as in situ developments of similar phenomena in different parts of
the earth, but as the result of spread and splintering of ideas and phenomena
GEOGRAPHY AFI ER HUMBOLDT AND RI I IER: DEVELOPMENTS IN GERMANY 71
by migrations through the march of history (Dickinson, 1969, p. 71). The

idea of cultural landscape and the related technique of human geographic
analysis were admirably used in Ratzel's 1898 book on Deutsch/and which
is generally regarded as a classic study of its type, and which had for a
long time served as a standard text in the German schools. The sixth edition
(revised by Hans Bobek) appeared in 1943.
To sum up, Ratzel's concept of human geography consisted of two
different approaches to the study of man and his activities upon the earth's
surface: One involved the measurement of the consistent interrelationships
of the environment and man; and the other focused on the measurement
of interrelationships between areally coincident human geographic
phenomena in particular places over the surface of the earth. The fonner
focused on the role of the physical environment in the shaping of human
activities, and the latter on coincidence, correlations, and interrelations of
distributions of phenomena over the earth's surface. These were to be
interpreted in terms of the physical and cultural elements of the particular
places and regions. The theoretical basis of the first approach was that a
particular set of physical environment shall always be associated with a
specific pattern of human response, since the physical environment exercised
a controlling influence on human activities. This doctrine found its clearest
expression in W.M. Davis's concept of geography presented in his 1903
paper entitled: "A Scheme of Geography", published in the Geographical
Journal. Underlining the distinction between the concepts of Ratzel and
Davis, Dickinson has rightly noted that whereas Davis's concept projected
geography as the study of man-land relationships from a deter111inistic
perspective, Ratzel viewed geography as the study of covariants of human
distributions over the earth's surface. The reason for this difference in
perspectives may lie partly in that Davis was trained as a geologist while
Ratzel had been an advanced student of the life sciences and as such had
a better appreciation of the Darwinian ideas and their limitations. Thus in
the study of man's relationship to his environment Ratzel gave due
recognition of historical factors which play a major role in deciding how a
community shall use its environment. Thus, as a contemporary French
geographer, Louis Raveneau, was reported to have stated, Ratzel's "principal
merit is that he reintegrated into geography the human element" (which
Peschel and Gerland had tried to banish) without in any way lessening the
importance of the physical elements. As he put it, Ratzel had taken a stand
''between physical geography, sometimes predominant or exclusive, and
the science of man which neglects so easily the framework in which man
moves and the space in which he lives". By means of this middle course
Ratzel had presented a model for geographical study that helped to eliminate
the supposed dualism between physical and human geography, and thereby
he contributed to reestablish geography as an integrated discipline equally
concerned with the study of man as well as the physical environment.
Ratzel also distinguished himself as a leading scholar of ethnography.
While still at Munich he wrote a three-volume work of Volkerkunde (published
between 1885 and 1888) which was later translated into English under the
title The History of Mankind (189&--1898). Anthropologists Lowie and Penniman
(1935) described Ratzel's contribution to ethnography as one of outstanding
value. (See: Livingstone, 1992, "The Ratzelian Programme", pp. 19&--202.)
INTEGRATION THROUGH THE CONCEPT OF CHOROLOGY
Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833-1905)

Richthofen was born in an aristocratic family of Kalsruhe in Silesia in 1833.
He had received advanced training in geology, and was keenly interested
in pursuing a career in geological exploration and research. To begin with,
he started research in the Alps and later, under the auspices of the Austrian
government, in the Carpathians. In 1860, he was selected by the Prussian
government to accompany an expedition to the Far-east to study the region's
lands and resources. After working in China for some time, Richthofen
went to California where he spent six years devoting himself to the study
of geology in the field as well as in the laboratory. While in California, he
received an offer from the Bank of California to support his fieldwork in
China on condition that he should regularly report the results of his
explorations to the Chamber of Commerce at Shanghai. 1n the course of his
field observations in China, Richthofen was the first to map the coal fields
of China.
Richthofen's interest in the field was not limited to locating minerals.
He was keenly interested in the study of geological structures and the
origins of landforms. He was the first to identify the extensive stretch of
land to the east of the Gobi desert covered with a thick layer of powdery
material as being wind-blown dust or /oess. He had also noted that these
extensive plains of loess as well as other sedimentary rocks lay over a
relatively level to gently rolling surface that cut across old geological
structures of varying degrees of resistance to erosion. This led him to advance
the theory that the underlying platform had been carved by oceanic waves
striking against a continuously sinking landmass.
Richthofen returned to Germany in 1872 with the intention of
consolidating the results of hls explorations in China. The new German
empire had been just inaugurated, and it was keen on promoting scientific
research through liberal financial grants. Richthofen received a suitable
grant for the publication of hls Chlna studies, and five volumes of it were
published between 1877 to 1912.
Berlin, which was home for Richthofen after his return from China,
had given hlm enthusiastic reception. He was put in charge of the Gesellschaft
fur Erdkunde which under his leadership emerged as the first-rank
geographical society. He was appointed to the post of professor of geography
at the University of Berlin in 1875 where he was granted leave of absence
to complete his China work. In 1877 he accepted appointment to the chair
of geography at the university of Bonn. From then on, formal academic
work began to occupy most of his time so that his China volumes were put
aside for some time. In 1883 Richthofen moved from Bonn to Leipzig. He
returned to Berlin in 1886 to accept a new chair in physical geography.
In geography, Richthofen is best known for his epoch-making inaugural
address delivered at the time of accepting the chair of geography at Leipzig
in 1883. In this address, he took over the Humboldt-and-Ritter idea of
geography as science that is distinguished by its chorological or spatial
distributional perspective. In his 1883 address, Richthofen showed himself
to be "the actual one to inherit and carry forward the ideas of Humboldt
and Ritter .... He had the sound, unprejudiced historical sense to fit himself
into the course of development and to determine his position exactly"
(Plewe, cited in Hartshorne, 1939). As Hartshorne has noted, if Richthofen's
address is read against the background of the methodological views of
Humboldt and Ritter, one is struck by the fact that Richthofen was primarily
interested in seeking common ground in the ideas of his two great German
predecessors at a time when most others were busy establishing points of
contrast between their views. However, given the fact that he was himself
trained as a geologist, Richthofen was in greater sympathy with Humboldt
than Ritter, and like Humboldt, he endeavoured to restore the close
connection of geography with the natural sciences.
Richthofen's answer to the question: What is geography?, was soon
to be acclaimed as the pioneer statement on the scope and method of
modern geography-one that, in the words of Hartshorne "set the direction
of geographic thought for the future". According to Richthofen, it was the
distinctive purpose of geography to focus attention on the diverse pheno
mena that occur in interrelation on the face of the earth. He emphasized
that in order to reach useful and reliable conclusions, geographical study
of any part of the earth surface must start with a careful description of its
physical features, and from there the student should move on to examine
the interrelationships of other features of the earth's surface to the physical
geographic framework described at the outset. He underlined that the highest
goal of geography was the exploration of the relationship of man to the
physical earth and to the biotic features associated with it. This was later
adopted as standard procedure in the study of regional geography.
Another major theme in Richthofen's methodological discourse was
to seek answers to the twin questions: Is geography as a science to be
restricted to descriptive accounts of parts of the earth surface, or is it also
concerned with generalizations and theory? And: What is the nature of the
relationship between general geography and regional geography? Richthofen
answered the two questions together as an interrelated set. He asserted
that in order to arrive at general concepts, one has first to make observations
in particular areas where the features appear as unique. Such observations
constitute regional or special geography. Regional geography has of
necessity to be descriptive; but description cannot be the end purpose of
any study. The geographer must go beyond mere description of unique
features in particular areas to seek regularities of occurrence, and to forrrtulate
hypotheses that explain the obse·rved characteristics. Loess, for example,

can be observed, measured, and carefully described; but a regional study
of the loess region must also look for the process by which loess is
accumulated and the manner in which the presence of loess influences the
cover of plants and man's use of the region. In pursuing this method of
study, Richthofen was clearly following the lead given by Humboldt.
To sum up, under the leadership of Richthofen, geography came to be
defined as the science of the earth's surface (and of things and phenomena
causally interrelated with it) pursued by the method of observation in the
field. Geography was to be pursued by two different approaches depending
upon whether areas or things and phenomena were the primary objective of
study. In the study of areas (regional geography), the approach was
predominantly synthetic and descriptive. In the case of study of phenomena
or things distributed over the earth's surface in causal interrelationship
with physical elements of the earth environment, the method of approach
was the comparative study of larger areas with a view to identifying the
nature of causal interrelationship in each area, so that inductive reasoning
may lead to general ideas and theories. This was the method of study to
be adopted in general geography wherein the emphasis was on analysis
rather than synthesis.
As Hartshorne wrote, Richthofen's exposition of the relation of
systematic (i.e., general) geography and regional geography with each other,
and to the field of geography as a whole, was of immense importance in
the development of geographic thought. The real purpose of systematic
geography, according to Richthofen, was to lead to an understanding of
the causal relations of phenomena in areas-an understanding which can
be expressed in the forrn of principles that can be applied in the interpretation
of individual regions, called chorology or regional geography. Richthofen
distinguished between a first step chorology, which is non-explanatory
description, providing material for systematic geography; and chorology,
as a final step, in which the explanatory study of regions is based on
systematic geography. Thus, as Hartshorne (1939, pp. 92-93) wrote: "Not
bound by any limited concept of science, Richthofen, like Humboldt, saw
no objection to a single science considering different kinds of things that
exist together and are bound together by causal connections". To him
geography involved no duality between physical and human; it studied
both insofar as they illuminated an understanding of the earth surface as
the home of man.
Alfred Hettner (1859-1941)

The revived concept of geography as chorology found a very effective
advocate in Alfred Heitner under whose leadership chorology became the
guiding principle of geography in Germany, and all over the English
speaking world following the publication of Hartshorne's Nature of Geography
(1939). As such, Hellner rather than Richthofen has come to be remembered
as the father figure in the contemporary revival of the concept of geography
as a chorological science. Heitner was the first geographer of his generation

who entered university with the conscious intention of becoming a
geographer. During 1877-1878 he studied at the university of Halle under
Kirchhoff from whom he had received the first clear insight into the field
of geography. From Halle he went to Bonn and then to Strasbourg where,
under Gerland in 1881, he obtained his doctorate on the climate of Chile.
While studying at Strasbourg, he became deeply interested in philosophy,
a fact that (according to Dickinson) explains his subsequent publication of
essays on the framework and methods of geography-the set of writings
that Heitner himself estimated as his most important contribution .
Heitner went to Colombia in 1882 as private tutor to the British
Ambassador in Bogota, but returned to Germany in 1884 to join Richthofen's
Kolloquium at Leipzig, and subsequently submitted his research for habilitation
under the guidance of Ratzel who had by that time succeeded Richthofen
at Leipzig after the latter moved out to Berlin to occupy the new chair in
physical geography. In 1888, Heitner proceeded on an extensive tour of
South America but returned to Leipzig to take up an academic appointment
under Ratzel in 1890-1891. He remained there until 1897 when he moved
over to Tubingen and from there to Heidelberg where he spent the rest of
his career from 1899-1928.
During his long professional career, Heitner authored many books
and papers on various aspects of geography. These included Travel in the
Colombian Andes (1888), Regional Geography of Europe (1907), Comparative
Regional Geography (1933-1935), and the posthumously published Geography
of Man, comprised of three parts entitled respectively as: Basis of the Geography
of Man, Transport Geography, and Economic Geography. His other works
included on1! on Russia (1905), England's World Domination and War (1915),
Surface Forms of the Continents (1921 and 1928) and the Spread of Culture over
the Earth (1928, 1929). Heltner's methodological essays (beginning with his
paper in the inaugural issue of Geographische Zeitschrift that he founded in
1895 and continued to edit until 1935) were collected and published (with
an introduction on the history of geographical thought) as a book in 1927
bearing the title: Geography: Its History, Character and Method (Die Geographie
Ihre Geschchte 1hr Wesen und Ihre Methoden). The rest of this discussion
relates to his methodological ideas as contained in these essays.
Heitner subscribed to a view of classification of sciences and the placing
of geography as a science that was similar to Kant's view on the subject
(though Heitner made no reference to Kant). The failure to make any
reference to Kant was possibly because at the time when Heitner was
writing his methodological essays, this view was so widely accepted that
it did not require support from the earlier methodological literature.
Heitner noted that on the one hand we have a logical classification of
fields of learning, according to which we have a series of subject-sciences
each concerned with the study and analysis of a logically defined circle of
facts. On the other, we have a physical classification of fields of knowledge
according to which fields of study are defined not on the basis of logical
unity of the subject matter concerned, but on the basis of the physical
association of phenomena of diverse origin existing together. The physical
association (or arrangement) of phenomena may be viewed in two different
dimensions: Time and space. Accordingly, physical classification of
knowledge gives us two groups of fields of study, namely, historical sciences,
which study integrations of diverse phenomena occurring together in the
context of time (i.e., historical period); and chorological sciences which
study diverse phenomena existing together in segments of the earth's space.
This idea had been put forward by Heitner in the first of his methodological
essays published in the inaugural issue of his journal Geographische Zeitschrift,
in 1895. According to him:
If we compare the different sciences we will find that while in many of
them the unity lies in the materials of study, in the others it lies in the
method of study. Geography belongs to the latter group; its unity is in
its method. As history ... consider(s) the development of the human race ...
in terms of time, so geography proceeds from the viewpoint of spatial
variations.
Heitner noted that a historical survey of the development of geography
reveals that there are two interrelated views regarding its nature as a field
of knowledge. According to one, geography was viewed as a general science
of the earth so that study of general geography (study of the earth as a
planet) was primary, and study of special geography (i.e., in-depth study
of particular segments of the earth's surface) was secondary. This was sharply
contrasted to the second view, which saw geography as the study of the
earth's surface as the home of man, and by inference, the areal character
of the earth surface (and its regions) was the primary task of geography,
and general or comparative geography was regarded to be of secondary
concern. Heitner pointed out that the controversy regarding the primacy of
general or special geography was based on an erroneous view of the nature
of acquisition of knowledge. He underlined that since historical and spatial
approaches to acquiring knowledge stand out in clear distinction from the
systematic study of particular sets of logically defined data (studied in the
subject-sciences), geography, like history, stands out as an essential and
autonomous component of a complete system of sciences. History and
geography owe their unity as fields of knowledge not to their subject matter
but to their way of looking at phenomena on the earth's surface. History
and geography are methodologically defined branches of learning.
Tracing the development of geography from the time of the ancient
Greeks, Heitner asserted that geography is the chorological science of the
earth's surface. As such, geography is concerned with the study of areas on
the earth's surface insofar as these have material content. It describes places
and regions, and analyzes their spatial interrelations. In this, geography is
somewhat similar to, but distinct from, history which describes the sequence
of events in given places (or countries) and analyses development of things
(or the changing relationships between phenomena) over time.
Although Heitner had taken up the chorological concept of geography
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT AND RITTER: DEVELOPMENTS IN GERMANY n

from his teacher and colleague Richthofen, he nevertheless criticized his
view of geography as the science of the earth's surface as vague and
ambiguous. Hettner maintained that geography is properly described as
the study of the earth's surface according to its localized differences such
as between continents, regions, districts, and localities. Geography, according
to Hettner, seeks to define and describe unit areas of the earth's surface
and to compare them on an inductive worldwide basis . Whether the student
is engaged in the study of particular areas and regions, or in a comparative
study of several of them, the differential association of phenomena over
the earth surface is the keynote in the study of geography as a science.
Heitner was critical of the attempts by some geographers to project
geography as the "science of distributions" (Hartshorne, 1939, pp. 127-
129). He maintained that geography was not necessarily concerned with
distributions of particular phenomena per se, since logically speaking that
is the special concern of the systematic sciences under whose domain the
respective phenomena fall (e.g., plants-botany; animals-zoology). The
problem becomes of geographical interest only when such a distribution is
an element of an areal association of phenomena that gives character to an
area or region. In this regard, Heitner drew attention to the distinction that
A.R. Wallace (Darwin's coauthor in the theory of natural selection) had
made between geographical zoology that studies the distribution of
individual species of animals, and a zoological geography that is concerned
with fauna! content of different lands. The same holds true of plants, minerals
and other elements forming the subject matter of the systematic sciences.
Whereas the view of a systematic science is focused on a particular category
of phenomena which it studies in terms of their distribution, the focus of
attention in geography is on areas which it studies in terms of differences
in their mineral, floral, and fauna! content. As Hartshorne has noted, this
concept of geography represented a consistent derivation from Humboldt's
description of geography as the study of "that which exists together in an
area".
Geography, according to Heitner, begins with the spatial association
of phenomena that give character to areas at different scales of resolution.
Geography involves consideration of causal interdependence (Zusammenhang)
of various sets of spatially arranged phenomena in particular segments of
the earth's surface; individual distributions by themselves are of little
significance in giving character to areas and as such are of little direct
concern to geography as a specialized discipline. However, single distribution
becomes important in characterizing an area insofar as it is coincident with
other areal phenomena with similar areal distribution i.e., to the extent that
the distribution of single elements is geographically (or spatially) efficacious.
Like Richthofen, Heitner also used the chorological view of geography
as a means to an end-to resolve the problem of dualism between physical
vis-a-vis human geography. To quote him, geography as a chorological
study "is neither natural nor human...but both together", for it is concerned
with the "distinctive character of lands", since the character of any region
with a history of human settlement incorporated both physical as well as

human aspects, both types of elements formed equally important components
of geographical study. He criticized the likes of Peschel and Gerland who
wanted to project geography as a purely physical science. He was also
critical of Ritter and his followers who wanted to make man the central
focus of geography. Hettner emphasized that man must be considered
alongside nature in the study of areal descriptions and interrelations.
Hettner addressed the question whether geography should confine
its vision to the study of geographical areas as unique entities, or also
concern itself with the formulation of general concepts and theories i.e., is
geography idiographic or nomothetic in perspective? His own answer was,
that like all other fields of scientific knowledge geography must be concerned
both with the uniqueness of particular phenomena as well as the general
principles that explain the particular examples. Geography is concerned
both with the unique character of particular areas as well as the elements
of similarity or universality between them. The in-depth study of particular
regions can be effectively pursued only when it is suitably illuminated by
the relevant general concepts which would frequently be necessary to identify
their uniqueness. Likewise, the study of areas as unique assemblages of
diverse phenomena provides raw material for general studies, since every
unique element is a challenge that leads to the search for better theory.
Richthofen's programme of geography, and its further exposition by
Heitner paved the way for studies in regional geography interpreted in
terms of the fruits of systematic geography. In methodological terms, this
represented a return to Humboldt's approach to geography, an approach
that was neglected by the followers of Ritter who pursued regional
geography with relatively little concern for systematic geography. It is true
that Hellner consistently encouraged the study of regional geography, but
that should not be interpreted to imply that he discouraged systematic
geography because he consistently emphasized the need for geographic
work from both the perspectives. As Hartshorne (1939, pp. 93-95) wrote,
it is significant to note that regional study in geography in Germany had
hardly reached a position comparable with systematic studies until after
the First World War which led to a refocusing of interest on the geographic
character of different parts of Europe in general, and the Germanic lands
in particular.
The standard approach to regional study in geography, which had
served as the general framework for many scholarly works in Germany
published from the 1880s to the 1920s, was described by Heitner in an
article in Geographische Zeitschrift (1933). Under this framework, various
categories of facts were examined in their geographical distribution starting
with geographical location, geology, relief, climate, natural resources,
development and distribution of population and settlements, the forms of
economy, trade, transport, and political divisions. This outline was based
on the belief that the framework formed a kind of sequence of cause and
effect. The framework had continued to be pursued as the model approach
to regional study in geography in Germany for a long time. Through

Hartshorne's Nature of Geography it became the standard framework for
regional geography in the English-speaking world.
Although the chorological view of geography had become the dominant
concept of geography in the working life of Heitner, it is significant to note
that the chorological concept of the discipline had only upstaged and not
replaced the Ratzelian view of geography as the study of man-land
relationships. Indeed, in many parts of the English-speaking world, the
Ratzelian concept had continued to be vigorously pursued under the
influence of the highly pursuasive writings of Ellen Churchill Semple.
GEOGRAPHY AS A LANDSCAPE SCIENCE
Otto Schluter (1872-1952)

Notwithstanding the considerable popularity of the concept of geography
as the study of earth's areas in terms of what Sauer called "areal
differentiation", many geographers felt uneasy about the identification of
geography as a chorological science which like the chronological sciences
(e.g., history) was defined in terms of its method rather than its subject
matter. They strongly felt that geography, like other systematic sciences,
must have a distinctive subject of study with which it could be clearly
identified as a field of science. Another source of dissatisfaction was the
Hettnerian schema for regional geography which appeared to overemphasize
the importance of Physical features in the geography of regions and places.
By tying every aspect of an area back to its physical features, the Hettnerian
model for regional studies had tended to overlook the role of factors such
as distribution and density of population, economy, patterns of development
in relation to routes of circulation, and a host of historical-cultural forces
and factors that impart individuality to places irrespective of the physical
environment. A third source of dissatisfaction was that many of the
interrelations observed in regional studies were in the process of change
over time. These could not be properly understood without the study of
past geographies of the place, and the changes taking place over a period.
In other words, geography as chorology neglected time.
These points of dissatisfaction with the concepts of geography put
forward by Ratzel, on the one hand, and Richthofen and Heitner on the
other, had led to a continued search for alternative concepts of geography
as a science. An alternative view was built around the concept of landscape
which had first been introduced by Wimmer in 1885 in his Historische
Landschaftkunde. But it gained popularity only after 1906 following its further
exposition by Otto Schluter. Born in Westphalia in 1872, Schluter first studied
German language and history but while a student at the university of
Halle he attended the lectures of Kirchhoff on human geography. This led
to a change of his interest from Germanic studies to geography. Schluter
wrote his dissertation at Halle, but shifted to Berlin in 1895 to study under
Richthofen, under whose influence he developed a strong interest in

questions of scope and method of geography, an interest that led him to his
famous "Objectives of the Geography of Man" (1906) which projected the
alternative concept of geography as the study of landscapes. Five years
later he was appointed to the chair of geography at the university of Halle
where he stayed until his retirement in 1951. Schluter was keenly interested
in the geography of the settlements in Central Europe. The result of his
nearly forty years of labour on this subject was published in a three-volume
work under the title Siedlungsrat1me Mittelenuropas in Fruhgeschichtlicher Zeit
(1952, 1953, 1958).
In his 1906 method,,logical paper, Schluter had suggested that
geographers should concentrate on the study of phenomena on the surface
of the earth that could be perceived through the senses; and the focus
should be on the totality of perception in each area. This totality of "visual
perception of area" was termed as landscape. According to him, acceptance
of landscape as the subject matter of geography had raised the discipline
to the level of the other logically defined fields of science.
Since the concept of landscape was based on visual perception of the
surface features in given areas, the nonmaterial content of areas, such as
political organization, religious-cultural beliefs, economic institutions and
the like, lay outside the central focus of geography as a science. Schluter
wrote that knowledge about these aspects could be borrowed from the
relevant fields of knowledge, and used in interpreting the landscape which,
like an architectural deposit, mirrors the culture and economy of the human
communities inhabiting the particular segments of the earth's surface. Interest
in political, cultural, and economic aspects was, however, to be limited
only to the extent that they gave character to the visible landscape.
Schluter incorporated the concept of process i.e., development through
time, in his concept of geography as the science of landscape by means of
the derivative concepts of cultural and natural landscapes. He called them
as Kulturlandschaft and Naturlandschaft. For him the purpose of the study of
landscapes was "not only of classifying categories of phenomena and
determining their distribution and associations, but of examining their
characteristics through the process of change through time". He emphasized
that human geography should aim at the recognition of the form and
arrangement of earthbound phenomena as far as they are perceptible to
the senses. He claimed that his method of study was morphological, and
its procedure was parallel to that of the study of landforms.
Like physiography, human geography as the science of landscapes
was concerned not with the processes i.e., the mechanisms that create the
landscape, but only with the surface expression of these processes. Schluter
noted that the cultural landscape embraces both mobile and immobile forms.
The immobile forms required explanation in terms of "all the effects of
which every period and every culture, according to the measure of its
forces, has wrought upon the landscape". The mobile forms included man,
together with his works and his movement. In other words, the cultural
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT AND RITTER: DEVELOPMENTS IN GERMANY 81

--- ---------- - -- - - - - --- ------------
landscape requires the study of not only the routes and route patterns, but
also the men and materials that move along them.
Schluter's concept implied that each small unit of areal association
constitutes a physiographic unit in which all the perceptible phenomena
together constitute distinct association; and as far as cultural landscapes
are concerned, the association is rooted in similarities of function or commor1
origin. This implied that in the study of cultural landscapes, the primary
focus was on the morphology of landscapes rather than on causal association
of the phenomena. Also, the landscape geography of Schluter demanded
that the study of cultural landscape be pursued in terms of its historical
evolution in relation to the original natural landscape of that area. This
meant that the areal grouping of elements in the present-day landscape
are to be explained with reference to the way they are tied together in the
current functional organization of the area, and in terms of their genetic
evolution through past survivals in the landscape. It is important to note
that the morphological approach of Schluter represented a fundamental
departure from the Dar,vinist environmentalism that underlay the
concepts and methods of W.M. Davis, H.R. Mill and some of his other
contemporaries.
Although the concepts of Heitner and Schluter appear somewhat
antithetical on first sight, a closer scrutiny reveals otherwise.
The regional concept ... of Schluter, like that of Hettner, is about a
geographical portion of the earth's surface that stands out from its
surroundings. Hettner stressed the Wesen or personality of an area as
based upon the similarities of contiguous places and their phenomena,
and the spatial and causal cohesion of the various natural elements in
this area. Schluter stresses the Bild, the association or assemblage in space
of landscape elements as the essence of this landscape unit (Dickinson,
1969, pp. 132-133).
Both Heitner and Schluter were concerned about the variations in the
character of areas on the earth's surface which became known as areal
differentiation. Both of them recognized that there were distinctly different
kinds of areas on the earth, and that these were distinct from their
surroundings in that they showed a certain degree of uniqueness that could
be defined. "Heitner, however, stressed the ways in which the features of
a region reflected the basic patterns of the physical earth, whereas Schluter
focused attention on the interrelations of these features that gave the region
its distinctive appearance" (James, 1972, p. 230).
The followers of the concept of geography as landscape science were
far from precise in their concept of landscape, leading to a good deal of
confusion. The term landscape (Landschaft) has two distinct meanings in
the German language: one, in the sense of a distinct territory with a generally
uniform aspect; and the other, in the sense in which it is used by artists to
refer to the aspect of the earth as seen in perspective (as in a painting or
a photograph) without connotation of areal extent. Interchangeable use of
the term in both the senses by the landscape geographers had led to a lot
of confusion so that the concept became, according to Hartshorne,

surrounded by a "mystical significance". Lack of a clear definition as to the
scope of geography as a landscape science was another source of confusion:
While Schluter himself conceptualized landscape as the total impact of an
area on man's sense perception so that even invisible phenomena, such as
wind and temperature, were included; some other scholars who followed
him chose to restrict the term to only the visible landscape and excluded
anything, such as wind and temperature which cannot be seen, from
consideration. There were still others who wanted to broaden the scope of
landscape to include everything, including law, religion, and political and
economic institutions.
In a critical appraisal of Schluter's contribution, Leo Waibel (1933)
wrote: Through
the concept of the physiognomic build of the landscape , he gave the
geography of man a corporate substance for research, which can be worked
out according to the same method as physical geography-the cultural
landscape. This can be examined from the standpoints of its morphology,
physiology, and developmental history, just as the visible phenomena in
nature in the build of the landscape. Between physical geography and
the geography of man, there is no longer a gap. Both are in the closest
contact in terms of objects and methods (cited in Dickinson, 1969, p. 132).
The concept of landscape and the related methodological principles
of Schluter had been widely used by German geographers before the
Second World War. Writing in 1952, German geographer Lautensauch
reported that most geographers in Germany followed Schluter in identi
fying the study of landscape as the central task of geography: The German
methodologists viewed every landscape as a "dynamic structure, a thing
area-time system of specified quality inside the whole geosphere�that is,
an open system, as contrasted to the closed system of organism" (cited in
James, 1972, p. 232).
Jean Brunhes was advocating a somewhat similar set of ideas in France,
but it had made very little impact in the English-speaking world until Carl
Sauer introduced the concept in his essay on "The Morphology of Landscape"
(1925), and later built a research group (the Berkeley School) that focused
on the historical-ecological study of cultural landscapes. This concept was
completely ignored in Britain so that Darby's (1936) edited volume made
only a passing reference to Brunhes. Even in the United States the concept
was not pursued outside the Berkeley School. Part of the reason lay in the
widespread influence of Hartshorne's Nature of Geography (1939) which
had convincingly argued in favour of the Hettnerian paradigm of geography
as the time-honoured concept of the discipline.
REFERENCES
Darby, H.C. (Ed.) (1936), An Historical Geography of England before A.O. 1800,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT AND RITTER: DEVELOPMENTS IN GERMANY 83
Darwin, C.R. (1859), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,

or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, London:
John Murray.
Davis, W.M. (1903), A scheme of geography, Geographical Journal, vol. 13,
pp. 413-423.
Dickinson, R.E. (1969), Makers of Moder,, Geography, London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Hartshorne, R. (1939), Nature of Geography, Lancaster (PA.): Association of
American Geographers.
Heitner, A. (1927), Die Geographie-Ihre Geochishte, ihre Wesen, und ihre
Methoden, Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt.
Livingstone, D.N. (1992), The geographical Tradition, Oxford; Basil Blackwell.
Lowie, R.H. (1937), The History of Ethnographical Theory, New York.
Penniman, T.K. (1935), A Hundred Years of Anthropology, London.
Peschel, 0. (1870), Neue Proble,ne der vergleichenden Erdkunde, Leipzig:
Druncker & Humboldt.
- -- (1879), Physische Erdkunde, Leipzig: Druncker & Humboldt.
Raveneau, L. (1891-1892), L' Element Humaine dans la Geographie:
L' Anthropogeographie de M. Ratzel, Anna/es de Geographie, vol. 1,
pp. 331-347.
Ratzel, F. (1882), Anthropogeographie Vol. I, Stuttgart: J. Engethorn.
-- (1891), Anthropogeographie, Vol. II, Stuttgart: J. Engethorn.
- - - (1897), Politische Geographie, Berlin: R. Oldenbourg.
--- (1898), Deutsland, Eintuhrung in die Heimatkunde, Leipzig: Grunow.
Richthofen, F. von (1883), Aufgaben und Methoden der heutigen Geographie
(Akademische Antittsrede), Leipzig: Veit
Schluter, 0. (1906), Die Ziele der Geographie des Muschen (Antittsrede), Munich:
R. Oldenbourg.
••
Waibel, L. (1933), Was verstehen wir unter Landschaftskunde, Geographische
Anzeiger, vol. 34, pp. 523--598.
4
Geography after Humboldt and Ritter:
Developments Outside Germany
Geography had been firmly established as an academic discipline in Gen1,any

following large-scale endowment of chairs in geography in many universities
across the country. The revival of geography, however, took some time to
spread to other parts of Europe, and to the United States. There was, in
general, a lapse of a decade or more. Before long, geography had begun to
appear as a subject of higher learning in most European universities. The
part played by the universities in the formation of geography as a
professional discipline was of fundamental importance since only through
the traini..r1g of the younger generations in an accepted mode of study
could geography emerge as a professional field.
DEVELOPMENTS IN FRANCE
The immediate cause for the revival of geography as a university level
subject of study in France was the country's defeat in the Franco-Prussian
war of 1870-1871. Soon after the war there was a great demand for better
quality geography education in the French schools, with a view to stimulating
interest in the knowledge about peoples and places in far-off lands so that
the pursuit of colonialism could be attended to more effectively. The country's
defeat, and the loss of territory, made it urgent that France should look to
Africa and elsewhere for commercial opportunities and politico-cultural
colonization (Freeman, 1971, p. 46). The development of French colonial
power after 1871 owed a great deal to the influence of the French
geographical societies (McKay, 1943).
Contributions of Vidal de la Blache (1845-1918)

Unlike in Germany (where revival of geography in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century had been marked by the rise of several distinct schools
of thought), the growth of modern geography in France was shaped by the
work of one man, Paul Vidal de la Blache, who founded a new school of
thought in human geography that remained dominant until the Second
World War. Writing in 1922, W.L.G. Joerg had noted that "Nearly all
occupants of chairs in geography in France are pupils or pupils of pupils
84
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT AND RITIER: DEVELOPMENTS OUTSIDE GERMANY 85
of the late Vidal de la Blache. In no other country ... the development of

geography centred about one man as in France".
Blache had come to geography via history and literature. After a
doctorate in history in 1872, he began teaching geography, first at the
university of Nancy (1872-1877), ard iater as professor of geography at
Ecole Normale Superiere in Paris. He became the first geographer to be
appointed to the chair of geography at the Sorbonne in 1898. As a
contemporary of Ratzel, it was quite natural that Vidal de la Blache should
be influenced by his writings. It was not Ratzel of the first volume of
Anthropogeographie (1882) but Ratzel of the second volume (published in
1891) that attracted Vidal. He was drawn to Ratzel's concern with
geographical distribution of man, and the role of migration (and inherited
traits) in man's adjustment to nature. This basic concept became the central
theme in Vidal's own concept of possibilism, which held that nature sets
limits and offers possibilities for development, but the way man adjusts to
the natural conditions of the area of his inhabitance is largely a function of
his own tradition and mental structuring. The same environment carries
different meanings·to people with different genres de vie (ways of living or
culture). According to Blache, culture (i.e., inherited traits) is the basic
factor in determining which of the many possibilities in the natural
environment shall be selected by a given community.
Blache was opposed to the concept of dichotomy between natural
and cultural aspects of geography. To him, consideration of natural and
ct1ltural aspects of the earth's surface cannot be separated from one another
for the simple reason that in every inhabited part of the earth's surface, the
original landscape is significantly transformed as a result of human
habitation. Such changes are greater in the case of culturally advanced
societies where, owing to the more developed technology, the degree of
man's intervention in nature is more far-reaching. It is, therefore, impossible
to study landscapes meaningfully without due reference to the interlocking
roles of nature and culture.
The relationship of a community to the phy sical landscape of the area
of its inhabitance is so intimate that it is difficult to think of the one without
the other. As such, each segment of the cultural landscape has, with the
passage of time, acquired a unique personality of its own. Such areas were
named as the pa ys. According to Blache, the study of such regions constituted
the primary task of geography as a professional field. Elaborating upon his
idea about the method of geographical enquiry, Blache (1913) stated that
geography is "the study of things associated in areas, mutually interacting,
characterizing particular segments of the earth space". According to him,
the distinguishing feature
••
of geography as a science was its "capacity not
to break apart what nature has assembled, to understand the correspondence
and correlation of things" existing together in association in particular regions
or pays.
Blache's method of study was essentially inductive and historical. It
was designed to suit the study of small areas of self-sufficient economies
as had existed in the nineteenth century rural Fra11ce. An agricultural way

of life pursued in relative isolation from the outside world had favoured
the development of locally distinctive traditions and ways of life (genre de
vie), including agricultural practices, implements, food habits, dress and
architecture. Blache recommended that geographers should carry out research
in folk cultures with a view to depicting the unique personality of each
region.
Commenting on the role of history in the development of pays, Blache
cited the example of a pond being swept by a gust of wind. As the wind
overtakes it, the water of the pond gets disturbed and there is all-round
confusion, but after a few minutes the ripples subside, and the old calm is
restored. In like manner, war, pestilence, and civil strife can interrupt the
forward progress of a region and bring chaos, but with the passage of time
the crisis is overcome, and the old pattern of civic life is reestablished. This
original idea, first formulated in 1903, was illustrated in his 1917 work on
the two thousand years of development in Alsace and Lorraine. He
demonstrated how the French Revolution of 1789 had produced a great
ripple in the placid waters, as it were, but before long the usual processes
of development had reasserted themselves. However, as an honest researcher
(who is partial to truth rather than to his own pet theory), Blache did
concede that after about 1846 the balan.ce of interplay between man and
nature had been fundamentally disturbed as a result of the introduction of
new technologies that had enabled man to tame the forces of natur·,,e.
technologies which enabled the building of canals, and broke the isolation
of rural communities through laying of roads and railroads, and above all,
through the launching of the industrial revolution. All this posed a serious
threat to the maintenance of age-old traditions born out of self-sufficient
economies of the individual pays. This meant that by the end of the
nineteenth century the method of regional study in terms of genre de vie, as
advocated by Blache, was fast losing relevance to the study of European
landscapes. Blache was nostalgic about it, but the scholar in him suggested
a new approach more suited to the study of the changed scenario. He
wrote that "The idea of region in its modern form is a conception to do
with industry; it is associated with that of the industrial metropolis". He
clearly perceived that the organizing principle of economic life in the future
would be guided by the relationship of an area to the metropolitan centre
that dominates its economy, rather than the relationship between man and
his local environment.
It has been rightly noted that the method of regional study developed
by Blache "was a powerful and legitimate vision of the functioning of
societies during most of European history. It was, however, ironically, a
vision of the things past or about to pass, not a vision of things present or
to come" (Wrigley, 1965, p. 9). As such, Blache's method of regional study
provided a most appropriate methodology for historical geography of Europe
before the Industrial Revolution, and it may still be relevant to the limited
but rapidly shrinking areas of the world today whose economies may still
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT AND RITTER: DEVELOPMENTS OUTSIDE GERMANY 87
be dominated by peasant agriculture and local self-sufficiency in most

material requirements of life, but it cannot be applicable to a country which
has undergone industrial revolution (Wrigley, op. cit.).
Vidal de la Blache passed away in 1918. Around that time, he had
been engaged in assembling a definitive book on human geography with
a view to concretizing his philosophy and methodology of the geography
of man. From his partially completed manuscript his former student (and
son-in-law), Emmanuel de Mortonne, prepared the press copy of the book
which was published in 1921 under the title Principes de Geographie Humaine
(translated into English as Principles of Human Geography).
In an article published in 1913 in the Anna/es de Geographie (which
he had founded and edited until his death) Blache had outlined the
"distinguishing characteristics of geography", wherein he wrote that the
goal of geographical study was to study the nature and groupings of
phenomena of landscapes as the expression of man's interaction with nature.
Listing the distinctive characteristics of geography he mentioned the
following:
• The concept of terrestrial unity is the starting point in geographical
work. Geography pursues a synthetic world view of nature and
man. It also studies causes and generic types of groupings of
terrestrial phenomena.
• Geography believes that terrestrial phenomena are localized in varied
combinations both in nature as well as in the modifications brought
about by human intervention.
• Geography seeks to describe, localize, and explain covariations
between natural conditions and man-made phenomena.
• Geography seeks to measure the 1nflc1ence of environment (especially
climate and vegetation) on man.
• Geography is concerned with developing and refining methods of
defining and classifying earth phenomena.
• Geography seeks to measure and localize the part played by man
in modifying the face of the earth.
La Tradition Vidalienne
For almost half a century French geography had remained a faithful reflection
of the Vidalian tradition of thought and methodology perpetuated by his
own students and the next generation trained by those students as they
spread out to man the various university departments across the country.
The essence of the Vidalian tradition was an unswerving faith in tl1e principle
of terrestrial unity so that the concept of dualism between man and nature,
and human and physical geography, was alien to the French tradition in
geography. French geograpliers have all through maintained a balance
between physical and human components of geography. Thus, of the two
leading disciples of Blache (each a leader in his own right), while Jean
Brunhes (1869-1930) spread the message and methodology of new geography

of man as preached by his master, Emmanuel de Mortonne (1873-1955),
was a leading physical geographer.
Brunhes was a leading geographer in his own right. His book La
Geographie Humaine, first published in 1910, went through several editions
over the next quarter of a century. An English translation (edited by Bowman)
was published in 1920. The book became so popular in North America that
an abridged edition was published in 1952. Brunhes proposed a classification
of geographic facts that made Blache' s concepts easier to transmit in the
classroom. Brunhes wrote that the two basic maps for the study of human
geography are a map of water and a map of population. According to him
the essential facts of human geography may be classified into three groups
namely
• Facts of the unproductive occupation of the soil (houses, roads,
and settlements);
• Facts of plants and animal conquest (cultivation of plants, and
animal husbandry);
• Facts of destructive exploitation (clearing of forests, hunting, and
mining).
The last part of Brunhes's book contained a discussion on different
kinds of geographical studies pursued under the headings of human
geography, regional geography, social geography, political geography and
historical geography.
Emmanuel de Mortonne was a leading physical geographer of his
time. He held physical geography to be an essential part of the scheme of
geographical study of areas. He maintained a consistent interest in
geomorphology and climatology. He combined this interest with regional
expertise in the geography of Central Europe. One of the most influential
geographers of the interwar period in Europe, de Mortonne was a strong
supporter of Davisian geomorphology which he popularized in the French
academic circles. His 1927 study on the identification of arid"regions through
the use of aridity index, was a major contribution to the study of climate.
An important part of the Vidalian tradition was the recognition that
while from one point of view geography is a unitary field, from another it
appears to tie together a variety of fields in the natural and human sciences.
In a book entitled Science of Geography (1925) Camille Vallaux (1870-1945)
stated that geography is both a unitary and autonomous field of study, and
also an auxiliary aspect of many other fields of scientific knowledge. Thus,
not only does geography have a philosophy of its own, "it is almost, in
itself, a philosophy of the world of man". This explains how the Vidalian
tradition had succeeded in making important contributions to systematic
aspects of geography (i.e., topical studies) side by side with its unique
contribution to regional geography pursued through the concept of genre
de vie which had resulted in the justly famous French regional monographs
"the study of places" (Harrison-Church, 1951; James, 1972; Livingstone, 1992).
Another distinctive aspect of the Vidalian tradition in geography was

that Blache had regarded field study of small areas as the best possible
way to train geographers. He was convinced of the great practical value of
such regional studies to society and government. With a view to fulfilling
this need, Vidal had planned a series of books on regional geography
covering the whole of Europe a new series of universal geographies.
However, Blache passed away before the plan could be concretized so that
the task was taken over by his student and close associate Lucien Gallois
(1857-1941). The first volume appeared in 1927, and the series had been
completed (except for the volume on France) before the out break of the
Second World War. The series is regarded as a monument to the regional
tradition in geography.
DEVELOPMENTS IN GREAT BRITAIN

In the nineteenth century British geography had suffered from maladies
similar to the ones that had beset it in France. Much of what was taught
in British schools in the name of geography was uninteresting and dull;
and the students were required to commit to memory a large mass of
unorganized facts. As in France, courses in geography in the universities
were handled by geologists on the physical side, and the courses meant to
provide geographical background to history were taught by historians. The
overall scene was extreme!)' confusing. In the midst of this confusion Mary
Somerville (1780-1872) appeared as a bright star and shone on the path to
development of geography as a field of scientific enquiry in its own right.
Her famous book on Physical Geography was published in 1848. It went
through seven editions over the next tl1irty years. This book started with
a physical description of the earth's surface continents, oceans, atmosphere,
plants and animals-and included the study of man as an agent of change
in the physical landscape. The author kept on updating the book with each
edition by incorporating new facts as they became available. Its
sound methodology and approach received praise even from Humboldt
(Freeman, 1971, p. 28) but irrespective of its soand method and the author's
erudition, the book failed to create a stir in British geographical circles
since it was published at a time when physical geography was claimed by
geologists, and Humboldt's books were supposed to have said everything
that needed to be told about geography. Ironically enough, the book became
highly influential in North America through George Perkin Marsh who
found her observations about man's destructive use of the earth very
stimulating. (For short appraisal, see: Livingstone, 1992, pp. 272-274.)
Another major figure in the history of nineteenth century British
geography was Francis Galton (1822-1911) who was a member of the Council
of the Royal Geographical Society in London from 1854-1893. He had
prepared the first weather map of Britain in 1861, and was the first scholar
to demonstrate that weather patterns could be revealed by plotting lines of
equal air pressure on the map. He was also the first to identify the nature
of air circulation in an anticyclonic formation. He further refined his isopleth

'
technique to prepare the first ever isochronous map showing lines of equal
travel-time from London. Commenting upon the nature of geography Gallon
(1855, p. 81) described it as "a peculiarly liberalizing pursuit, which links
the scattered sciences together, and gives each of them a meaning and
significance of which they are barren when tl1ey stand alone" (cited in
James, 1972, p. 257).
While geography was making news through the contributions of
individual scholars like Somerville and Gallon, until the 1880s the discipline
had no place as a branch of learning in the British universities. In 1884 the
Royal Geographical Society asked its secretary, John Scott Kellie to survey
the status of geography in Great Britain in the light of the contemporary
status of the discipline in Germany, France, and U.S.A. Kellie reported that
the status of geography in Britain compared very unfavourably with its
status in other leading European countries and in America where the subject
was flourishing, as a universit y l- evel discipline under the charge of full
professors of geography. On the initiative of the society (and induced by
a special grant offered by it), the university of Oxford introduced geography
in 1887 with Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947) as reader and chairman.
The university of Cambridge followed suit in 1888 under Francis Henry
Hill Guillemard (1852-1933) who was succeeded by John Young Buchanan
in 1889.
As was the case in Germany and France, in Britain also expansion of
geography as a university-level discipline was intimately related to the
needs of British imperialism. A memorandum issued by the Royal
Geographical Society had urged the promotion of geographical knowledge
in Britain since
The colonies of England, and her commerce, her emigrations, her wars,
her missionaries, and her scientific explorers bring her into contact with
all parts of the globe, and it is, therefore, a matter of imperial importance
that no reasonable means should be neglected of training her youths in
sound geographical knowledge (Proceedings of the Royal Geographical
Society, 1879, pp. 261-264; cited in Freeman, 1980, p. 35).
Contribution of Halford J. Mackinder (1861-1947)

Mackinder's training as an academic included a first class honours in natural
sciences at Oxford in 1883, followed by graduation in history from the
same university in 1884. He studied law and was called to the bar in 1886.
He was one of the organizers of the Oxford University Extension Movement
which aimed at taking university teaching beyond the university campus
by means of travelling lecturers. Participating in the extension programme
Mackinder had given 600 popular lectures in course of a few years on the
theme "the new geography" in cities and towns all over the country. In
1887 he was invited by the Royal Geographical Society to deliver a lecture
on "The Scope and Method of Geography". Impressed by his erudition
and scholarship, the Society offered him appointment as Reader to organize
the first university department in the subject in Britain at Oxford. He

continued in that position until 1905. While still at Oxford, he did part
time teaching at the London School of Economics, of which he became the
Director in 1903 and continued in that position until 1908.
As a trained historian, Mackinder was convinced that since everything
must occur at a specific time in a particular place, history (which specializes
in ·the time dimension) and geography (which is the spatial science of the
earth's surface) should never be separated. The concept of geography that
he presented before the Royal Geographical Society in 1887 was of a field
that is concerned with the study of interactions between man and his
environment. His geography was less interested in the details of man-land
relations than in the development of a world view so that his book Britain
and the British Seas (1902) was aptly described as a "regional study in a
global context". It is this interest in the study of a world view that
subsequently got concretized into his famous theory of the "Heartland" or
"The Geographical Pivot of History", the title under which it was originally
presented in 1904.
Through his writings and addresses, Mackinder became a major
influence in British geography. In his presidential address to the Geography
Section (E) of the British Association of Science in 1895 under the title
"Modern Geography: German and English", he stated that while British
geography could be proud of its contribution to field survey, hydrography,
climatology, and biogeography, as regards the "synthetic, philosophical
and ... educational side of the subject" the British contribution fell "so
markedly below the foreign and especially the German standard". The
main points in Mackinder's view of geography as a field of learning, as
evidenced by his presidential address may be summarized as follows.
On the relationship between systematic and regional studies in
geography Mackinder stated that in his view "treatment by regions is a
more thorough test of the logic of the geographical argument than is the
treatment by types of phenomena". In this regard he commended the effort
made by Alexander von Humboldt who "for the first time" made "an
exhaustive attempt to [causally] relate...relief, climate, vegetation, fauna
and the various human activities" in particular places.
Mackinder did not in any way undervalue the contribution of the
systematic approach to geographical inquiry. He noted that regional surveys
could be made on the basis of systematic geography. Since scientific analysis
of the environment depended on geomorphology, "geophysiology"
(oceanography and climatology) and biogeography, any one studying human
geography in the regional context needed the knowledge of the environment
gathered by systematic studies of its different aspects.
Not aware of the concept of cultural borrowings through migrations
in contemporary France, Mackinder drew attention to the role of migration
as an instrument of geographical change, noting that although human
communities were influenced by the geographical environment, their
traditions and practices in relation to the use of the environment are derived
from cumulative wisdom resulting from past experience so that by exercising

ingenuity, human groups are able to maintain themselves even in the midst
of very unfavourable natural environment: The student of geography must
remember, therefore, that man's progress on earth is influenced by two sets
of factors natural environment, and cultural tradition forming part of
man's mental equipment.
Mackinder emphasized the need for geographers to pay due attention
to the economic aspects of life in particular places as an essential component
of human geography. He also laid emphasis on the study of political
geography. He regarded politics as an expression of the corporate spirit of
a nation (here the influence of Ratzel's theory of the state is obvious). His
political geography was based on economic and strategic considerations
(see Freeman, 1980, pp. 51-53; and Freeman, 1971, pp. 65-66).
Referring to what he regarded as the distinguishing traits of an "ideal"
geographer, Mackinder (1895) stated that
[An ideal geographer] is a man of trained imagination, more especially
with the power of visualizing forms and movements in space of three
dimensions... he has an artistic appreciation of landforms ... he is able to
depict such forms on the map and to read them when depicted by
others;...he can visualize the play and conflicts of the fluids over and
around the solid forms; he can visualize an environment, the local resultant
of worldwide systems; he can picture the movement of communities...
acting and reacting on the communities arotllld.
The fact remains that as a regional geographer, Mackinder was clearly
"outclassed by many people working at his time, particularly by Vidal de
la Blache (1845---1918), yet he did a great deal to encourage regional geography
in Britain" (Freeman, 1980, p. 52).
Contribution of Patrick Geddes (1854-1934)

Another geographer who made a lasting impact on British geography was
Patrick Geddes. In an essay published in 1898 he expressed views about
the nature of geography comparable to those of Mackinder (1895), but
from a biological perspective, as contrasted to Mackinder's historical
perspective. A botanist by training, Geddes was greatly influenced by the
Darwinian idea of "ordered evolutionary unity". He had been attracted to
geography with a view to investigating the possible relationships between
relief, climate, and natural resources on the one hand and the distribution
of various communities, their economic pursuit, and cultural development,
on the other. He was deeply interested in finding an answer to the question:
How has nature determined, and how has man reacted to his environment?
For an answer, Geddes focused attention on the study of human activities
(Robson, 1981). Influenced by the ideas of the French sociologist Frederic
le Play (1806-1882), Geddes developed a methodology for the study of
human communities through focused attention on the "Place-Work-Family
(Folk)" progression: The essence of his methodology was that place (i.e.,
en\rironment) determines the pattern of economic life, which, in turn,
determines family norms and social structures. In the case of certain commu
nities of advanced cultures, the steps could be reversed: Folk-Work-Place.
Geddes was a great advocate of learning and imparting education
through regional surveys. His famous slogan was "Survey before action".
Thus, "Geddes has remained a source of fascination to many people, and
his ideas on town planning long survived his death in 1934" (Freeman,
1980, p. 53).
Development of Mapping and Field Work

A distinguishing feature of British geography all along has been a strong
tradition of field work as a method of acquiring knowledge through direct
contact with reality in and around the locality one lived in. By the end of
the nineteenth century, there was general agreement among British
geographers that any adequate survey of the world and a proper
understanding of its geography could be gained only through local study.
This educational method of approaching from "the familiar to the unfamiliar"
had been greatly popularised by T.H. Huxley's Physiography, first published
in 1877. "This work defined for a generation the way in which the earth's
physical features were studied in Britain; it defined also the nature of school
education" (Stoddart, 1975 (1986), p. 180).
According to Huxley (1825-1895), science was "nothing but trai11ed
organized knowledge common sense beginning with observation, facts
collected, proceeding to classification, facts arranged, and ending with
induction, facts reasoned upon and laws deduced". His objective was "to
show young people the fascination of the brook which ran through the
village, or the gravel pit from which the road metals were acquired, or the
ordnance map which revealed their own neighbourhood. From this basis
one could work forward to an understanding of the world; without it the
world would be an abstraction" (Freeman, 1980, p. 54). Training in
cartographic representation of the surveyed data through sketches, drawings,
and maps laid the foundation of the geographic way of analysis, and the
art of mapping, in the students' mind.
The cartographic tradition in British geography was greatly aided
by the mass of data collected by the world expedition of the Challenger,
1872-1876; which had provided so much material that even after 29,000
pages of its reports, and 3000 maps and plates, published in 1895, the
publication was not yet complete. The Challenger publications not only
laid a firm foundation of mapmaking; they were also responsible for the
rise of geographical interest in various fields of environmental research
such as oceanography, climatology, and plant and animal geography, besides
closer interaction with geology with which geography already shared a
common interest in geomorphology. Although the expedition's objective
was the study of submarine relief of ocean floors, its contribution to
climatology was considerable.
The ingenuity of the late nineteenth century British geographers
appropriated oceanography to local field study. H.R. Mill and A.J. Herbertson
dealt with observations of water temperature at 9.00 a.m. and 3.00 p.m. at
four stations on the west coast and four on the east coast for 1890, 1891,
and 1892. They found that water was warmest in August to September,
and coldest in February to March. The normal monthly temperature was
15.5 ° F but the difference in the temperatures of the coldest and warmest
months ranged between 20 to 24° F. As this ingenuous experiment showed,
even oceanography could be studied by the method of local survey.
At the instance of the Royal Geographical Society, H.R. Mill published
a paper on the theme of local study in 1896. In it, he advocated the publication
of memoirs for each Ordinance Survey 1 :6360 sheet to guide the student.
These memoirs could lead to the preparation of regional memoirs. It was
recommended that each memoir should include an index of names of streams
along with notes on place names, calculation of mean elevation on the
basis of the area enclosed between selected contours, commentary on
landforms and geological structure, and the stage reached in the geographical
cycle of landform evolution, soils, minerals, local magnetic conditions, climate
and natural vegetation, and land use. It was also recommended that aspects
of history and politics be included. All this was to be correlated on a
human geographic basis with reference to settlement patterns, commu
nication network, population distribution, and industrial development.
Although Mill's suggestions were not acted upon owing to cost restraints,
they underlined the distinctive spirit of contemporary methodology in British
geography. It was this distinguished tradition of field survey as the basic
feature of British geography that later led to tl1e conception and successful
execution of Dudley Stamp's massive programme of land utilization survey
of Britain in the 1930s through the association of school-level students on
a voluntary .basis in a little over ten years.
As Preston James (1972, p. 266) noted, during the period of expansion
following the First World War, British geography developed five distinctive
characteristics. These were:
• A conti11uing concern with exploration;
• An emphasis on regional study of various kinds;
• Inclusion of field observation and map interpretation as essential
parts of the training programme of geography students;
• An emphasis on studies in historical geography;
• An emphasis on the relevance of geographical study to economic,
social, and political problems.
The foundations of each of these had been firmly laid by the end of
the 1890s. That explains why Mackinder has sometimes been called the
"grand old man" of British geography.
DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA
The vast expanse of the Russian empire was a most potent factor in the
development of geography as an institutionalized discipline. Peter the Great
(who ruled Russia from 1682 to 1725) appreciated the need for accurate
geographical information to facilitate the eastward march of the empire.
State supported expeditions were sent to the east and the north to explore
the vast uninhabited stretches of territory; and generous funding was
provided to prepare maps of the explored regions. The main objective of
these explorations was to chart out the topography, and to identify places
where valuable merchandise, such as furs and precious metals could be
found. Later on M.V. Limonosov (who became head of the world's first
officially named Department of Geography at the Russian Academy of
Sciences in 1758) pursuaded the state authorities to charge the exploring
parties with the task of collecting systematic information about the physical
character of land, population, and economic condition. The recognition of
geography as a department in the Russian Academy of Sciences gave
considerable academic prestige to geography as a useful field of scientific
learning. Under the patronage of the Academy, the Department of Geography
launched several schemes of regional surveys and mapping of data.
In the beginning, many of the more important projects in exploration
and mapping were done under the guidance of experienced experts from
Germany and France, but gradually they were replaced by the newly
trained Russian personnel. German geographer Busching was a pastor of
a German Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg from 1761-1765. Portions of
his New Geography dealing with Russia were translated into Russian, and
his suggestion that the imperial territory be divided into natural regions in
order to facilitate administration was quickly adopted so that by 1800,
regional descriptions of a number of the regions had already been published.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century Russian geography had
already developed two distinguishing characteristics. The first was an
emphasis on regions as the basis for organizing geographical work, and
the belief that regions are concrete entities that can be objectively defined.
Second was the continued-use of geography to include a wide variety of
specialities. This was sharply contrasted to the contemporary trend in
Germany where, in the words of James, classical geography was torn apart
as each academic discipline established its separate existence. In Russia,
the classical tradition of geography as a field of study dealing with the
physical environment of the earth and its human inhabitants had continued.
To formalize this structure of geography, the Imperial Russian Geographical
Society was founded in 1845. The Society was charged with promoting
work, alongside geography, in geology, meteorology, hydrology, anthro
pology, and archaeology. The several specialities covered under the Society
were collectively identified as "the geographical sciences".
Unlike in Germany where the deaths of Humboldt and Ritter in 1859
were marked by a break in the continuity of geographical study, in Russia
there was no such break. For this reason, in the case of Russian geography,
it is difficult to pick up any single scholar as the "grand old man of Russian
geography". However, the continuous growth of the pre-Soviet (before
1917) period suffered a serious jolt, like everything else in the country, after
the 1917 revolution. In order to survive the persecution of the new regime,
scholars were required to bring their ideas in line with the ideas of Marx
and his followers, who were strong advocates of economic determinism,
and were clearly opposed to any suggestion that natural environment was
a potent force in shaping the life of human communities in particular areas.
Given this major curb on the exercise of free thought, in the post-1917
period, development of geography as a field of learning in Russia was cut
off from the concept and development of the discipline in the rest of Europe
and North America. This isolation became particularly marked owing to
the strong linguistic barrier. Owing to this, developments in Soviet geography
since 1917 have little bearing on the conceptual development of geography
as a science. For this reason, the post-1917 developments in geography in
Russia need not detain us. However, as regards the pre-1917 phase in the
development of geography in Russia, Petr Kropotkin, whose concept of
geography as social ecology, and his concept of "mutual aid" in nature
have been the object of special attention in the recent literature (Galois,
1976; Breitbart, 1981), deserves special mention.
Contributions of Petr Kropotkin (1842-1921)

Born into the Russian aristocracy, Kropotkin attended military school, and
was trained for a career in the state administration. He served as the personal
page of the Tsar for a short duration and the experience of service under
the Tsar created a distaste for court life in the young Kropotkin so that he
opted out for military service in Siberia. Here he came in direct touch with
unspoiled nature and in the course of five years' service in the Siberian
region, geographical exploration formed an important part of his
administrative duties. In the course of his service, he came in touch with
the various peasant communities living in close contact with nature. He
was greatly impressed by the spirit of equality and self-sufficiency among
the peasant communities. It was through the close observation of the life
of peasant communities in Siberia that Kropotkin's distinctive concept of
"nature" began taking shape. His encounter with the plight of Russian
peasants had already aroused his conscience . These two>-nature, and socially
aroused conscience were the seminal influences in the making of Kropotkin
as a social geographer.
Dissatisfied with his life as a military service administrator, Kropotkin
returned to St. Petersburg to enter the university to study geography and
mathematics. For some time he worked for the Russian Geographical Society.
To begin with, his first love was physical geography, but as time passed his
scientific interests were overtaken by social geographic problems. This was
not surprising in view of the social conditions prevailing in Russia in the
1860s, which had raised the conscience of many intellectuals who became
drawn to the social issues of their times. The critical point in Kropotkin's
case came during a visit to the Jura mountains in 1872. The region, at that
time, had been one of the leading centres of anarchist activities. While
there, Kropotkin came in contact with many activists of the movement and
he too became an anarchist. This led to his joining agitational movements,

being arrested, and sentenced to a prison term in Russia from where he
managed to escape to France. A similar fate awaited him there. After release
from a prison term in France in 1886, he came to England and stayed there
until the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917. At the age of 75,
Kropotkin returned to Russia where he died in 1921. In course of his long
stay in England Kropotkin had served with the Royal Geographical Society
in London.
Kropotkin had rapidly shaped into a distinguished physical geographer
so that the Russian Geographical Society offered him the prestigeous post
of secretary in 1871. Kropotkin rejected the offer, since by this time his
enthusiasm for science had waned following his increased fascination for
social geography, and his rising concern for social ills. Reminiscing upon
his conversion from physical geography to social ecology (or social
geography) Kropotkin wrote:
Science is an excellent thing. I knew its joys and valued them-perhaps
more than many of my colleagues did. Even now as I was looking at the
lakes and hillocks of Finland, new and beautiful generalizations arose
before my eyes...a grand picture was rising and I wanted to draw it ...
to open new horizons for geology and geography.
But what right I had to these highest joys when all around me was
nothing but misery and struggle for mouldy bits of bread; ... all those
sonorous phrases about making mankind progress, while at the same
time the progress-makers stay aloof from those whom they pretend to
push onwards, are mere sophisms made up by minds anxious to shake
off a fretting contradiction (Kropotkin, 1899, pp. 237-241).
Kropotkin's views on social geography were largely shaped by his
anarchist philosophy. Social anarchism maintained firm belief in the
capacity of the people to organize their life without structures of domination
and subordination i.e., it reposed faith in the people's capacity to coordinate
everything from the family to the economy on a cooperative basis. For
anarchists, freedom was an article of faith so that they aimed at elimination
of authoritarian social organization. Kropotkin believed that true individual
freedom can only be cultivated by conscious and reflective interaction of
people with the social environment which supports their personal freedom
and growth. The essence of freedom to him was unity in diversity, a sense
of mutual dependence on others for collective action, but with unfettered
opportunity to express individual differences. His ideas were derived from
his world view of nature developed in the course of his sojourn in Siberia.
Kropotkin's View of Nature and His Concept of Mutual Aid

Kropotkin was writing during the period when social Darwinism was in
ascendancy, and no intellectual could escape the impact of evolutionary
theories. Kropotkin's view of nature was based on three premises namely,
nature is organic (i.e., holistic); it is historic; and it is spontaneous. His
originality lay in the manner in which he interpreted the organic (holistic)
characteristics of nature, especially in relation to man's place in the web of

nature. This theme was the key idea and the central focus of his theory of,
and his book on, Mutual Aid (no date). The first two chapters of the book
were devoted to the discussion on mutual aid (i.e., cooperation) among
animals. He demonstrated that both cooperation and competition are present
in nature simultaneously, as also in the case of human communities. Thus,
"man is no exception in nature", wrote Kropotkin, since the same forces
operate in the "living world of nature". In his view, therefore, it was
erroneous to interpret biological evol11tion in terms only of struggle and
competition between species as the social Darwinists insisted on doing.
As one writer pointed out,
A critical point to note here is the opposition between the holistic approach
and the atomistic approach. The latter, which sees in nature a series of
discrete units acting independently, was one of the fundamental tenets of
the pervasive liberal ideology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
It permitted, not to say encouraged, partial analysis ... [and] it rendered
the context irrelevant. This was the view of society, and this was the
view of nature, each supporting the other in a reciprocal fashion (Arblaster,
1972, paraphrased in Galois, 1976).
This is what lay behind the Social Darwinist concept of competition
among organisms in nature, and was supposed to be reflected in the
competitive nature of man.
Kropotkin's view of nature as "historic" was also a product of his
organic view of nature, and his analogy between man and animals. He
wrote that "Man did not create society; society existed before man". He
emphasized that life in nature was not a timeless constant, but a product
of history and historical development. His concept of spontaneity in nature
implied cooperation between organisms (leading to the concept of mutual
aid). The concept of spontaneity also subsumed the concept of freedom,
but Kropotkin's concept of freedom differed from that of other socialists as
well as from the nineteenth-century liberals. According to him, an individual
"will be really free in proportion only as others around him become free"
In its application to human societies, this view of nature implied that:
...all mutual relations of its members are regulated, not by laws, not by
authorities, whether self-imposed or elected, but by mutual agreements
between members of that society and the sum of social customs and
habits...developing and continually readjusted in accordance with the
ever-growing requirements of a free life stimulated by progress of science,
invention and steady growth of higher ideals (Kropotkin, 1970, p. 357).
Kropotkin's historical research indicated that struggles for existence had
been carried out not by individuals, but by groups of individuals cooperating
with one another. This had led him to affirm the predominance of "mutual
aid" over competition in the quest for survival, and in the progress of
human civilization. To him "mutual aid" was "the germ out of which all
subsequent conceptions of justice, and ... morality" had evolved (Kropotkin,
1924, cited in Breitbart, 1981, p. 137).
Kropotkin's concept of spontaneity in nature also included the

recognition of an element of irrationality. He subscribed to the notion of
"poetry in nature". He spoke about the idea and need of a poetical Jove of
nature, and stressed that geography possessed the potential for awakening
this love. In his view, the works of Humboldt and Ritter were "most liable
to draw the poetical Jove of nature, the desire of knowing more about her
mysteries, ... [and] awakening the thirst for further knowledge" (Kropotkin,
1893, cited in Galois, 1976, p. 88).
Kropotkin recognized the importance of non-purposive behaviour.
He wrote that "bread alone" was not enough; art formed "an integral part
of a living whole ... and the spirit and serene beauty of [artistic] creations
... produce ... beneficial effect on heart and mind". In his view, games and
amusements not only performed a social function in learning, they
represented an expression of the joy oi life.
Kropotkin's Theory of Social Ecology

In course of developing his concept of "mutual aid" among organisms_ and
human groups, Kropotkin laid the foundation for a radical theory of social
ecology. He viewed nature and social groups as organic wholes so that the
action of one part affected all the other parts. He considered social groups
as being subject to many of the same processes as are found in organic
nature. As such, he urged that human communities should discover the
laws of nature in organisms, and act in accordance with those Jaws. It was
not, however, his case that society should refrain from intervening in nature.
All that Kropotkin meant was that human intervention should be based on
a proper understanding of nature, and with due regard so as not to unsettle
its balance. He believed that rather than trying to "legislate" environmental
awareness into the citizenry, attention should be focused on reinforcing a
sense of community and love of place. He firmly believed that rootedness
in a particular environment fosters greater human interaction and a more
intimate relationship with one's surroundings (Kropotkin, 1914, paraphrased
in Breitbart, 1981, p. 140).
Kropotkin's Views on What Geography Ought to Be

In a paper entitled "What Geography Ought to Be?" (1885), published as
part of a larger report on geographical education in Britain, Kropotkin had
made a forceful plea for making the content and methodology of academic
geography socially relevant. According to Kropotkin, the goal of education
was to create in the citizenry a keen awareness of the diverse social (including
econon1ic and political) forces impinging upon their life, and to create in
them a desire to resist political and social manipulation. According to him,
owing to its potential to capture the imagination of children, geography
was most eminently suited to serve this most important objective of the
education of the young, and to inculcate in them mutual respect for other
communities and other nations. r---r� wrote that
The task of geography in early childhood [is] to interest the child in the
great phenomena of nature, to awaken the desire of knowing and
explaining them. Geography... must teach us that we are all brethren,
whatever our nationality ... Geography must be... a means of dissipating
prejudice and creating other feelings more worthy of humanity. It must
show that each nationality brings its own precious building stone for the
general development of the commonwealth, and that only small parts
of each nation are interested in maintaining hatreds and jealousies
(Kropotkin, 1885).
To sum up, Kropotkin had tried to revolutionize the discipline of
geography in a number of key areas. "His theories of geographic education,
human ecology, and decentralization were aimed at halting the use of
geographical research for exploitative and imperialistic purposes. Instead
of subscribing to a narrow physical view of the discipline, Kropotkin
emphasized the interrelatedness of natural and social processes, and the
importance to both of cooperation over competition. He also recognized
that a true ecology movement had to be linked to a revival of community,
and hence, radical , political, social, and economic change" (Breitbart, 1981,
p. 150).
As Galois (1976, p. 91) wrote, Kropotkin offers a view of nature and
potentiality of geography which could replace the post-quantitative
revolution "spatial monomania" with a socially conscious account of the
states and conditions on the earth. That Kropotkin's contribution to the
method and philosophy of social and economic geography had remained
generally neglected until recently may be explained by the fact that Kropotkin
had presented these ideas during a period when the capitalist nations of
the West were attempting to consolidate their power over the resources
of the world. Under the prevailing imperialistic accumulation of capital
through colonial exploitation through the political strategy of divide and
rule, Kropotkin's voice had no listeners so that when the Royal Geographical
Society of London wanted to educate its members in geography through
an arranged lecture series in 1887, it looked to young Mackinder who was
then a young man of 26 shaping up into a brilliant speaker and scholar,
rather than to Kropotkin who had by then already made a mark as an
eminent geographer, and was at hand right in the office of the Royal
Geographical Society.
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Starting with the foundation of the Johns Hopkins University in 1875, the
concept of university as a community of scholars had taken root in the
New World. The time had now arrived for setting paradigms for scholarly
performance in each discipline by its own professionals. The pioneering
work in the introduction of the new geography, then making news in
Germany and France, was performed by William Morris Davis who had
taken appointment as an instructor in physical geography in the department
of geology at Harvard in 1878. The first separate university department in
geography to be established in the United States was at the University of

Chicago in 1903 under the charge of the geologist Rollin D. Salisbury.
Geography had, however, already been present in American schools and
colleges for quite some time. Arnold Guyot (1807-1884), a Swiss scholar,
and former student of Ritter, had arrived in the country in 1848 on invitation
from the Harvard University to deliver a series of lectures outlining the
nature of "new" geography. His lectures had been brought out in book
form under the title Earth and Man: Lectures on Comparative Physical Geography
in its Relation to the History of Mankind, the following year and had remained
the standard reference on Ritter's ideas for a long time. Another early
pioneer in this regard was George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882) whose book
entitled Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action had been published
way back in 1864. Through this book, Marsh had introduced the American
public to the ideas of Humboldt, Ritter, and Mary Somerville focusing on
interconnections between man and his natural surroundings. Another
important name in this regard was that of Mathew Fontaine Maury (1806-
1873), a naval officer who had collected a mass of data on winds and
currents of the oceans, and in 1850 had presented a model of atmospheric
circulation on the earth's surface. His book entitled Physical Geography of
the Sea (1855) was widely read.
Contribution of William Morris Davis (1850-1934)

Central to Davis's contribution to geography was the concept of
"geographical cycle", as he chose to call it, though it is more popularly
known as the cycle of erosion. His cycle was a generalized model of the
sequence of landforms that would occur in the course of erosional work of
running water on an elevated portion of the earth's surface, if there were
no change in its surface in relation to elevation or sea level, and no drastic
change in climate. His formula for landform evolution was based on a
combined interaction between the structure of surface rocks, the agency of
landform change (process) and the stage in the sequence of landform change
already reached at a particular time. Davis claimed that his model of
geographical cycle provided a theoretical framework in reference to which
the observed landforms could be described and analysed:
In the scheme of the cycle of erosion ... a mental counter-part of every
landform is developed in terms of its understructure, of the erosional
process that has acted upon it, and the stage reached by such action ...
[And] the observed landform is then described not in terms of its directly
visible features, but in terms of its inferred mental counterpart. The essence
of the scheme is simple and easily understood; yet it is so elastic and so
easily expanded or elaborated that it can provide counterparts for
landforms of the most complicated structure and most invol,,ed history •.
Davis belonged to the period in intellectual history when Darwin's

ideas about the evolution of species were in great currency, and scholars in
most fields of study were increasingly drawn to the concept of development
through gradual and cumulative change over a long period of time (as part
of the theory of evolution), and they were attempting to apply it as an

underlying principle in their own researches. Davis's concept of cyclic
development of landforms was clearly Darwinist in inspiration. Using the
evolutionary terminology, Davis identified three stages i n landform
development-youth, maturity, and old age. The power of evolutionary
thinking to bring diverse facts into meaningful relationships had greatly
fascinated Davis, so that he wrote that
We may in imagination picture the life of geographical area as clearly as
we now witneSs the life of a quick growing plant.... The time is ripe for
the introduction of these ideas. The spirit of evolution has been breathed
by the students of the generation now mature all through their growing
years, and its application in all lines of study is demanded (Davis, 1889,
included in Davis, 1909, pp. 85-86).
Davis defended the concept of cycle of erosion with such vigour, and
demonstrated it with such pursuasiveness, that it became almost universally
accepted as a working model for landform analysis.
The key to the cyclic view in geomorphology lies in the idea of
systematic, irreversible change of form through time, and it is from this
that the biological concept of ageing was appropriated by Davis and his
students to the study of landforms. It is important to remember here that
Darwin's theory of evolution was, in reality, far from one of evolution
inte, preted as linear development through passage of time. Darwin was
primarily concerned with identifying the process whereby random
variations in plants and animals could be selectively preserved, and, by
inheritance, lead to changes at the level of the species. Thus, what for
Darwin was a process became for Davis and others a history. For many
geographers like Davis, "evolution implied little more than the idea of change,
development, and progress and Darwin was, in spite of himself, seen as its
author" (Stoddart, 1966).
As the leading figure in American geography in his time, it was natural
that Davis should be concerned with problems in geographic education
and that he should state his position in regard to the nature and methodology
of geography. In a paper entitled "An Inductive Study of the Content of
Geography" (1906), he had clarified that the essence of his approach to
geography was to seek cause-and-effect generalization "usually between
some inorganic elements of the earth... acting as control, and some element
of the ... distribution of the earth's organic inhal:,itants serving as response".
Causal explanatory relationship between organic and inorganic elements
on the earth surface had appeared to Davis "the most definite, if not the
only, unifying principle in geography". He was one of the most prominent
advocates of Darwinism in human geography.
Davis was a member of the Committee of Ten appointed by the National
Education Association in 1892 to review the status of geography in precollege
school programmes and college entrance requirements. The report that
was drafted by Davis, recommended that
[geography in America] should take lln a more advanced form and should
relate more specifically to the features of the earth surface, the agencies
that produce or destroy them, the environmental conditions under which
these act, the physical influences by which man and the creatures of the
earth are so profound!y affected.
The report was accepted by the government. Following the imple
mentation of these recommendations school geography in the U.S.A. was
transformed from pure memory work to the status of a general science.
However, the Davisian legacy to geography was that, at least at the level
of the American school system, teaching of geography became oriented to
a restricted paradigm of cause-and-effect relationship between physical
environment and human respo11se. In other words, irrespective of changes
at the level of research, geography in the U.S.A. had continued, for a long
time, to be oriented to a deterministic perspective. (For fuller treatment of
the Davisian "strategy" see: Livingstone, 1992, pp. 202-212.)
Contribution of Mark Jefferson (1863-1949)

Geography made rapid progress in the United States, so that in the opening
years of the twentieth century, there were several geography departments
across the country offering university courses under faculties comprising
senior geographers. As the community of geographers grew, there was far
more open questioning on the nature and content of geography-questions
and answers that helped give American geography a distinct identity. Many
scholars had contributed in this development, but a most distinguished
name was that of Mark Jefferson, a former student of Davis, who was
appointed professor of geography at the Normal College in Yapsilanti in
1901, and stayed there until 1939.
As James wrote, Jefferson deserves a special place in the history of
American geography not only because of the enthusiasm he enkindled in
his students, but also for the many contributions to the conceptual structure
of geography that came from his pen. Jefferson strongly disagreed with the
recommendations of the Committee of Ten regarding the content and
conceptual approach to geography. He insisted that the focus of geography
teaching should be "man on the earth", in that order, not "the earth and
man". Jefferson's geography (in sharp contrast to Davis's) was a man
centred geography. Further, Jefferson was opposed to the view of Davis
and the Committee of Ten which had favoured the study of systematic
geography to the exclusion of regional geography of other parts of the
world. As a professor in a teachers' training college, Jefferson realized the
role of knowledge about lands and peoples around the world in training
the mind of the future citizens of a rapidly shrinking world.
Responding (in 1931) to a questionnaire in regard to the nature of
geography, Jefferson stated that his view of geography was many things in
one, so that it defied a short and crisp definition. To Jefferson,
The nature of geography is the fact that there are discoverable causes of
distributions and relations between distributions. We study geography
when we seek to discover them .... But there is an art of geography-the

delineation of earth's features and inhabitants on maps-cartography,
and a science of geography, which contemplates the facts delineated and
seeks out the causes of the form taken by each distribution and its
relationship to others (cited in Martin, 1968, pp. 319-321; reference in
James, 1972, p. 369).
Contribution of Elsworth Huntington (1876-1947)

Another fo1111er student of Davis at Harvard, Huntington was a most prolific
writer and an imaginative interpreter of the effects of climate on human
life. Correlating the periods of drought with historical dates, he developed
the hypothesis that the great migrations and invasions of the nomadic
peoples of Central Asia resulting in the Mongol conquests of China and
India, and invasions over eastern Europe, in the thirteenth century, could
be explained by dry climatic spells leading to the drying up of the pastures
that formed the backbone of nomadic economy. He presented this theory
in his book entitled The Pulse of Asia (1907). The book was a great success
in the world of scholarship, and quickly launched its author on the road
to academic fame. He became established as the most knowledgeable person
on the influences of climate on human history. Another book published in
1915 under the title, Civilization and Climate, advanced the thesis that
civilizations could develop only in the stimulating climates of the temperate
regions, and that the monotonous heat of the tropics had destined the
people of those areas to live in relative poverty.
Huntington's books were immensely popular among historians,
sociologists, and medical students (owing to his statements regarding the
close relationship between health and climate), as well as geographers, but
at the time that Huntington was highlighting climatic influences on
civilization in a deterministic style, American geography was fast moving
away from the philosophy of environmental determinism. Owing to this,
Huntington's influence on American geography-its philosophy and
methodology-was rather limited.
Contribution of Ellen Churchill Semple (1863-1932)

Another contemporary geographer whose name deserves special mention
as a leading figure in the formative phase of American geography was
Miss Ellen Churhill Semple who, after a Masters degree in history, had
gone to Germany to study geography under Ratzel at the University of
Leipzig in 1891-1892, and again in 1895. Ratzel's ideas made a lasting
impression on her historically trained mind so that she was inspired to
study American history in relation to its earth conditions. The result was
the publication of her first book entitled American History and its Geographical
Conditions in 1903. The book was an immediate success and confirmed her
status as an eminent teacher of history and geography.
Semple's place in the historiography of American geography lies in
that she had carried Ratzel's philosophy and methodology of geography to
the New World, and had mesmerized a generation of American students

by her persuasive writing and her enchanting literary style, backed by
convincing scholarship. Through her generations of American geographers
came to subscribe to the view of environmental influences in shaping
man's life upon the earth. Her version of the first volume of Ratzel's
Anthropogeographie was presented in her book entitled Influences of
Geographical Environment (1911). The opening paragraph of the book set its
tone and style:
Man is the product of the earth's surface. This means not merely that he
is a child of the earth, dust of her dust; but that the earth has mothered
him, fed him, set him to task, directed his thoughts, confronted him with
difficulties that have strengthened his body and sharpened his wits, given
him problems of navigation or irrigation and at the same time whispered
hints to solution.
Further sentences in the paragraph, and many interspersed throughout the
book, emphasized that every aspect of man's life upon the earth (including
his philosophy, religion, as well as physiography) mirrored the influence of
the physical environment of his habitat.
Semple had described her own method of study as comparative. In
the preface to her 1911 book she wrote that her method of research had
been to compare typical peoples of all races and all stages of cultural
development, living under similar geographic conditions. If these peoples
of different ethnic stocks but similar environments manifested similar or
related social, economic, or historical development, it was reasonable to
infer that such similarities were due to environment and not to race.
An intrinsic failure of Semple's style and method was that she had
carried the concept of earth as the controlling factor in human affairs beyond
the possibility of objective verification:
In combining the writings of all nations for examples to illustrate her
principles ...she failed to look carefully for examples that contradicted
her principles.... People who live in pass routes, she wrote, tend to become
robbers of passing travelers. Then she presented case after case of people
in pass routes who rob for a living, but she did not look for people in
pass routes who do not rob; nor did she seek explanation for robbers
who do not live in pass routes (James, 1972, pp. 379-380).
She was, however, careful enough to emphasize that the environment
does not control human actions; it influences them so that there is a tendency
for people to behave in predictable ways, but there could be deviations in
the exact direction taken. To this extent her man-environment thesis was
probabilistic in approach.
It appears somewhat strange that Semple focused upon only the
approach to human geography as presented in the first volume of Ratzel's
Anthropogeographie, the approach that had focused on man-environment
relationships from the perspective of the environment viewed as a deter
mining factor in man's life. The second volume of the book that approached
the problem from the reverse route in terms of the role of human will
and choice, and the part played by culture and history therefore, remained
an almost unknown entity in American geography, so that Ratzel was,
despite himself, treated as an old style determinist.
Foundation of Geography at Chicago

As the first full-fledged department of geography in the country, founded
in 1903, the department of geography at the University of Chicago had
played a major role in the development of geography as a field of higher
learning in the United States. Many of its students in the first decade of the
twentieth century became leaders of the profession in the post-First World
War period. They included Carl Sauer, Wellingdon Jones, and Charles Colby.
Geography had made rapid strides in the United States in the first
quarter of the twentieth century. Colby (1955) identified three causes for
this rapid stride:
• The critical role played by the surveys of the American West in
which many geographers had been involved;
• Rapid increase in the volume of America's overseas trade leading
to the demand for better teaching of economic and commercial
geography, and
• Rapid opening up of new natural resources (including oil) which
compelled attention of educators to the need of conserving them.
The school of geography at Chicago had laid down a strong tradition
of field study. In the tradition of the exploring expeditions of the West, all
graduate students were expected to go out of doors to examine the character
of landscapes and to identify geographical problems from direct observation
Games, 1972, p. 390).
Developments since the First World War to the 1950s

After the establishment of the department of geography at Chicago,
university-level geography had spread rapidly across the United States.
Before long, there were professors incharge of geography teaching at several
universities and teachers' training colleges. This led to a great deal of
independent questioning on the nature, methodology, and purpose of
geography as a scientific enterprise. Many like Jefferson had been bold
enough to question the concept of Davis and the Committee of Ten as early
as 1909. As Harlan H. Barrows noted in his famous address to the Association
of American Geographers i11 1922:
...scarcely was physical geography established ...before an insistent
demand arose that it be "humanized". This demand met with prompt
response and the centre of gravity... shifted from the extreme physical
side toward the human side, until geographers in increasing numbers
[began to define their subject as the study of] mutual relations between
man and his natural environment [i.e., the combined physical and
biological environment} (Barrows, 1923).
GEOGRAPHY AFTER HUMBOLDT ANO AITIEA: DEVELOPMENTS OUTSIDE GERMANY 107
The habit of independent thinking inspired by a dedicated band of

scholars now led to vigorous competition for new approaches to geo
graphical inquiry. Two main currents of geographical thought competed
for professional acceptance as the leading paradigm for geographical work.
These were, first, the proposal to develop geography as human ecology,
and second, to take it primarily as the study of places and regions, that is,
to develop geography as chorology. That chorology won the race, of course,
is history.
Chorological studies in geography were required to be much more
than mere descriptions. They were expected to be both analytical and mind
widening. The search for methodology in chorology had led to two somewhat
parallel approaches. One pursued the search for genetic explanation focusing
on the processes of change acting through time. This laid the foundation
for historical geography. The second approach was motivated by the search
for functional explanations for association between phenomena existing
together in segments of horizontal space. This led to the organizing concept
known as the fz,nctional organization of space. The post-First World War period
also witnessed a marked shift in professional emphasis from "objective"
(or "pure") academic studies to studies relating to application of geographical
knowledge in finding solutions to practical problems economic, social,
and political. This led to the movement toward applied geography, i.e.,
geography in the service of society.
Geography as Human Ecology: The Contribution of Harlan H. Barrows

In American geography, the concept of geography as human ecology was
set forth in clear terms for the first time by Harlan Barrows (1877-1960) in
his 1922 presidential address to the Association of American Geographers
(published in the Annals, A.A.G. in 1923). Like Jefferson and others before
him, Barrows underlined that man's adaptation to the conditions of his
habitat is not caused by the physical environment. On the contrary, this
adaptation was a function of human choice the central idea behind the
concept of possibilism, then so much in currency in France. Barrows had
expressed the view that although much of the subject matter of geography
had been lost to the systematic disciplines, the content of geographical
study was still far too broad for its development as a coherent discipline.
He, therefore, proposed that the specialized branches of geography, such as
geomorphology, climatology, and biogeography should be abandoned, and
geographers should concentrate upon human ecology as the unifying
theme the central organizing principle for their work.
Barrows was of the view that "those relationships between man and
the earth which result from his effort to get a living [are] in general the
most direct and intimate", and that most other human adjustments on the
earth's surface are guided by these economic relations. Accordingly, he
recommended that "development of economic regional geography should
be promoted assiduously, and that upon economic geography for the most
part, other divisions of the subject must be based". He emphasized the
need for intensive field work and regarded "a thoroughly effective technique
of field work as our greatest immediate need", since, in his view, the field
represented the geograpl)ers' laboratory.
Geography as Chorology: The Contribution of Carl Sauer (1889-1975)

The concept of geography as a chorological science had a long history of
development in Germany and the other countries of Europe. In America,
however, geography had remained confined to the search for geographic
influences in human development. By the beginning of the 1920s, many
among the younger generation of geographers had started questioning the
validity of the content and method of geography as a discipline built around
the basic theme of man-environment relationships. The new generation of
students was anxiously looking for an alternative model for geographical
work to replace the existing one which they were finding increasingly
unsatisfying. It was at this juncture in the history of American geography
that Carl Sauer (1889-1975), who had then taken charge of a new depart111ent
of geography at the University of California at Berkeley, published his
frequently cited essay entitled "The Morphology of Landscape" (1925).
Sauer was critical of the concept of geography built around the theme of
man-land relationships, and underlined the intellectual strait-jacketing that
adherence to this concept as the guiding principle of geographical work
had created, since the concept tied the student to a single dogma that
committed him to a particular outcome of investigation in advance. The
guiding premise was that the environment influenced man, and that in
course of man's life upon the earth the environment itself experienced
changes.
Sauer proposed an alternative model for geography based on the
works of Humboldt and Heitner. Following the teachings of the two eminent
German geographers, Sauer defined geography as the study of things
associated in area on tlie earth's surface, and the differences in tl1e nature
of areal aggregations from place to place in regard to both physical as well
as cultural factors. In particular, he drew attention to the role played by
human action in modifying the physical and biotic features in particular
segments of the earth's surface so that natural landscapes had got slowly
transformed into cultural landscapes (Hooson, 1981).
Sauer's concept of landscape included: " ... the features of the natural
area, and...the forms superimposed on the physical landscape by the
activities of man ... [who] is the latest agent in fashioning the landscape".
The purpose of geography as chorology was defined as the study of "the
development of the cultural landscape out of the natural landscape". Sauer
himself regarded this view of geography as "the newer orientation that
continues the traditional position" (Sauer, 1927, pp. 186-187).
Thus, for Sauer, geography was the study of areas, but not as description
of areas as unique occurrences. The purpose of the study was to identify
the regularities and occurrences from place to place with a view to
formulating generalizations. According to Sauer, in order to appreciate the
nature of the modifications brought about by human action to the original

landscape of any area, to establish the nature of the processes involved, it
was necessary to go back far enough in time. Morphology of landscape
required a historical perspective. Thus, the concept of chorology in the
study of cultural landscape promoted by Sauer differed from the concept
of chorology advocated by Hellner (and later Hartshorne) in that Sauer's
concept was not ahistorical or anti-historical in spirit and design. On the
contrary, a keen historical insight was viewed as an essential part of the
methodology pursued by Sauer and his students.
In a review of Sauer's geography, written for the Commission on
College Geography, Norton Ginsburg noted that Sauer's geography was a
"scientific" geography that was "concerned with regions as systems, and
with the comparative method as a device for developing hypotheses
concerning areal relations and processes". The major tenets of Sauer's
chorological perspective in the study of landscape morphology were
summarized by Ginsburg as follows:
• Geography is a comparative study of regions
• Description is an essential part of geography, and is coequal in
importance with interpretation
• Focus of geography is not on human activities per se, but on material
features of the landscape resulting from man's activities
• Features of the natural environment play a dual role in geography
in that they furnish a set of structures that give character to areas,
and they are one of the several factors which may help to explain
the forms, patterns, and functions resulting from human occupation
and use of the original natural landscape
• Cultural forms and patterns which are explainable in terms of natural
features have no higher geographic quality than those of historical
antecedents, and other cultural forces and factors
• The geographer engaged in the study of morphology of a landscape
must look backwards in time long enough to gain proper
understanding of the areal relations and processes that give character
to the present landscape.
After the publication of Sauer's "Morphology of Landscape" in 1925,
it had become common for research papers in American journals to report
on situations where physical features of an area were not of major importance,
and cultural factors were more important in giving character to areas. In
a paper entitled "Location as a Factor in Geography", Hartshorne (1927)
demonstrated that location relative to the sources of raw materials, markets,
power, and labour was more important than location relative to relief,
drainage, soils and climate. Thus, to the likes of those who had so far been
"explaining" the concentration of cotton textile factories in New England
by reference to humidity and climate, the new emphasis on relative location
(with almost no mention of the role played by the elements of the physical
environment) came as a shock. Chorologists like Hartshorne were, therefore,
accused of "leaving ge out of geography".
The real change over in American geography to chorology as the
basic paradigm for geographical work came only after the publication of
Hartshorne's monumental Nature of Geography in 1939. This book presented
an authoritative account of developments in modern •
geography, and had
soon become essential reading for graduate students in every geography
department. From then on, the Hettnerian concept of geography as a
chorological science became enshrined as the mainstream concept of the
discipline, and it continued to be so until the late 1950s.
Development of Historical Geography

Chorology was centrally focused on the study of present-day landscapes,
and following the Kantian scheme of division of knowledge on a physical
basis between chronological (i.e., historical) and spatial sciences-a view to
which both Hellner and Hartshorne subscribed, chorology remained
indifferent to the historical perspective which, according to the current
interpretation of the Kantian view, belonged to the domain of another group
of sciences. However.. as students started applying themselves to the study
of actual landscapes, they came increasingly to realize that the "being" and
the "becoming" of landscapes were intimately interrelated; so that the
present-day patterns in the landscapes of particular places could not be
adequately appreciated without due attention to the processes (i.e., the time
sequence of events) that had contributed to bring them to their present form.
This meant that in practice, the chorologist was often required to go back
wards in time to adopt a historical perspective. As a result of this realization,
historical geography was soon raised to the status of an essential component
of the American approach to the study of geography as chorology. The
influence of Sauer in this regard was quite obvious. Needless to say, however,
that the historical geography of Sauer and his contemporaries was very
different in nature and orientation from the one that Ellen Semple had laid
down in her enchanting American History and its Geographic Conditions (1903).
The two chief innovators in historical geography of the post-1925
period in the United States were Ralph H. Brown, and Carl 0. Sauer. In his
path-breaking study entitled Mirror for Americans (1943), Brown portrayed
the geography of the eastern seaboard of the North American continent for
the period around 1810 on the basis of statements contained in the writings
of a large variety of contemporary authors. Brown's imaginative approach
to re-creation of the past geography of a region, (in terms of how
contemporary scholars had perceived it) had, in some ways, foreshadowed
the modern orientation to environmental perception in geographical studies.
In a second book entitled Historical Geography of the United States (1948),
Brown had traced geographical changes that had taken place in the course
of the country's settlement by European emigrants.
The other major influence in the development of historical geography
was Carl Sauer himself. He, and a large number of his graduate students
at Berkeley, produced a number of studies of past landscapes. _A,. major
principle that emerged from these studies, focused upon sequences of the
settlement process in particular areas, was that "the same physical conditions
of land could have quite different meanings for people with different attitudes
toward their environment, different objectives in making use of it, and
different levels of technological skills" (James, 1972, p. 407). For example,
in agricultural areas slope had one meaning for the man with a hoe and
quite another for the man with a tractor-drawn plough. Likewise, people
with one kind of culture might concentrate their settlements on flattish
uplands, whereas another group belonging to a different cultural tradition
might concentrate its dwellings in the valleys.
Derwent Whittlesey was another major contributor to historical studies
in geography. In a note published in the Annals, of the Association of
American Geographers in 1927, he described studies focused upon the
processes of change in the settlement of an area as studies of sequent occupance.
According to Whittlesey,
each generation of human occupance is linked to its forebear and to its
offspring, and each exhibits an individuality expressive of mutations of
some elements of its natural and cultural characteristics. Moreover, the
life history of each discloses the inevitabilit)' of the transformation from
stage to stage.
Clearly enough, sequent occupance represented the antithesis of the
concept of environmental determinism. In the opinion of Preston James,
the sequent occupance studies represented a kind of cultural determinism in
that they had started with the premise that with every significant change
in attitudes, objectives, and technical skills of the inhabitants of an area, the
resource base of the region is put to fresh appraisal.
Development of Applied Geography

As large numbers of trained geographers poured out from the new university
departments, it was natural that their young enquiring minds should
question the practical utility of their knowledge in society's efforts to improve
the quality of life. On this score, they found their discipline to be severely
wanting. They noted that field studies in small areas carried out by students
as part of the requirement for a formal degree were of little practical utility.
They expressed themselves in favour of reorienting geographical education
in a manner that would make it more relevant to the resolution of overriding
social, economic and political problems of the day. In response to this
rising demand, a large number of studies of an applied nature carried out
with a view to providing valuable inputs in planning and remedial action
were taken up and their results published. Thus, geography took on an
applied perspective. As a result geographers now began to find employment
as consultantS-in both public as well as private sectors.
The breakthrough in the use of geography professionals in the study
of practical problems had come as a result of the First World War in the
course of which geographers had rubbed shoulders with other specialists
to find solutions to real-life problems. In the decades following the First
World War, all through the 1920s and 1930s different kinds of applied
research were undertaken. In the Second World War, a large number of
geographers had taken up appointments in the army and civilian
departments, and there was growing appreciation of their contribution.
The trend had continued.
REFERENCES
Arblaster, A. (1972), Liberal and socialist values, The Socialist Register, London,
pp. 83-104.
Barrows, H.H. (1923), Geography as human ecology, Annals of the Association
of American Geographers, vol. 13, pp. 1-14.
Blache, P. vidal de la (1903), Tableau de la Geographie de la France, vol. I of
E. Lavisse (Ed.), Histoire de France, Paris: Hachete. Reissued in 1908 as
La France: Tableau Geographie.
(1913), De Caractteres Distictifs de la Geographie, Anna/es de
Geographie, vol. 22, pp. 289-299.
___ (1917), La France de /'Est: Lorraine-Alscace, Paris: Armand Colin .
•
(1921), Principes de Geographie Humaine, Paris: Armand Colin.
(English translation by M.T. Brigham, Principles of Human Geography,
Constable Publishers, London, 1926).
Breitbart, M.M. (1981), Peter Kropotkin, the Anarchist Geographer, in Stoddart
D.R. (Ed.), Geography, Ideology and Social Concern, Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, pp. 134-153.
Brown, R.H. (1943), Mirror for Americans, Likeness of the Eastern Seaboard,
1790-1810, New York: American Geographical Society.
_ _ _ (1948), Historical Geography of the United States, New York: Harcourt,
Brace.
Brunhes, J. (1910), La Geographie Humaine, Paris: Armand Colin.
_ _ _ (1920), Human Geography (English translation of the revised edn by
Isaiah Bowman et al) Chicago. (An abridged translation in English
appeared in 1952.)
Colby, C.C. (1955), Narrative of five decades, in A Half Century of Geography
What Next? (Papers presented at the alumni reunion, June 5, 1954),
Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Geography.
Davis, W.M. (1889), The geographical cycle, Geographical Journal, vol. 14,
pp. 481-504.
_ _ _ (1906), An inductive study of the content of geography, Bulletin of
the American Geographical Society, vol. 38, pp. 67-84 (reprinted in Davis,
1909).
_ _ (1909), Geographical Essays (edited by D.W. Johnston) Boston: Ginn

_
& Co.
De Mortonne, E. (1927), Regions of Interior Basin Drainage, Geographical
Review, vol. 17, pp. 397-414.
Freeman, T.W. (1971), A Hundred Years of Geography, London: Gerald
Duckworth. First published 1961.
___ (1980), A History of Modern British Geography, London: Longman.
Gallois, L. and Blache, P vidal de la (Eds.) (1927-1948), Geographie Universe/le,
15 volumes, Paris: Armand Colin.
Galois, B. (1976), Ideology and the idea of nature: The case of Peter Kropotkin,
Antipode, vol. 8, pp. 1-16.
Gallon, F. (1855), Notes on modern geography, Cambridge Essays, pp. 79-109,
London: Parker.
Geddes, P. (1898), The influence of geographical conditions on social
development, Geograpl,ical Journal, vol. 12, pp. 580-587.
Guyot, A. (1849), The Earth and Man: Lectures on Comparative Physical
Geography, in Relation to the History of Mankind, Boston: Gould and
Lincoln.
Harrison-Church, R.J. (1951), The French school of geography, in G. Taylor
(Ed.), Geography in the Twentieth Century, New York: Philosophical
Library.
Hartshorne, R. (1927), Location as a factor in Geography, Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, vol. 17, pp. 92-99.
___ (1939), The Nature of Geography: A Critical Survey of Current Thought
in the Light of the Past, Lancaster, (I'A.): Association of American
Geographers.
Hooson, D. (1981), Carl Sauer, in Blouet, B. (Ed.), Origins of the Academic
Geography in the United States, Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books,
pp. 165-174.
Huntington, E. (1907), The Pulse of Asia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
___ (1915), Civilization and Climate, New Haven, Yale University
Press.
Huxley, T.H. (1877), Physiography: An Introduction to the Study of Nature,
London: Macmillan & Co.
Indianapolis: Odessey Press.
Joerg, W.L.G. (1922), Recent Geographical work in Europe, Geographical
Review, vol. 12, pp. 431-484.
Kropotkin, P. (1885), What geography ought to be, Nineteenth Century,
vol. 18, pp. 940-956.
Kropotkin, P. (1893), On the teaching of Phy siography, Geographical Journal,

vol. 2, pp. 350-359.
_ _ _(1902), Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Boston (Mass.): Houghton
Mifflin.
_ _ _(1970), Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution, M. Miller
(Ed.), Cambridge, Mass.
Livingstone, D.N. (1992), The Geographical Tradition, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Mackinder, H.J. (1895), Modem Geography, Gerrnan and English, Geographical
Journal, vol. 6, pp. 367-379.
(1902), Britain and the British Seas, New York: Appleton & Co.
___ (1904), The Geographical pivot of History, Geographical Journal,
vol. 23, pp. 421-437.
Marsh, G.P. (1864), Man and Nature, or Physical Geography as Modified by
Human Action, (edited by D. Lowenthal, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard
University Press.
Martin, G.J. (1968), Mark Jefferson, Geographer, Ypsilanti (Mich.): Eastern
Michigan University Press.
Maury, M.F. (1850), On the general circulation of the atmosphere, Proceedings
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, vol. 3,
pp. 126-147.
_ _ _ (1855), The Physical Geography of the Sea, New York: Harper Bros.
McKay, D.V. (1943), Colonialism in the French geographical movement,
1871-1881, Geographical Review, vol. 33, pp. 214-232.
Mill, H.R. (1896), A proposed geographical description of the British isles,
Geographical Journal, vol. 7, pp. 745-756.
Robson, B.T. (1981), Geography and Social Science: The Role of Patrik Geddes,
in Stoddart, D.R. (Ed.), Geography, Ideology & Social Concern, Oxford:
Sauer, C.O. (1925), The morphology of landscapes, University of California
Publications in Geography, vol. 2, pp. 19-53.
___ (1927), Recent developments in cultural geography, in E.C. Hayes
(Ed.), Recent Developments in the Social Sciences, Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Semple, E.C. (1903), American History and its Geographic Conditions, Boston:
Houghton Mifflin.
___ (1911), Influences of Geographic Environment, New York, Henry Holt.
Somerville, Mary (1848), Physical Geography, London: Murray.
Stoddart, D.R. (1966), Darwin's impact on geography, Annals of the Association
___ (1975), Kropotkin, Reclus and relevant geography, Area, vol. 7,
pp. 188-190.
_ _ _ (1986), On Geography and its History, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Vallaux, C. (1925), La Sciences Geographiques, 2nd ed., 1929, Paris: A111,and
Colin.
Whittlesey, D.S. (1927), Devices for accumulating scientific data in the field,
Wrigley, E.A. (1965), Changes in the philosophy of geography, in
Chorley, R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.), Frontiers in Geographical Teaching,
London, Methuen, pp. 3-24. (Reprinted in Dikshit, R.D. (Ed.), Art and
Science of Geography, New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India, Chapter 15.)
5
Developments in Geography Since
World War II: From Areal to
Spatial Analysis
SOURCES OF DISSATISFACTION WITH REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY

In a mid-century review of the status and content of geography, Freeman
(1961) had noted that dissatisfaction with the work of regional geographers
of the chorological pursuasion had, by that time, led many to wonder
whether the regional approach could ever be academically satisfying. The
result was that the new generation of geographers began to be increasingly
drawn to systematic studies. Answering the question: Why was regional
geography so dissatisfying? Freeman (pp. 142-143) gave three reasons: In
the first place, he observed, much of regional study in geography was
"naive", especially that carried out at the macro scale. At this scale, a good
number of studies were based on the cor1cept of natural regions put forward
by Herbertson. To be sure, the concept had proved a useful pedagogic
device at the time it had been proposed, but at the mid-century it could
hardly stand scientific scrutiny. Secondly, many of the works in the
regional stream appeared to "drag wearily through a sequence of apparently
unrelated facts", both physical and human, paying "little attention to the
relationship between the physical environment and the inhabitants and in
some cases, they included the most involved digressions into such matters
as the physical history. of an area". As Freeman saw it, the trouble with
regional geography was that many of its practitioners had "tried to include
too much". A third, and more subtle, difficulty was that the marked success
of the pays treatment in the Paris basin had led many students to the false
belief that the whole of the earth's surface could be divided into clearly
identifiable regions,each endowed with "a quality of uniqueness", with a
personality of its own, so that regional geography completely neglected
theory and generalization-it neglected to look for the general in the
particular-a trait common to all fields of scientific learning. As Freeman
wrote,
It is, of course, true that there may be marked differences in the agriculture
and standard of living between adjacent regions, but...there are other
aspects of human personality expressed in art, drama, sport, religion,
116
DEVELOPMENTS IN GEOGRAPHY SINCE WORLD WAR II: FROM AREAL TO SPATIAL ANALYSIS 117
that may override differences in economic standards clearly related to

the physical environment .... Perhaps the most dangerous word in regional
geography is "natural". It has so often been applied in a supposedly
scientific sense to provide a world framework into which men and their
activities must somehow be fitted.
The view that the enshrining of regional work as the core of geograp
hical science had led to neglect of the systematic perspective had been
projected most forcefully in a paper by Edward Ackerman in 1945. The
paper was based on Ackerman's experience of teamwork with experts drawn
from other social sciences for the US intelligence services during the Second
World War. The demand of the teamwork revealed shocking weaknesses of
geographers in the systematic aspects of their discipline so that when they
were called upon to provide intelligence material for the army, their
contribution was extremely thin in content. Ackerman emphasized that
geographers needed to be much more firmly grounded in their topical
specializations, since this alone could save geographical work from
superficiality, and contribute to making its content rich. Ackerman made it
clear that his call for greater attention to systematic aspects of geography
in no way implied shifting the emphasis away from regional synthesis. His
contention was that improved understanding of the systematic aspects of
the phenomena studied by geographers would lead to greater depth in the
geographers' interpretation of areal organization in particular places and
territories. Ackerman's paper represented, in many ways, the conscience of
his generation. He had given voice to what was being generally felt by the
profession at large at that time. This is most evident from the cooperative
venture of American geographers at mid-century stock taking of the status
and content of geography in America. The result was published in 1954
under the title American Geography: Inventory and Prospect, which included
wide-ranging reviews of all the important systematic branches of geography
Games and Jones, 1954).
In the development of systematic perspective, Ackerman saw a remedy
for the geographers' extreme isolation from other sciences-physical and
social. In a forceful paper published in 1963 he pointed out that the dominant
concept of geography as "areal differentiation" derived from Hellner
"favoured (although it did not demand logical!}') a goal of investigation
independent of the goal of other sciences. The same might be said of another
important concept in the field, that of areal functional organization,
introduced by Platt (1959)". He lamented that "In our search for a solid
footing ... many of us tried to separate ourselves from the other sciences...
and some of us saw geography as an end in itself rather than in
the broader context as a contributor to a larger scientific goal". By
around 1950, there was a strong and widespread feeling in the United
States that geography needed to break out from its professional isolation
to which the Hettnerian concept of geography as chorology had contributed
to lead us.

---- --
THE SCHAEFER-HARTSHORNE DEBATE: FROM REGIONAL

EXCEPTIONALISM TO GENERALIZATION AND THEORY
This pent up feeling of disappointment with the state of affairs in
contemporary geography had found voice in a forceful paper by Schaefer
(1953), an economist turned geographer, then teaching at the University of
Iowa. This posthumously published paper (Schaefer had passed away while
the paper was still in the press) was aptly entitled "Exceptionalism in
Geography". It became a rallying point for the large crop of young
geographers who were feeling greatly dissatisfied with the "sterile" regional
paradigm of geography as chorology. Schaefer criticized the "exceptionalist"
claims made for regional geography, and put forward a strong case for
geography to adopt the philosophy and methodology of scientific positivism.
Debunking the contention that geography could not adopt a systematic
perspective owing to the restriction imposed by the uniqueness of places
and regions, Schaefer wrote that most sciences , including physics and
economics deal with unique phenomena and geography could claim no
special status on that account. All sciences study unique events which they
seek to explain in terms of general laws. This should equally apply to
geography. He made a strong case for geographers to focus attention on
the formulation of laws governing spatial distribution of phenomena on
the earth surface since it is spatial arrangement of phenomena, and not the
phenomena themselves that are the special concern of geography as a science.
He defined geography as the science of spatial arrangements, and underlined
the essential difference between the nature of laws developed in geography
vis-a-vis the laws of the other social sciences. Geographical laws are pattern
laws, as contrasted to the process laws of the other social science disciplines.
Schaefer advocated the need for effective channels of academic commu
nication with other social science disciplines, and to interact with them
more freely than had been the case in the past. He firmly believed that a
full understanding of the assemblage of phenomena in particular places
described by the geographer cannot come without due understanding of
the process laws governing their functions. Thus, like Ackerman, Schaefer
too was a strong advocate of interdisciplinary teamwork.
Since Schaefer's paper had posed a challenge to the concept of
geography projected and popularized by Hartshorne's Nature of Geography
(1939) , it was natural that Hartshorne should offer a rebuttal in the form
of a well-argued response. The first reaction from him came in the form of
a letter to the editor of the Annals, A.A.G. (1954), in which the original
paper of Schaefer had been published. This was followed by two full
length papers in the same journal in 1955 and 1958, and finally by his
monograph entitled Perspectives on the Nature of Geography (1959). Hartshorne
used this monograpr, to present a wide-ranging review on the nature of
the subject, including discussions on, and clarifications about, many points
of criticism regarding the concept of geography as areal differentiation.
The book was intended as a supplement to his Nature of Geography.
In his new monograph, Hartshorne stuck to the essentially chorological
DEVELOPMENTS IN GEOGRAPHY SINCE WORLD WAR 11: FROM AREAL TO SPATIAL ANALYSIS 119
concept of geography propounded in his earlier book, and he reasserted that

"Geography is a discipline that seeks to describe and interpret the variable
character of the earth's surface as the world of man" (p. 47); and underlined
that although time was important in the study of geography, the discipline's
"primary concern" was to describe "the variable character of areas as fo1111ed
by existing features in interrelationships"; that is, functional relationships
between phenomena of diverse origin existing together in particular places
at the present time. Accordingly, in Hartshorne's view, historical geography
as the branch of geography as a professional field could focus only on the
study of the historical present, also called "past geographies". There was,
nevertheless, a perceptible shift in Hartshorne's earlier position regarding
the centrality of regional synthesis in geographical work. In his chapter
entitled "Is Geography Divided between Systematic and Regional
Geography?", he wrote that geography cannot be divided between systematic
studies which analyze individual elements over the whole world, and those
which analyze complete complexes of elements by areas, since:
The former are logically a part of the appropriate systematic sciences, the
latter simply cannot be carried out. All studies in geography analyze the
areal variations and connections of phenomena in integration. There is
no dichotomy or dualism, but rather a gradual range along a continuum
from those which analyze the most elementary complexes in areal variation
over the world to those which analyze the most complex integrations in
areal variation in small areas. The former we may appropriately call
"topical" studies, the latter "regional" studies, provided we remember
that every truly geographic study involves the use of both the topical
and the regional approach (pp. 121-122).
In another chapter, "Does Geography Seek to Formulate Scientific
Laws or to Describe Individual Cases?", Hartshorne emphasized that the
primary objective of science is to extend the frontier of knowledge and to
understand reality. "One of the most important methods of accomplishing
this purpose ... is the construction and application of scientific laws. But to
assert, as some do, that the formulation of scientific laws is the end-purpose
of science is to confuse the means with the end" (p. 168). The focus on the
essential task of geography as the study of complex integrations in unique
places, meant (in Hartshorne's view) that geography, by virtue of the nature
of its subject matter, must remain restricted to description and explanation
of individual cases, i.e., particular areal complexes. In this context, Hartshorne
(1959, pp. 169-170) highlighted the essential nature of geography as a science
in the following words:
Geography seeks (1) on the basis of empirical observation as independent
as possible of the person of the observer, to describe phenomena with the
maximum degree of accuracy and certainty; (2) on this basis, to classify
phenomena, as far as re3tity permits, in terms of generic concepts or
universals; (3) through rational consideration of the facts thus secured and
classified, and by logical process of analysis and synthesis, including the
construction and use wherever possible of general principles or laws of
generic relationships, to attain the maximum comprehension of the specific

relationships of phenomena; and (4) to arrange these findings in orderly
systems so that what is known leads directly to the margin of the unknown.
Hartshorne emphasized that geography is a field the subject matter
of which includes the greatest complexity of phenomena, and at the same
time is concerned, more than most other disciplines, with the studies of
individual and unique cases. "For both these reasons geography is less
able than many other fields to develop and use scientific laws, but
nonetheless, like every other field, it is concerned to develop them as much
as possible" (Hartshorne, 1959, p. 170).
The essential difference in the positions taken by Hartshorne and
Schaefer was that: "Hartshorne's was a positive view of geography:
Geography is what geographers have made it. Schaefer's view on the other
hand, was a normative one, what geography should be, irrespective of
what it had been" Uohnston, 1983, p. 57). The fact, however, was that since
Hartshorne's position was fast losing ground, geographers in increasing
numbers had, by the end of 1950s, veered round to Schaefer's view of
geography as a spatial science. For this, they used methods of the other
systematic sciences and were increasingly concerned with quantification
and development of theory, so that by the time Hartshorne's Perspective
had appeared in 1959, the quantitative revolution had reached its zenith
(Burton, 1963).
As many scholars have noted, the contrast in the postures adopted by
Schaefer and Hartshorne was more apparent than real. In his 1955 paper
Hartshorne had, indeed spoken of an "essential agreement" between himself
and Schaefer. As Gregory (1978) wrote, "It is certainly hard to see how
Hartshorne's simple correlations differ from Schaefer's morphological laws,
given that they can both be reduced to spatial patterns". The two differed
only in the status that each ascribed to these patterns in geography as a
field of scholarly study. While Schaefer regarded identification of laws
about patterns of spatial relationships as the raison d'etre of geography,
Hart�horne (1939, pp. 551 and 644) maintained that although identification
of "concepts, relationships and principles that shall... apply to all parts of
the world" was important, it could not be taken as the primary goal of
geographic study. Such an emphasis, in Hartshorne's view, divested specific
regions "of the fullness of their color and life" which according to him was
the ultimate object of geographical inquiry. In a nutshell, "in principle,
their disagreement was about ends and not means" (Gregory, 1978, p. 32).
Hartshorne was not opposed to the scientific method of the positivists,
except in that he thought that owing to the uniqueness of areal integrations
studied in geography, the method of positivist science was, in general, not
applicable in geography. Schaefer, on the contrary maintained that uniqueness
was a general problem of science in that every object was in detail unique
but at the same time it shared some characteristics with other such objects.
The problem of uniqueness was, therefore, no ground for geography to
adopt an "exceptionalist" stance. As Guelke wrote:
In extending the idea of uniqueness to everything, Schaefer effectively

removed a major logical objection to the possibility of a law-seeking
geography and demonstrated that Hartshome's view of uniqueness as a
special problem was untenable for anyone who accepted the scientific
model of explanation (Guelke, 1977b, also see Guelke, 1977a).
The net outcome of the Schaefer-Hartshorne debate was that geography,
by the end of the 1950s at least in the United States had come increasingly
to be viewed as a science requiring the use of the "scientific method" so that,
like other sciences, it could also develop laws and theories relevant to its
field of study. This brought about a distinct shift in emphasis from regional
to systematic studies, which meant that geography thereafter began
increasingly to be viewed as a field of study that required urgently to adopt
a nomothetic perspective, that is, it required to develop the habit of seeking
the general in the particular. This also involved a shift from areal to spatial
studies; from absolute to relative locations; and from areal integrations to
spatial interaction, circulation and movement (which generated the spatial
patterns which geography as a spatial science sought to explain with a view
to identifying morphological laws underlying them). Geography began now
on to be increasingly viewed as a "discipline in distance" (Watson, 1955), so
that the network of communication lines, and the flow of goods, people, and
messages passing through them began to receive increasing attention. As
the discipline dealing in distance, geography became increasingly a study of
"spatial interaction" (Ullman), since it is these interactions that created the
spatial patterns that new geography as spatial science sought to explain.
Thus, the new orientation in geography toward search for theory and
morphological laws became increasingly focused on the study of spatial
patterns of diverse kinds. Patterns in space represented essentially
geometrical forms of different kinds, so that the study of geometries of
space became the central theme of the law-seeking new geography of the
1950s and 1960s. For this reason, for quite some time, geography became
dominated by the language and method of geometry. Geographers were
increasingly drawn toward the development of theories that could explain
and predict patterns of spatial interaction and the resultant spatial forms.
THE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OF GEOGRAPHY AS

A SCIENCE OF SPATIAL ANALYSIS
The rr\Ovemen
'
t towards new geography as the science of spatial analysis
with a well-defined theoretical focus had started, to begin with, in a few
selected centres in the United States around the middle of the 1950s, and
from there it quickly spread to other centres in and outside the United
States. These major centres of development were:
• The University of Iowa (to which Schaefer had belonged, although
the leader of the school was Harold McCarty);
• The University of Wisconsin at Madison (where John Weaver's
Ph.D. thesis submitted way back in 1943 had been one of the early
examples of the application of quantitative techniques in geography.

The work related to this thesis became the basis of a widely used
statistical procedure for defining agricultural regions developed by
Weaver in 1954). Most of the advance came only later under the
leadership of A.H. Robinson who, in collaboration with Bryson (a
colleague in the department of meteorology), focused attention on
the development of statistical methods in cartography.
• The University of Washington at Seattle became, under the leadership
of W.L. Garrison, the most important centre for the development of
theoretically oriented geography, using the method of science and
mathematics in the study of problems in urban and economic
geography. The central place theory became a major focus of work
at this centre. Edward Ullman (1980) was an important member of
the University of Washington team of new geography as the science
of spatial interaction. The department also benefited from the visits
of the Swedish theoretical geographer Hagerstrand (a leader in the
development of methods for the study and prediction of spatial
patterns and processes). Several of the leaders of the new geography
in 1960s (including Berry, Bunge, Dacey, Marble, Morrill and Tobler)
were students of Garrison at Seattle.
• A fourth important influence in the development of quantitatively
oriented theoretical geography of the 1950s was the astronomer
J.Q. Stewart of the University of Princeton, who drew attention to
regularities in the distribution of various aspects of population
dynamics that seemed to follow laws similar to those of physics.
His interest in identifying law-like behaviour in the themes studied
by social scientists had led him to develop a new field of study
that he named social physics, which was based on the premise that
"dimensions of society are analogous to the physical dimensions
and include numbers of people, distance, and time". Social physics
dealt with observations, processes and relations in terms of these
three variables. According to Stewart, "the distinction between social
physics and sociology is the avoidance of subjective description in
the former" (Stewart, 1956). Stewart's ideas were first introduced
in geography in 1947 in a paper published in the Geographical Review
and subsequently in another paper in 1956. Later, he collaborated
with the geographer William Warntz (Stewart and Warntz, 1958,
1959). The latter wrote extensively on this subject. His best known
work was Toward a Geography of Price (1959).
The work carried out under the social physics tradition contrasted
markedly with the work of the other three groups noted above in that:
Stewart and Warntz ... conformed more than any others to Bunge's call
for scientific approach which aimed at a high level of generality. Second,
there was the nature of the approach to theory, for macrogeography
[of Stewart and Warntz] was inductive in its search of regularity rather
than testing deductive hypotheses. Finally, the analogies sought for human
geography were in a natural science physics-and not in the other social
sciences Gohnston, 1983, p. 68).
Outside the United States a major centre of quantitative-theoretical
geography had developed at the University of Lund in Sweden under the
leadership of Hagerstrand. The first beginnings in theoretical geography at
Lund had been made under Edgar Kant, an Estonian geographer who had
taken refuge at Lund after the Second World War (Buttimer, 1983). He was
the first to introduce the work of Christaller and Losch into Swedish
geography. He had tested these theories in the course of his field research
in Estonia. Hagerstrand, who later became one of the most luminous stars
of the theoretical geography firmament, had served as a research assistant
to Kant during 1945-1946-a contact that proved most rewarding since at
that time Hagerstrand was himself engaged in research on the processes of
migration. Later, under the association of the Swedish ethnologist Sigfrid
Stevanson, Hagerstrand had shifted attention to the study of the processes
of innovatior, diffusion with the aid of mathematical and statistical methods
that were then just coming into vogue. His doctoral dissertation submitted
in 1953 (later translated as Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process by Pred
in 1968) had examined the spread of certain innovations (agricultural and
others) in a part of central Sweden. Hagerstrand's focus on process marked
a significant break with the regional tradition. It also marked a clear
beginning towards a theoretical geography concerned with formulation of
nomothetic concepts. He wrote that although his own research had concerned
a small area in a part of Sweden, it should be viewed as a building block
for further researches on diffusion processes in order to arrive at more
general theories (Hagerstrand, 1953/1968, p. 1).
Under Haggerstrand's inspiring leadership, his department at Lund
soon became a premier centre in theoretical-mathematical geography.
Hagerstrand interacted with workers engaged in similar type of work at
th'e university of Washington at Seattle where he was a visiting lecturer in
1959. Richard Morrill had studied under him at Lund, and his dissertation
on migration and growth of urban settlements was presented there (Morrill,
1965). Bunge's path-breaking Theoretical Geograph y (1962) was published as
a monograph under the Lund Studies in Geography series. During the
1960s, Hagerstrand developed his model of "time-space geography" focusing
on space-time patterns and the processes which result when individuals
are seen to draw upon space and time as resources essential to the realization
of particular projects that compete with each other for the limited resources
of time and space. (For a review of space-time geography, see Carlstein,
Parkes, and Thrift, 1978.)
W hereas new geography as the science of spatial analysis dominated
by a theoretic-quantitative perspective had become an universally accepted
fact in North American universities by the end of 1950s (so that writinl\ in
1963, Burton had declared that the quantitative revolution in geography
,vas over), outside the U.S.A., Canada, and Sweden, the revolution was
hardly visib!e as a wave. The first textbook on statistical methods for the
124 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT�A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
use of undergraduates that had appeared in Britain in 1963 (Gregory, 1963),

was more in the nature of an isolated event, than part of any general
movement toward making geography a positivist science. A focused
emphasis in this direction was first started at the University of Cambridge
under the joint leadership of Chorley (a geomorphologist who had received
training in the United States) and Haggett (a human geographer who also
had spent some time in the United States and had experienced firsthand
the new spirit in American geography). The joint effort of the two had
resulted in two highly influential books: Frontiers in Geograpl,ical Teaching
(1965) and Models in Geography (1967).
The first book was based on a course of lectures given at Cambridge
in 1963 with a view to informing geography teachers about the "recent
developments and advances" in the subject. Several of its chapters were
written on a tacit "recognition of the need for a complete and radical
reevaluation of the traditional approaches both to geography and to
geographical teaching in Britain" (p. 365). Its purpose was to underline the
importance of "theoretical models" in geographical teaching which, the
editors lamented, had "been markedly barren of such models, partly as a
result of the interest which has centred largely on the unique and special
qualities of geographical phenomena" (p. 367). The editors strongly pleaded
that geographers should do away with the false dichotomy between regional
and systematic studies ...through a fusion of the ideas of "models" and
"regions". An epilogue underlined that the inertia in geographical teaching
and research arose from "the failure to recognize the multivariate nature of
geography", and from "the neglect of the strong geometrical tradition in
geography" which (in the editors' view) had been basic to the Greek
conception of the subject. The editors emphasized that "Geometry not only
offers a chance of welding aspects of human and physical geography in a
new working partnership, but revives the central role of cartography in
relation to the two. Our solution then is to press for a reestablishment of
the tripartite balance in geography by building up the neglected geometrical
side of the discipline" (pp. 382-383).
Models in Geography was a logical extension of the Frontiers volume.
Contributors to this volume had been asked by the editors "to discuss the
role of model-building within their own fields of research", so that the
volume presented a synthesis of the work done in geography by the
adherents of the quantitative-theoretical stream. The volume was widely
received in the countries of the British Commonwealth as a declaration of
a crusade against old idiographic geography built around the concept of
regions as unique entities; and as a declaration of faith in new geography
structured around the methods and goals of positivist science. The volume
served to demonstrate how scientific methods were (or could be) used in
the study of systematic aspects of the discipline.
The Quantitative Revolution in Geography: The Search for

Scientific Method
The shift in the focus of geographical studies during the mid-l 950s and the
DEVELOPMENTS IN GEOGRAPHY SINCE WORLD WAR 11: FROM AREAL TO SPATIAL ANALYSIS 125
early 1960s inevitably involved a major change a revolution-in the nature

of geographical work. It was clear that the new concept of geography as
the science of spatial analysis of phenomena on the earth's surface with a
pronounced commitment to theory, needed a new set of methodologies for
explanation. In the initial stages of the changeover, however, few attempts
were made at programmatic statement on how research should be conducted,
even though there was a widely felt need of a handbook on quantitative
models of explanation based on mathematical and statistical procedures,
and these were being increasingly made use of in the new researches corning
from the leading centres of quantitative-spatial geography. In his widely
referred essay Geography as a Fundamental Discipline, Ackerman (1958)
observed that if any single theme may be used to characterize the
developments in contemporary geography in the 1950s,
that theme would be one of illuminating covariant relations among earth
features (p. 7).... Although the simpler forms of statistical aids have
characterized geographic distribution analysis in the past, the discipline
is commencing to tum to more complex statistical methods-an entirely
logical development. The use of explanatory models and regression,
correlation, variance and covariance may be expected to be increasingly
more frequent in the field (p. 11).
Ackerman conceded that much fundamental research in geography
could not be law-giving in the strict sense. It was, nevertheless, required to
be concerned with a high level of generalization in order that its result
could give meaning to other research efforts that may follow it. All
geographical research must have a "block-building character". For this to
be so, it was necessary that geographical studies became more precise and
accurate and this could be most effectively accomplished by greater and
more judicious use of quantitative methods, since "accurate study depends
on quantification" (p. 30). Acke11r1an's essay was widely read and appreciated
as an earnest and timely call for geography to develop a theoretical
orientation through increased application of quantitative techniques of
explanation, and to focus on research in the nature of building blocks that
could serve as leads to further conceptual advance and theory.
In sum, the all-important instrument for bringing about the required
change in perspectives in geographical work from regional-idiographic to
systematic-nomothetic was quantification, that is, increased use of advanced
mathematical and statistical techniques. Hence, the mid-1950s changeover
in the philosophy and methodology of geography has been generally referred
to as the quantitative revolution. Quantification was the key to the "radical
transformation of spirit and purpose" that geography underwent in the
mid-fifties to early sixties. This disciplinary transformation of geography
was part of "a process shared by many other disciplines where established
order had been overthrown by a rapid conversion to a mathematical
approach", wrote the Canadian geographer Ian Burton (1963) in his widely
referred paper that traced the course of the quantitative revolution and
discussed its consequences for the discipline. The following paragraphs are
based on Burton's paper.
The movement that led to the quantitative revolution in geography

was begun by physicists and mathematicians. It first transformed the physical
and then the biological sciences, and by the 1950s, was strongly represented
in most of the social sciences. The movement towards quantification was
part of the general spread and growth of modes of scientific analysis into
a world formerly dominated by a concern with the exceptional and the
unique. As Burton noted, geography has long been a "following" rather
than a "leading" discipline, in that the main currents of thought adopted
at various stages in geography have had their origins in other fields. Thus,
the mechanistic approach in the nineteenth century science found expression
in a deterministic cause and effect approach to the study of man-environment
relationships. There was a similar mechanistic flavour in much of the recent
work of quantifiers. It was as if geography was reemerging after having
lapsed into idiography which had followed the retreat from environmental
determinism, but, although quantification in geography had been mechanistic
in orientation, the new techniques being used were, in line with the prevailing
trend in contemporary science, probabilistic. They were drawn from statistics
which, in the words of Bronowski, "replaces the concept of inevitable effect
by that of probable trend". As the "revolution", progressed, the use and
purpose of quantification became more and more indeterministic.
The movement towards quantification in geography had already begun
in the 1940s; it gained momentum following the classic statements of
Ackerman and Schaefer in favour of making geography more theoretical
and systematic in nature, it had reached its culmination between 1957-1960,
and was over by 1963, the year Burton wrote the paper. He wrote:
An intellectual revolution is over when accepted ideas have been overthrown
or have been modified to include new ideas. An intellectual revolution is
over when the revolutionary ideas themselves become a part of conven
tional wisdom. When Ackerman, Hartshorne, and Spate are in substantial
agreement about something, then we are talking about the conventional
wisdom.
.
The reference to Hartshorne here is to his 1959 statement that
geographic work needed generic concepts and that it needed to determine
correlation of phenomena with the maximum level of certainty. Both these
purposes could be "best accomplished if the phenomena can be fully and
correctly described by quantitative measurements and these can be subjected
to statistical comparisons through the logic of mathematics" wrote
Hartshorne (1959, p. 161). The reference to Spate was to his 1960 paper on
"Quantity and Quality in Geography" in the Annals, A.A.G.
The incidence and growth of the quantitative revolution was greatly
influenced by the three most talked about publications of that period
namely the Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour (1944) by Von Neuman
(a mathematician) and Morgenstern (an economist); the volume on Cybernetics
(1948) by Nobert Weiner, which had underlined the necessity for crossing
academic boundaries in order to arrive at really meaningful results; Human
Behaviour and the Principle of Least Effort by Zipf (1949). A fourth significant
influence came from the physicist J.W. Stewart (already disc.ussed) who
had published his influential paper entitled "Empirical Mathematical Rules
Concerning Distribution and Equilibrium of Population" in the Geographical
Review in 1947.
While quantification was easily adopted in the study of physical
geography-geomorphology, climatology, and biogeography -
• considerable
resistance was encountered in the field of human geography. This was not
surprising, since in view of the possibilist tradition underlining the role of
human choice, it was here that the revolution ran up against the notion of
unpredictability of human behaviour. The resistance had, however, been
slowly overcome by the end of the 1950s, since around this time it had
come to be widely recognized that "A social science which recognizes random
behaviour at the microcosmic level and predictable order at the macrocosmic
level is a logical outgrowth of the quantitative revolution" (Burton, 1963)
The quantitative revolution was inspired by a genuine need to make
geography more scientific, and theoretical in orientation. Dissatisfaction
with idiographic geography of areal differentiation lay at its root; and
the development of a theoretically oriented geography was its major
consequence. As Burton put it:
Theory provides the sieve through which myriads of facts are sorted,
and without it facts remain a meaningless jumble. Theory provides the
measure against which exceptional and unusual events can be recognized.
In a world without theory, there are no exceptions; everything is unique.
This is why theory is so important.
It is true that the need to develop theory preceded the quantitative
revolution, but quantification had added point to the need, and it offered
a technique whereby theory could be developed and improved.
Though the quantitative revolution had, in a sense, been over by the
early 1960s, there had been few focused discussions on the philosophy and
methods of "new" geography that could serve as a guide for the new prac
titioners. Bunge's 1962 monograph on Theoretical Geography was the first to
fulfill this need. Bunge identified geometry as the mathematics of space,
and hence the language of new geography as spatial science. The book
remained the standard reference on the subject (and a second edition had
come out in 1966, also see: Bunge, 1979) until a more comprehensive guide
to the methods and philosophy of new geography as a positivist science
was published in 1969 in the form of Harvey's Explanation in Geography.
ON THE NATURE OF POSITIVIST EXPLANATION

The origins of-positivism go back to the nineteenth century French social
philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) who believed that the methods of
the natural sciences could with equal profit be applied to the study of
social phenomena. This implied that: natural laws can be developed in the
social sciences; these laws (like the laws in the natural sciences) provide
social scientists a basis for prediction; and these predictions can be used to
manipulate causal variables with a view to bringing about desired

im.Provements in society through social-economic planning.
Comte had put forward his ideas in the form of private lectures in his
apartments at Paris. The lectures were attended among others by Humboldt,
then nearly sixty. Comte's lectures were published as a book entitled Cours
de Philosophie Positive in 1829. Comte's philosophy of positivism incorporated
the following basic precepts:
• All scientific knowledge must be based on direct experience of an
immediate reality, since direct observation is the surest guarantee
that the knowledge acquired is scientific.
• The direct experience of reality should be complemented by la
certitude, that is, the unity of scientific method. This implied that
the different branches of knowledge were distinguished by their
object of study (i.e., the subject matter) and not their method. In
other words, sciences differ from one another in what they study
rather than how they study.
• The concept of unity of the scientific method required le precis, that
is, a common scientific goal of formulating testable theories. This
implied that there was no place for subjective value-judgements in
scientific inquiry since, being based on ethical assertions, value
judgements are not products of scientific observation; and are as
such, not verifiable.
• Positivist view of science incorporated the principle of /'utile, which
meant that all scientific knowledge must serve some useful
purpose it should be utilizable; it should be a means to an end,
and a tool for social engineering.
• The fifth precept was le relative, which meant that scientific know
ledge is essentially unfinished and relative, because knowledge
keeps progressing by gradual unification of theories which in turn
enhance man's awareness of social Jaws. Greater awareness demands
more comprehensive theory.
This was the original view of positivism that had dominated scientific
thinking for almost a century. However, what is generally referred to as
logical positivism (or logical empiricism) over the past half century, is a
body of principles developed by a group of philosophers at the University
of Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s. They accepted the basic scheme of Comte
but codified its principles for the conduct of scientific inquiry in. order that
it could lead to well-founded generalizations and theories.
As a set of scientific principles, logical positivism is concerned with
acquisition of knowledge in the form of general statements obtained through
accepted scientific procedures of observation and analysis, that can be used
in manipulating phenomena with a view to bringing about the desired
results. This was the general concept of science that the positivists believed
in. This concept incorporated a set of three related doctrines: scientism, i.e.,
DEVELOPMENTS IN GEOGRAPHY SINCE WORLD WAR ll: FROM AREAL TO SPATIAL ANALYSIS 129
the claim that the positivist method is the only true method for obtaining
knowledge; scientific politics, which means that positivism is the key to
rational solution of all problems of society-it is the fundamental basis for
social engineering; and value-freedom, which means that scientific judgements
are objective and independent of moral or political commitments.
As a philosophy and methodology, positivism had been developed
almost entirely through the efforts of natural scientists with a view to
improving their own research. As such, the application of the principles of
positivist thought to the social sciences had come to be regarded as the
doctrine of "naturalism", which implied that there could be a natural
scientific study of society. The fundamental tenets of this doctrine are:
1. All social phenomena involving human decision have a definite
cause which can be identified and verified. This is known as the principle
of causation.
2. Decision-making results from the operation of a set of behavioural
laws to which individuals in society conform. This is called the principle
of behaviourisn1, which means that a given stimulus under given circumstances
will produce a particular response (so that behaviour can be predicted).
3. Social reality is an objective reality comprising individual behaviour
and its results, which can be observed and recorded in an objective manner
through the use of universally accepted scientific procedures. This is known
as the principle of realism.
4. The scientist is a disinterested observer who can stand outside the
social phenomenon he is inquiring into (even though in his day-to-day life
he may be part of it). This is known as the principle of disinterested observation.
5. Like other organisms in nature, human society is an organic whole
(having a definite structure) which changes in a determinate manner,
according to certain observable laws. This is known as the principle of
functionalism, and implies that various elements in society occupy a particular
location and perform a related function within it.
6. The laws and theories of positivist social science can be used in
moulding society in a desired direction either by changing the laws which
operate in particular circumstances, or by changing the circumstances in
which laws will operate. This is known as the doctrine of social engineering.
Logical Positivism and Human Geography

Though logical positivism became widely accepted as a working principle
in human geography only in the 1950s, the introduction of the principles
of positivist science in Anglo-American geography may be traced back to
Carl Sauer's essay on the Morphology of Landscape (1925) wherein he had
declared that "causal geography" had had its day, and that geography
could then on be established as a "positive science". Sauer's morphological
method "was simply a restatement of Comte's designation of le reel as the
only appropriate domain of scientific inquiry" (Gregory, 1978, p. 29). Sauer
wrote that "one need not seek for something beyond the phenomena; they
themselves are the lore (Lehre)", that is, laws. Many geographers (including
Hartshorne) found it difficult to accept the proposition that scientific
explanation in geography should be restricted to the phenomenal level.
The search for causal laws had begun to be avoided, because:
In the minds of many geographers causality was still uncomfortably
close to the discredited thesis of environmental determinism, ... Hartshorne
was, therefore, anxious to present geography as a science concerned with
"the functional integration of phenomena" rather than with "the processes
of particular kinds of phenomena". This reaffirmed its commitment to
the discovery of spatial associations (Gregory, 1978, p. 30).
Hartshorne described geography as a "naive science" which looked
at "things as they are actually arranged and related" (Hartshorne, 1939,
p. 594). This meant that although geography could operate at a non
phenomenal level, it continued to be confined to the demonstration of
regularities simple correlations-and was not to be permitted to disclose
causal relations. The result was that despite its positivist mould, geography
continued as an essentially idiographic (or exceptionalist) discipline.
Human geography was one of the last of the social sciences to adopt
positivist approaches on a wide scale. There were several reasons for this.
Geography had very weak links with the other social sciences until relatively
recently; the discipline's main links to the natural sciences, through physical
geography, were with geology in which positivism was not dominant; and
owing to its firm base in the humanities (alongside a nonsocial scientific
history) and exceptionalist philosophy, it failed to adapt the positivist
methodology. Thus, although Schaefer's paper "had opened the door to
the premises of logical positivism, their admission into the discipline was
slow and, as it were, through several side entrances rather than up the
main steps" (Gregory, 1978, p. 32).
One of the most significant innovations of logical positivism was its
recognition of the basic distinction between analytic and synthetic statements.
Analytic statements are defined as a priori propositions whose truth is
guaranteed by their internal definitions (i.e., tautologies). Analytic statements
constitute the domain of the "formal sciences" (logic and mathematics) which
play a vital role in maintaining the coherence of the systems of synthetic
statements, whose truth has to be established empirically through the conven-
. ,tional method of hypothesis testing. This innovation signified a major break
with the Comtean model in that it accepted that some statements could be
validated without actual experience and observation, and thereby conferred
upon the deductive mode of explanation a high scientific respectability.
Though the new geography as spatial science was cast in the logical
positivist mould, much work in the discipline depended on inductive
statistical rather than deductive-mathematical methods of explanation,
irrespective of the discipline's overriding concern with derivation, validation,
and integration of general theorems of spatial organization . The debate over
exceptionalism had given legitimacy to, and established the superiority of,
the nomothetic perspective vis-a-vis the idiographlc concept of the discipline

that was pursued under chorology. The search for theory led to inter
disciplinary explorations, so that a number of theories from the other social
sciences (economics, psychology, and sociology)-where logical positivism
had already become an accepted principle that was yielding fruitful results
were incorporated in the new theoretical formulations about spatial structures.
As Bowen (1970, 1979, 1981) noted, both Kant and Humboldt had
rejected brute empiricism of Comte's positivist view of science. Still, much
of the subsequent development of geography as a science had remained
dominated by an undeclared acceptance of some of the Comtean
assumptions. This explains why at the time that "new geography", cast
into the logical-positivist mould, had appeared on the scene in the 1950s,
many a discerning scholar had found it "less of a radical departure than
logical extension of ideas which were already generally accepted by many
geographers" (Guelke, 1978). Whereas in chorological geography, the student
had to choose between a systematic (i.e., lawmaking) perspective vis-a-vis
the goal of description of areal integration in particular places viewed as
unique examples of their kind (i.e., idiographic-regional study), in new
geography, the spatial science, theory and generalization were enshrined
as the focused objective of the discipline. As Guelke wrote, Schaefer's insis
tence on the need for geographers to develop laws had "created a major crisis
within the discipline" since in a world currently permeated by the spirit of
law-seeking science, it was not surprising that most geographers opted for
geography as a lawmaking (or law-seeking) science. As Harvey wrote:
... the student of history and geography is faced with two alternatives.
He can either bury his head ostrichlike, in the sand grains of an idiographic
human history, conducted over unique geographic spaces, scowl upon
broad generalization, and produce a masterly descriptive thesis on what
happened when, where. Or he can become a scientist and attempt, by
normal procedures of scientific investigation, to verify, reject, or modify,
the stimulating and exciting ideas which his predecessors presented him
with (Harvey, 1967, p. 551).
REFERENCES
Ackerman, E.A. (1945), Geographic training, wartime research, and
immediate professional objectives, Annals of the Association of American
Geographers, vol. 35, pp. 121-143.
___ (1958), Geography as a Fundamental Research Discipline, University
of Chicago, Department of Geography, Research Paper 53.
_ _ _ (1963), Where is a research frontier, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, vol. 53, pp. 429 440.
Bowen, M.J. (1970), Mind and culture: The physical geography of Alexander
von Humboldt, Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. 86, pp. 222-233.
Bowen, M.J. (1979), Scientific method-after positivism, Australian
Geographical Studies, vol. 17, pp. 210-216.
Bowen, M.J. (1981), Empiricism and Geographical Thought: From Francis Bacon
to Alexander van Humboldt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bunge, W. (1962), Theoretical Geography, 1st ed., Lund Studies in Geography
Series Cl, Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
_ _ _ (1966), Theoretical Geography, 2nd ed., Lund Studies in Geography
Series Cl, Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
_ _ _ (1979), Fred K. Schaefer and the science of geography, Annals of the
Burton, I. (1963), The quantitative revolution and theoretical geography,
The Canadian Geographer, vol. 7, pp. 151-162.
Buttimer, A. (1983), The Practice of Geography, London: Longman.
Carlstein, T., Parkes, D.N. and Thrift, M.J. (Eds.) (1978), Timing Space and
Spacing Time (3 Vols), London: Edward Arnold.
Chorley, R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.) (1965), Frontiers in Geographical Teaching,
London: Methuen.
___ (Eds.) (1967), Models in Geography, London: Methuen.
Freeman, T.W. (1961), A Hundred Years of Geography, London: Gerald Duckworth.
Gregory, D. (1978), Ideology, Science and Human Geography, London: Hutchinson.
Gregory, S. (1963), Statistical Methods and the Geographer, London: Longman.
Guelke, L. (1977), Regional geography, The Professional Geographer, vol. 29,
pp. 1-7.
___ (1977b), The role of laws in human geography, Progress in Human
Geography, vol. 1, pp. 376-386.
___ (1978), Geography and logical positivism, in Herbert, D.T. and
Johnston, R.J. (Eds.), Geography and the Urban Environment: Progress in
research and applications, London: John Wiley, pp. 35-61.
Haggerstrand, T. (1953/1968), Innovation Diffusion as a Spatial Process, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press. (Translated from the original Swedish
publication of 1953.)
Hartshorne, R. (1939), Nature of Geography, Lancaster (PA.), Association of
___ (1954), Comments on 'exceptionalism' in geography, Annals of the
_ __ (1955), Exceptionalism in geography re-examined, Annals of the
___ (1958), The concept of geography as a science of space from Kant
and Humboldt to Heitner, Annals of the Association of American
_ __ (1959), Perspective on the Nature of Geography, Chicago: Rand McNully.
Harvey, D. (1967), Models in the evolution of spatial patterns in geography
in Chorley and Haggett (Eds.), Models i11 Geography, pp. 549-608.
___ (1969), Explanation in Geography, London: Edward Arnold.

James, P.E. and Jones, C.F. (Eds.), (1954), American Geography: Inventory and
Prospect, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Johnston, R.J. (1983), Geography and Geographers: Anglo-American Human
Geography since 1945, 2nd ed., London: Edward Arnold.
___ (1991), Geography and Geographers: Anglo-American Human Geography
since 1945, 4th ed., London: Edward Arnold.
Morrill, R.L. (1965), Migration and the Growth of Urban Settlement, Lund
Studies in Geography, Series B, 24, Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
Platt, R.S. (1959), Field Study in American Geography, The Development of
Theory and Method Exemplified by Selections, Chicago: University of
Chicago, Department of Geography, Research Paper No. 61.
Sauer, C.0. (1925), The morphology of landscape, University of California
Publications in Geography, vol. 2, pp. 19-53.
Schaefer, F.K. (1953), Exceptionalism in geography: A methodological
examination, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 43,
pp. 226--249.
Spate, O.H.K. (1960), Quality and quantity in geography, Annals of the
Stewart, J.Q. (1947), Empirical mathematical rules concerning the distribution
and equilibrium of population, Geographical Review, vol. 37, pp. 461-485.
___ (1956), The development of social physics, American Journal of Physics,
vol. 18, pp. 239-253.
Stewart, J.Q. and Warntz, W. (1958), Macrogeography and social science,
Geographical Review, vol. 48, pp. 167-184.
___ (1959), Physics of population distribution, Journal ofRegional Science,
vol. 1, pp. 99-123.
Ullman, Edward (1980), Geography as Spatial Interaction, edited by R.R. Boyce,
Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Von Neuman, J. and Morgenstern, 0. (1944), Theory of Games and Economic
Behaviour, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Warntz, W. (1959), Toward a Geography of Price, Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.
Watson,J.W. (1955), Geography: A discipline in distance, Scottish Geographical
Magazine, vol. 71, pp. 1-13.
Weaver, J.C. (1954), Crop-combination regions in the middle west,
Weiner, Nobert (1948), Cybernatics, New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Zipf, G.K. (1949), Human Behaviour and the Principle of Least Effort, Cambridge
(Mass.): Addison-Wesley Press.
6
Behavioural Persuasion in Geography
and the Rise of Humanistic Geography
By the mid-1960s, once the need for precision in research through increased
use of statistical-mathematical techniques had been commonly accepted,
and the controversy regarding systematic versus regional geography resolved
(with the scale tilting in favour of the former, but both being accepted as
interdependent and equally useful components of the discipline), the
euphoria about quantitative "revolution" had greatly receded. The profession
began t(! look back on the course of the revolution and assess the resultant
gains and losses for the discipline. By the second half of the 1960s, many
workers had begun to feel disillusioned with the models being developed
(and used) by human geographers of the positivist orientation, since they
failed to relate to real life situations. Deductions based on central place
theory (then so much in vogue) were found to be only vaguely reflected in
actual patterns of settlements in most parts of the world. This led to the
general inference that the postulates on which the central place theory and
other morphological laws of positivist geography were based, had provided
a weak, and far from satisfactory, basis for understanding the nature of
social organization of space.
The human geographic models of new geography as the science of
spatial analysis were based on the concept of "economic man", and a belief
in economic rationality in decision-making. With the dawning of the
realization that the new models based on these two related concepts had
failed to relate to real life world of day-to-day experience, geographers
began to question the very assumption of economic rationality as the basis
for the study of human decision-making. It must, however, be noted here
that the disillusionment with new geography did not by any means question
the basic goal of positivist research-the search for generalization and theory.
The dissatisfaction was, mainly with the general methodology and its
underlying postulates. Thus, alongside the rejection of the concept of strict
operation of the principle of economic rationality (that is, the concept of
profit-maximizing decision-making), there was a perceptible shift from
deductive to inductive mode of explanation. Yet another significant
development was that an increasing number of workers in new geography
were now beginning to feel convinced that a deeper understanding of
134
BEHAVIOURAL PERSUASION IN GEOGRAPHY AND THE RISE OF HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY 135
man-environment interaction could be achieved if geographers paid greater

attention to the study of the mental images that the decision-makers have
of the environment to which their decisions relate since it is the perceived
reality that leads to action.
The realization that decisions may be based on subjective or perceived
reality rather than on objective reality as it exists in nature led to attempts
toward derivation of theories of spatial behaviour alternative to those that
had previously been derived through ihe guiding principle of economic
rationality; theories that would be "more concerned with why certain
activities take place rather than what patterns they produce". This called
upon the researcher to see "the real world from the perspective of those
individuals whose decisions affect locational or distributional patterns",
and try "to derive sets of empirically and theoretically sound statements
about individual, small group or mass behaviours" (Colledge, Brown, and
Williamson, 1972).
This shift in focus from the study of spatial patterns to the study of
the societal behaviour that produced any particular set of patterns, inevitably
led to a shift in the primary source of inspiration from economics to the
behavioural sciences-most particularly to social psychology. As Gold (1980)
noted, the behavioural pursuasion in geography represented the geographical
expression of "behaviouralism" which had at that time spilled into the
social sciences from the behavioural sciences. The objective of behaviouralism
was to replace the simplistic and mechanistic conceptions of man
environment relationships with a new theory that views human actors in
space as thinking beings whose actions are mediated by cognitive processes
(that is, the mental processes by means of which people acquire, organize,
and use knowledge). The focus was on studying how people come to terms
with their physical and social milieux. The behaviouralists rejected the
assumption that decisions are always based upon a sequence of reasoned
thoughts involving systematic evaluation of all available options. The
behaviouralist was concerned with the full spectrum from the subconscious
impulse to the self-conscious deliberation in the process of decision-making.
BEHAVIOURAL GEOGRAPHY
The approach to man-environment relationships that many geographers
adopted in the late 1960s as part of the movement toward behaviouralism
in geography, had four distinguishing features: First, it started with the
premise that the environmental cognitions upon which people act may
differ markedly from the true nature of the real world. This implied that
space possesses dual character, one as the objective environment (or reality
as it exists in nature), and the other as a behavioural environment (that is,
reality as it is perceived by the decision-maker). The behaviouralist
geographer focused attention on the environment as perceived. Secondly,
the behavioural geographers asserted that the individual shapes, as well as
responds to, his physical and social environments. Such an assertion implied
that behaviour is not just the end product of a chain of events but also the
start of new sequences. Thirdly, behavioural geographers tended to focus
upon the individual rather than to approach problems at the level of the
social group. This was with a view to comprehending the processes involved
in reaching decisions. A large number of studies focused on the behaviour
of individuals could provide the raw material for inductive generalizations.
Lastly, behavioural geography was "multidisciplinary" in outlook in that
as a relative newcomer to behaviouralism, behavioural geography looked
to the other behavioural sciences to provide insights into behavioural
processes (Gold, 1980, pp. 4-5).
Beginnings of the Behavioural Movement: Decision Process in

Spatial Context
Though several geographers had, from time to time, drawn attention to the
role and importance of perception in the study of human behaviour, and
the process of creating landscapes (e.g., Sauer, Wright, White, and Kirk),
the work that proved seminal in the starting of the movement toward
behaviouralism as an "alternative" to the normative approach to theory
(then so much in circulation) was a paper by J11lain Wolpert entitled "The
Decision Process in a Spatial Context", published in the Annals, A.A.G. in
1964. The paper was based on his Ph.D. thesis submitted at the University
of Wisconsin. It had appeared at a time when many new geographers were
looking for an alternative to the normative model of geography as the
science of spatial analysis built around the concept of economic rationality
and profit-maximizing behaviour. The paper was built around the results
of a field study of agricultural land use in a part of Sweden. The author
compared the actual labour productivity of farms with what could have
been achieved under optimizing decision-making by the farmers as rational
economic persons, and found that there was upto 40 per cent less than the
expected level of productivity. The lower than expected level of productivity
was explained as a result of the farmers' lower aspiration level which was
itself a reflection of their economic and social environment, the context
which motivated them to act differently from the theoretical economic man.
Wolpert criticized the axiom of economic man in contemporary geography,
and suggested that in geographical work on economic behaviour, "Allowance
must be made for man's finite abilities to perceive and store information,
to compute optimal solutions, and to predict the outcome of future events,
even if profit were his only goal".
The distance-reducing spatial science paradigm of the post-Second
World War geography was rooted in the works of economists who wished
to extend the range of economic analysis by incorporating the spatial
dimension. In like manner, the basic inspiration for behavioural geography
also was derived from certain contemporary developments in economics.
Around 1950, many scholars in economics had begun to qt1estion the axiom
of economic rationality in human behaviour. In an influential paper, Simon
(1956) had seriously questioned the basic postulate of econo1nic man as a
rational and profit-maximizing individual. Simon asserted that decision

makers have bounded rather than perfect knowledge of their environment
and as such, they operate within conditions of uncertainty. To Simon it was
inevitable that owing to their bounded knowledge, the decision-maker's
rationality is also bounded. As such, it was unlikely that an entrepreneur
could achieve more than a satisfactory (as against optimal, profit-maximizing)
outcome to a given economic problem.
Wolpert's research reported in his 1964 paper was designed to test
whether decision-making in the case of his sample accorded to Simon's
"satisficing" model or to the "optimizing" model of the economic rationality
school. He concluded that his investigation gave support to the theory of
satisficing behaviour as against the theory of economic rationality. Wolpert
noted that in his sample the farmers' decisions were reached in a situation
of incomplete knowledge, so that their rationality was bounded. Besides,
the decision-behaviour of the farmers was found to reflect not only the
available objective alternatives, but their own perception of those alternatives
as well as the consequences of their possible outcomes. Also important in
their decision, was the role of their system of values and their degree of
aversion to taking risk.
In another paper published in 1965, Wolpert reported the result of
another study on the behavioural aspects of the decision to migrate with
a view to presenting a further test of the validity of the satisficing model
of human behaviour. His analysis showed that the gravity model of rustance
decay was not adequate in explaining actual migration flows. His own
research suggested that full understanding of the migrants' decision to
migrate would require consideration of the set of places of which the migrant
is aware (that is, a consideration of his action-space), the desirability and
usefulness of each place to the migrant (i.e., place utility), and his motivation
and goals, and the stage he has reached in his life cycle. The concept of
place-utility proved quite attractive so that before long a good number of
studies on decision to migrate were conceptualized within the stress
satisfaction formulation derived from Wolpert's work (1965, 1966). The stress
satisfaction framework argued that the basis of any decision to migrate is
the migrant's belief that the level of satisfaction available elsewhere is
greater than what is available at the present place of residence.
Subsequently, the satisficing behaviour model was also used in the
study of political decision-making, such as a decision to locate some public
facility (e.g., a hospital) within a city. Such decisions were found to be
frequently the outcome of some compromise between alternatives rather
than optimal solutions. Thus, Wolpert (1970) concluded that
Rather than being an optimal, a rational, or even a satisfactory locational
decision produced by resolution of conflicting judgements, the decision
is perhaps merely the expression of rejection of elements powerful enough
to enforce their decision that another location must not be used.
He found that locational decisions are in reality
more the product of stress responses than the end result of a dispassionate
and considered selection of alternatives posited by the classical normative
approaches or even Simon scheme of bounded rationality.
A further advance was made by Pred (1967, 1969) who used info1111ation
availability and the varying skills with which to use it, in devising a
"behavioural matrix" of locational decision-making (Fig. 6.1). In any given
case, the decision-maker (say an entrepreneur) can be assigned to a position
in that matrix according to the amount of knowledge he possesses, and the
skills he has acquired in its use. Thus, a position near the bottom of the
matrix would indicate that the entrepreneur would have a greater chance
of making a good locational decision than a competitor who may be
characterized by a position near the top left of the matrix. However, this
matrix only indicated the probable outcome, since (it was noted) there is
a possibility that an entrepreneur with very limited skill and infornlation
may arrive at a better locational solution than one who possesses greater
ability and info1111ation though it is unlikely to be so most of the time.
Ability to use information

Towards optimal solution- - - - - - ----->
s,, 8 ,2 s,, • • 81,

Towards 8 21 822 s,, • • • 82,
perfect 8,, 8 32 s,, • • 8,,
knowledge 841 842 843 • • • 8 4,
• • •
• • •
• • • •
.
8,1 8,2 B, , • 8 ,,
Fig. 6.1 The behavioural matrix (after Pred, 1967, p. 25).
This attempt to incorporate probability into locational analysis (by

Pred and others) was an important step toward toning down the neo
envirorunentalism of the spatio-economic models. Various probability-based
theories were used to explain and predict locational decisions. The two
most important were the game theory (used as a numerical means to simulate
the probable strategies of various participants against uncertainties of their
environment) and the information theory. Probability offered an opportunity
to approximate the idiosyncracies and inconstancies of real-world decision
making, and fitted easily into the paradigm of quantitative geography (Gold,
1980, pp. 32-33).
Thus Wolpert's various papers 1964, 1965, 1967, 1970 on the satisficing
model of decision-making behaviour had contributed to heralding the arrival
of a new behavioural movement in geography. By the second half of the
1960s, a new branch of geography, termed as "behavioural geography"
had begun to be identified, so that a special session on behavioural geography
BEHAVIOURAL PERSUASION IN GEOGRAPHY ANO THE RISE ,OF HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY 139
was organized at the 1968 meeting of the Association of American

Geographers. The papers presented at the session were published the
following year under the joint editorship of Cox and Colledge (1969). The
editors described behavioural geography as a subfied of geography "united
by a concern for building of geographic theory on the basis of postulates
regarding human behaviour". The topics discussed in the volume related
to decision-making in spatial contexts, some of which had been exemplified
in the recent researches of Wolpert and his associates. So great was the
excitement at the behavioural thinking in geographical work that many
were led to believe that geography had experienced yet another revolution
the behavioural revolution.
Studies of Hazard Perception

Although as a definite "movement" behaviouralism in geography had started
through Wolpert's papers, the history of behavioural work in geography is
much older. Way back in 1945, Gilbert White had presented a Ph.D. thesis
on Human Responses to Floods. Under White's leadership a group of workers
was formed at the University of Chicago to study human reactions to flood
hazards using Simon's (1956) theories of decision-making. From this group
and their graduate students came a large body of research on perception
of natural hazards. Though the initial work had related to river floods,
before long it was extended to cover all types of natural hazards. The
hallmarks of the Chicago school of natural hazard studies were a concern
with policy as well as academic matters, and a view of man-environment
relations that depicted cognitive processes as central to understanding
adjustment strategies. White established a firm ethical standpoint in his
writings, and consistently maintained an attitude of social involvement
with environmental problems. For him, geography was far from a value
free subject-his was a definite step forward toward giving geography a
more socially relevant orientation.
The influence of the Chicago school quickly spread to other centres.
The universities of Toronto, Colorado, and Clark emerged as important centres
of research on the natural hazards problem. Soon after, cross-cultural research
on this theme was begun under the auspices of the Commission on Man and
Environment established by the International Geographical Union (!GU).
The great majority of the r.azard-perception studies adopted a framework
for study put forward by Burton and White (1968) which sought to:
• Assess the extent of human occupance in hazard zones
• Identify the full range of possible human adjustment to hazards
• Study how people perceive and estimate the occurrence of hazards
• Describe the process of adoption of damage-reducing adjustments
in their social context
• Estimate the optimal set of adjustments in terms of anticipated
social consequences.
As Gold (1980, p. 214) noted, natural hazards research differed from

other areas of research in behavioural geography in two important ways:
First, it was a branch of research in which geographers occupied the dominant
position; most initial research was done by geographers themselves and
thus, unlike in other areas of behavioural geography, research was not
dependent on derived inspiration. Secondly, natural hazard studies were
unusual in that this body of research represented a coherent, integrated,
policy-oriented research. One unhealthy consequence of the development
of the hazard perception study paradigm essentially as a "within-geography
development" was that research workers engaged on this theme were less
responsive to cross-disciplinary influences. This was in sharp contrast to
the multidisciplinary thrust of the rest of behavioural geography.
The initial impact of hazard perception research on the wider research
enterprise in geography was rather limited. This was in part because the
students of hazard perception research were operating on the boundaries
between physical and human geography: In North American geography,
there was a long-standing tradition of separation between physical and
human geography, so that most students experienced difficulty in relating
to this research exercise. There was no such difficulty in the later research
on decision-making in a spatial context so that it was through the work of
Wolpert and others that the satisficing model of Simon became popular in
geography, leading to a definite orientation toward behaviouralism.
Study of Mental Maps

The aspect of behavioural analysis that was most enthusiastically adoptPd
by geographers during this period was the concept of mental map or the
geographies of the mind. The seminal influence in this regard came from a
paper by Peter Gould (1966) wherein he had argued that since locational
decisions were guided by how the decision-maker perceived the quality of
his environment, it was necessary for the geographer to map out the mental
image of the environment on the basis of which a decision was taken. The
theme was more fully developed in Gould and White (1974). Other important
publications on this theme included Downs (1970), Downs and Stea (1973,
1977), and Saarinen (1979).
Mental map studies were part of the primary paradigm of man
environment relations in which man is depicted as a thinking individual
whose transactions with the environment are mediated by mental processes
and cognitive representations of the external environment. Various concepts
were used as surrogates for the cognitive representations underlying the
work on mental maps, but the one most commonly employed was the
concept of "image". In geographical circles, the concept of image was derived
from the work of Kenneth Boulding (1956) who had suggested that over a
period of time, individuals develop mental impressions (i.e., images) of the
world through their every day contact with the environment; and it is
these acquired images that guide individual and group behaviour. Images
were investigated at various scales, but the dominant trend of enquiry had
focused upon the urban environment at the meso-scale. Discussions of the

links between images and behaviour was centred upon discrete areas of
research interest the most prominent being issues like response to natural
hazards, spatial behaviour in urban areas (such as shopping behaviour),
and the role of neighbourhood preferences in intra-urban migrations. The
conventional paradigm of the man-environment relationship built around
the concept of image was somewhat like the one represented in Fig. 6.2.
Environment Image Behaviour
Feedback
Fig. 6.2 Conventional paradigm of man-environment relationship.
This may be elaborated as a model for the study of the relationships

between perception, cognitive images, values and behaviour as given in
Fig. 6.3.
Behavioural geography
Start
Spatial behaviour
which affects A decision
Real world which
which
results in
provides
Search
for more
. information
Information
that Value system
enters the mind / to produce
via /
/
/
/
/
¥
FIiter
Perceptual Personality An image
senses Physiology of the real
Language world which
Society interacts with
Culture one's own
Fig. 6.3 A model for the study of the relationship between perception,
cognitive images, values, and behaviour (Source: Fien and Slater,
1983, p. 34).
The Contributions of Wright and Kirk

Though the behavioural movement of the post-quantitative revolution phase
had been triggered by the writings of Wolpert, the attention of the profession
toward the role of perception in the creation of spatial patterns and forms
studied by geographers had been drawn in a focused manner by at least
two geographers much before Wolpert. In his presidential address to the
Association of American Geographers at the 1946 annual conference, Wright
(1947) had spoken on the place of imagination in geography, wherein he
had emphasized that although man had explored every area of the earth,
there still lay a territory that remained almost completely unexplored
terrae incognitae-the territory to be found in the minds of men, the private
world specific to particular individuals, but which could have features
shared by others belonging to the same social, cultural or occupational
group. Wright proposed a new branch of geography, which he named
geosophy, to be devoted to the examination of geographical ideas "both true
and false, of all manner of people"-that is, a field of study concerned with
"subjective conceptions". Wright underlined that acquisition of geographical
knowledge "is conditioned by a complex interplay of cultural and physical
factors", and "nearly every activity in which man engages ...is to some
extent affected by the geographical knowledge at his disposal". These words
could, indeed have heralded a much earlier start of behavioural geography,
but apparently owing to lack of references to them in the works of later
writers they failed to have any significant impact. Wright's ideas were
brought to the notice of the profession in an effective manner by Lowenthal
(1961) through his paper on "Geography, Experience, and Imagination"
(also see: Lowenthal, 1975).
A more comprehensive attempt to introduce behavioural postulates
in geography was made by the British geographer W.K. Kirk (1951, 1963).
He had presented one of the first behavioural models to serve as an
alternative to the environmentalist concepts of man-environment
relationships. Kirk suggested that people act according to the way they
perceive their environment, and that the environment as perceived might
markedly differ from objective reality (i.e., environment as it exists). He
maintained that people's perception of the environment is greatly influenced
by their social and cultural values. Kirk's views were inspired by "Gestalt"
psychology, so that he distinguished between the objective or phenomenal
and the behavioural environments, and maintained that since geographers
are concerned with decision-making and the consequences of decision
making, they must pay attention to the role of behavioural environment in
their research.
There was, however, a significant distinction between Kirk's notion of
behavioural environment and the one normally used by Gestaltists, in that
Kirk regarded the behavioural environment once formed, as the basis for
rational human behaviour. In this way, the real worth of Kirk's contribution
lay in that he had combined two traditions, the belief in rational decision
making, and the perceptual principle of Gestalt psychology. Despite this
combination, Kirk's conceptual frame did not appeal to the new generation
indoctrinated by the positivist philosophy of the quantitative revolution.
Besides, Kirk's paper was published in India (1952) and subsequently in
Britain, whereas the conceptual arena of geography at the time lay in North
America. Furthermore, Kirk (like White and Lowenthal) could not make
any impact on the behavioural geographers of the 1960s, since they had
not belonged to, what may be called, any major group or college so that
none of the three were referred by Wolpert, nor did they figure in the biblio
graphies of Pred's (1967, 1969) reviews. There was only a passing reference
to Lowenthal in the 1972 review by Colledge, Brown, and Williamson.
Themes of Research
To begin with, two types of study had dominated the behavioural work in
geography. One was the analysis of overt behaviour patterns (usually travel
patterns) and the other were investigations into perception of the
environment. The first type of studies had adopted an inductive approach,
so that recording and observation of reality were pursued as a step leading
toward broader generalizations that sought to describe the behaviour patterns
under study. Such researches adopted a focused emphasis on discovering
the general in the particular. This research perspective differed from the
approach adopted in norrrtative model-building research of the spatial science
school which began with certain sets of simplified assumptions that were
used as axioms from which deductions could be made (for example, the
practice of distance-minimization was deduced from the axiom of economic
rationality). The element of induction was also characteristic of the perception
studies focusing on mental maps and the geographies of the mind, since it
was assumed that the study of the ways the representative individuals
perceive their environment should prove helpful in comprehending and
predicting general group behaviour.
Another distinguishing feature of behavioural research was that
whereas most studies in the spatial science school were conducted either
on the basis of published data sources or by means of simple field exercises
in data collection, the behavioural approach demanded much greater effort
in data collection about individual decision-makers. "This need to conduct
social surveys of various kinds has furthered the growing links between
geographers and sociologists, psychologists, and to a lesser extent, political
scientists and has led to an expansion in the data-building procedures
necessary for the training of geographers" (Johnston, 1983, p. 138).
As the behavioural perspective in geography became generally accepted
as a useful analytical device, the scope of behavioural geography widened,
Thus, a 1972 review of behavioural geography (by Colledge, Brown, and
Williamson) could identify five dominant areas of behavioural research in
human geography. These were:
• Studies of decision-making and choice behaviour (e.g., locational
choice, route selection, and patronage patterns)
• Analyses of information flows (in relation to innovation-diffusion)

• Models of learning (derived from theories in psychology)
• Perception research (focusing on hazard perception, image forrnation,
and mental maps)
• Studies in voting behaviour (geography of elections).
By the early 1970s, the range of behavioural studies of man-environment
interaction had become so wide that it posed problems in classification.
Some researchers sought to group them according to the spatial scale of
environment at which perception takes place. Downs and Meyer (1978)
drew a more fundamental distinction between studies of empirical vis-a-vis
humanistic orientation. While empirical studies had focused on objectively
verifiable measurement and intersubjective consensus, humanistic studies
relied on description and literal reconstruction with a view to revealing the
self-evident meanings of the different environments. Thus, the two
approaches represented, two very different paths to a behavioural emphasis
in human geography, and their existence illustrates very clearly that there
is no one behavioural approach to the study of man in his environment.
Beginning in the early 1960s, behavioural geography had experienced
a rapid expansion, though not as rapid and wide as Burton (1963) had
predicted for it. Burton had hoped that behavioural geography would soon
"come to merit a place alongside the quantitative revolution in terms of
significant new viewpoints". There were two main reasons why this could
not happen. First, unlike quantification, behavioural geography did not
accord with the Zeitgeist (i.e., the trend of thought and feeling) of current
human geography in which the spatial aspect was being increasingly
emphasized. Secondly, unlike quantitative geography, behavioural geography
could not develop a coherent identity by drawing upon an integrated body
of theory. This was because the student of behavioural geography had to
put together many diverse strands ofthought culled from several academic
disciplines. Given the diversity of these disciplines, it was hardly surprising
that behavioural geography had inherited, what Gold (1980) has termed
as "derived diversity" of conceptual frameworks, methods, and empirical
data.
Behaviouralism
•
in Geography: Evolution or Revolution?
Through the 1960s it had been generally asserted that geography was
experiencing a second revolution-the behavioural revolution--.-which was
expected to bring about a major transformation in the discipline but
experience shows that any expectations of a "revolution" were at best
premature:
Instead what has taken place has been the gradual emergence and
consolidation of a set of approaches that aim to increase the scope of
geographical explanation by seeking a fuller understanding of the processes
that underpin real-world behaviour. Their development certainly represents
a significant milestone in geographical thought, but hardly constitutes

the stuff which revolutions are made of (Gold, op. cit., p. !).
In a fundamental sense, behavioural approach in human geography
is a point of view rather than a rigorous paradigm (Walmsley and Lewis,
1984, p. 4).
Behavioural geography did not bring about a revolution away from
the spatial-science paradigm of the quantitative revolution phase, it became
an attachment to it. Ontologically and epistemologically the behavioural
approach did not represent any radical break from the past. Despite
pretensions to the contrary, it was "business as usual":
The changes it called for were cast in the context of current weaknesses
of locational analysis and were designed to eliminate them, not through
questioning philosophical presumptions but through simple incremental
elaboration of existing behavioural postulates ... the emergence of
behavioural geography is emphatically evolutionary rather than
revolutionary. It is wholly a creature of locational analysis ... If locational
analysis thingified social relations as spatial relations, be:ti:avioural
geography ossifies them as spatial behaviour, space perceptions, cognitions
and the like (Cox, 1981, p. 274).
Nevertheless, behavioural geography did represent a gradual emer
gence and consolidation of a set of approaches that aimed to increase the
scope of geographical explanation by seeking a fuller understanding of the
processes that underpin our real-world behaviour. This certainly represented
"a significant milestone in geographical thought" (Gold, 1980, p. 3).
Following Gold, the major achievements of behavioural movement in
geography may be listed as under:
• It asserted the role of the individual in geography which at that
time had showed strong signs of wishing to reduce human activities
to point patterns and spatial preferences and indifference curves.
• It led to a thorough reappraisal of the methodological approaches
to man-environment relations. It countered the environmentalist
and neo-environmentalist doctrines by recognizing the true
complexities of human behaviour.
• It acted as a forum for new philosophies, approaches, and methods,
and it revived interest in the study of some older themes, such as
cultural landscape, and idiographic analysis of places.
• It opened up new channels of dialogue and debate with other
disciplines, and thereby contributed to a trend toward cross
fertilization of ideas.
• Lastly, researchers in behavioural geography had contributed much
to the debate on social relevance of geographical research, by helping
to explode the myth of value-freedom, by promoting interest in
problems of social concern, and by supporting the geographers'
involvement in public policy issues.
varying responses, the behavioural geographers have attempted to build

models and theories that can predict the probable impact of a given stimulus.
The end product of behavioural research is an input to environmental
planning with a view to moulding things in a desired manner. As contrasted
to this, humanistic geography treats man as an individual ceaselessly
interacting with his environment and, in that process, transforming both
himself and his milieu. The interaction between an individual and his
environment is viewed as a particular case, and not as an example of some
scientifically defined model of behaviour.
By transmitting that understanding, it seeks to reveal man to himself and
to enable him to develop the interactions in ways that will be self-fulfilling.
The two [humanistic and behavioural geography] cannot be combined,
since the concept of behavioural laws in not in sympathy with the humanist
view that men are alone responsible for their circumstances and destinies,
and are free if they so choose to exercise that responsibility as they
will Uohnston, 1983, p. 157).
The Contexts of Modern Humanistic Geography

In their attempt to explain the contexts of modem humanism in geography,
Ley and Samuels (1978, pp. 1-3) had referred to the convergence of science
and technology (once the harbinger of utopian society) as the central villain
in the exhaustion and despoliation of man's environment. As a result of
this intellectual development which perceived science as a villain (rather
than benefactor), the linking of scientific rationality with politics (once
regarded as the hallmark of enlightened democracy) began to be viewed as
the chief mechanism through which despoliation of the environment was
being perpetrated. A widespread feeling had arisen that the super-specialized
sciences had succeeded in breaking man down into compartments of
specialized knowledge, so that "not even all methodological weapons at
their command could put him back together again." Even where they tried
to do so (as in the systems theoretic framework such as that of Talcott
Parsons)
they merely reduced man further to the demands of one or another
independent variable. [So that] certain pieces of fractured man were
necessarily and always left out of the puzzle. To put man back together
again with all the pieces in place, including a heart and even a soul ...
became the central goal of the twentieth century humanistic renaissance.
To begin with, the humanistic perspective was started in definite

opposition to the "dehumanizing" characteristics of the methods of scientific
rationality in the social sciences. Indeed, as Kant had underlined long ago,
once analyzed, the logic of science demanded knowledge only of phenomena
(i.e., quantitatively measurable objects) so that social science research in
the positivist mould had become progressively cut off from considerations
of ethics, morality, and transcendent meanings. The search for meaning
and purpose in human existence was set off as the task of theologians,
mystics, and "other none-too-reliable sorts", while science pursued the search
for logical truths. Positivist social science (incorporating the liberal ideas of
18th century rationalism) was inherently humanistic in that man became
the central concern in social science research, but the new methodology
adopted by the social science disciplines had soon begun to "impinge on
the value of being human". Man was "naturalized" (i.e., made over in the
image of nature) so that social scientists got increasingly converted to the
view that the social science disciplines did not require a methodology
different from that of the natural sciences.
The mid-twentieth century positivism had further extended this view
by insisting that the objective of scientific method was to remove all
anthropomorphic elements from the understanding of anything (Max Planck,
1937, cited in Ley and Samuels, op. cit., p. 7). The implication was that man
must be seen as a product of his physical and social environment-that is,
as a being who could be understood only in terms of his phenomenal
relations.
Questions of meaning beyond the strictures of symbolic logic, whether
transcendental, teleological, or simply ethical, became a matter not for
science but for arts, religion, and philosophies of the irrational. The result
was a parting of the ways between explanation and wisdom, and objects
and subjects; science and man went separate ways, giving rise to a
fundamental distinction between the sciences and the humanities.
The mid-twentieth century humanists endeavoured
to put man, in all his reflective capacities, back into the center of things
as both a producer and a product of his world and also to augment the
human experience by more intensive, hence self-conscious, reflection upon
the meaning of being human.
Accordingly, principal aim of modern humanism in geography is
the reconciliation of social science and man, to accommodate
understanding and wisdom, objectivity and subjectivity, and materialism
and idealism (Ley and Samuels, op. cit., p. 9).
As Entrikin (1976) wrote, the contemporary version of humanistic
geography began essentially as a form of criticism of the positivists' claim
to objectivity, so that its main thrust was to make geographers "more self
aware and cognizant of many of the hidden assumptions and implications
of their methods and research" rather than to present a coherent methodology
of "post-behavioural revolution" in geography. Nevertheless, humanistic
geography, as it slowly came into its own, intended to be more than just
a critical philosophy:
The intent is to reorient human geography towards a more humanistic
stance, to resurrect its synthetic character, and to reemphasize the
importance of studying unique events rather than the spuriously general
(Johnston, 1983, p. 144).
It was an attempt to make man-the human being-the very core of
geographic investigation; to make geography "'people geography', about

real people and for the people" (Smith, 1977, p. 370). In other words, to
make it as a discipline "concerned with the social organization of space
rather than the spatial organization of society" (Gregory, 1981).
Approaches to Humanistic Geography

Several humanistic approaches have been advocated and canvassed for.
The three most important sources of inspiration were the philosophies of
idealism, phenomenology, and existentialism.
The idealistic approach to humanistic geography was advocated (among
others) by Harris (1971) and Guelke (1971) both colleagues at the University
of Toronto. Writing on the theme of theory and synthesis in human
geography, Harris drew attention to essential similarities between history
and geography in that both study whole complex of phenomena, many or
all of which may be studied individually by other fields but are not studied
elsewhere in their complex interactions. The goal of both the disciplines is
synthesis. Speaking of the nature of "historical mind" Harris later wrote
that such a mind is contextual, not law-finding. The historical mind, he
wrote, is dubious that there are overarching laws to explain the general
patterns of life. Its goal is understanding, not planning. Harris recommended
that this should also be the goal of the "geographical mind". He advocated
that students of history and geography should apply the idealist method,
since all action is based on personal theories.
Idealism is a system of philosophy which regards reality as residing
in or constituted by the mind. (This idea is called metaphysical idealism.)
The philosophy of idealism limits human understanding to perception of
external objects (epistemological idealism). In human geography, idealism
has been interpreted as "a method by which one can rethink the thought
of those whose actior\s one seeks to explain" (Guelke, 1974). According to
Guelke, the idealistic approach in human geography seeks to "understand
the development of earth's cultural landscapes by uncovering the thought
that lies behind them". Thus, "the human geographer does not need theories
of his own because he is concerned with the theories expressed in the
actions of the individuals being investigated". To the idealist, all actions
result from rational thought ensuing from a theoretical construct present at
the back of the decision-maker's mind. Such theoretical constructs guiding
action may be "any system of ideas that man has invented, imposed, or
elicited from the raw data of sensation that make connections between
phenomena of the external world". Such "theories" are part of the social
cultural milieu and include religious beliefs, myths and traditions; they
represent the order which man has himself created through his social orga
nization, so that individuals take them for granted. To the idealist, "the ex
planation of an action is complete when the agent's goal and theoretical
understanding of his situation have been discovered" (Guelke, 1974).
The idealist is concerned with what the actor believed, not why he
believed it, since according to the idealist,
... all knowledge is ultimately based on an individual's objective experience

of the world, and comprises mental constructs and ideas. There is no
"real" world that can be known independently of the mind (Guelke, 1981).
Other humanist geographers adopted a phenomenal approach which
seeks to clarify the social conceptions which form an essential condition of
social existence. This approach, is critical of the positivist commitment to
empiricism in which the possibility of cognition is so much taken for granted
that no need is felt to say anything about the preconceptions on which its
various objectifications necessarily depend. The positivist fails to recognize
the difference between objective and behavioural environment. To the
phenomenologist, all cognitive experiences possess an intentional structure
through which objects are made to mean something specific to an individual
or group.
The first to introduce the phenomenological approach in human
geography was Relph (1970). To the phenomenologist there is no objective
world independent of man's existence and "all knowledge proceeds from
the world of experience and cannot be independent of that world" (Relph,
1970). This means that the phenomenologists describe, rather than explain:
Explanation implies an observer's own construction of reality which is
"antithetical to the phenomenologist's attempt to 'get back' to the meaning
of the data of consciousness" (Entrikin, 1976). The student of phenomenology
has no presuppositions; he does not use his own constructs in seeking to
comprehend those of his subject. The subjectivity of phenomenologist
research is that of the subject being studied, not of the student.
Yi-Fu Tuan (1971) was another early advocate of a phenomenological
approach in humanistic geography. According to him, "humanistic
geography achieves an understanding of the human world by studying
people's relations with nature, their geographical behaviour as well as
their feelings and ideas in regard to space and place" (Tuan, 1976) . Tuan
identified five major themes for research with a view to understanding
how geographical activities and phenomena reveal the quality of human
awareness. These are:
• The nature of geographical knowledge and its role in human
survival
• The r�le of territory in human behaviour and creation of place
identities
• The interrelationships between crowding and privacy as mediated
by culture
• The role of knowledge as an influence on livelihood
• The influence of religion on human activity.
Tuan coined the term topohila to describe the effective bond that develops
between people and place. The concept "couples sentiment with place",
and is closely akin to Wright's concept of "geosophy". Topohila concentrates
on the study of places as carriers of emotionally charged feelings, and as
perceived symbols. According to Relph (1976), the concept implies "an

encounter with place that is intensely personal and profoundly significant".
Closely associated with phenomenology is the philosophy of
existentialism. Both look at the environment from an experiential perspective.
'
The basic difference is that phenomenology assumes the primacy of
essence-the allocation of meanings results from the existence of
consciousness-whereas to the existentialists, the basic dictum is "being
before essence"-or "man makes himself". The process of defining oneself
(creating an essence) involves creating an environment. Thus environments
can be read as biographies, as representations of man creating himself
Uohnston, 1983, p. 155).
To the existentialist, "for every landscape or every existential geography
there is someone who can be held accountable". This premise makes it
necessary to treat landscapes as biographies. In sum, in existential terms,
"human geography becomes the history of man's encounter with himself
in an anthropocentric world order" (Samuels, 1978, p. 37). Since, landscapes
reflect two primal needs of man-prospect (i.e., the need to search for means
of survival), and refuge (i.e., the need to hide from forces that pose threats
to survival)-generalizations may be possible, even though individuals
and groups seek to satisfy these needs in different ways (Appleton, 1975).
Conclusion
According to Ley and Samuels (1978, pp. 11-12), there are two primary
characteristics of humanistic geography. First, it is anthropocentric. It focuses
on how, through human experience (human existence), space is transfor111ed
into place; and how "The abstract notion of spatiality is transformed into
dimensions of meaning, and distance becomes the language alternatively
of human relations and human alienation". The second distinguishing
epistemological characteristic of humanist geography is its ho/ism, that is,
its tendency to see phenomena in their total context. Buttimer has drawn
attention to the holistic vision of Vidal de la Blache and has pleaded that
geographers today should attempt to extend the work of the great French
geographer:
The task which no other discipline with the possible exception of history,
claims is to examine how diverse phenomena and forces interweave and
connect with the finite horizons of particular settings. Temporality and
spatiality are universal features of life so historical and geographical
study belong together: Both share a quest for unity (Buttimer, 1978,
pp. 72-73).
Since humanistic study in geography is concerned with either the
study of individuals and their phenomenal environments, or with the analysis
of landscapes as repositories of human meaning, it cannot be easily evaluated.
Unlike research in the positivist mode, humani�tic work has no explicit
criteria by which it can be assessed, since here the purpose is not to increase
explanation and predictive power but to improve understanding. For this
reason research in humanistic geography is not cumulative so that the

concept of progress does not apply.
It is relevant here to underline the distinction between behavioural
geography and humanistic geography:
Behavioural geography sees geography as one of the social sciences. It
works, therefore, within the philosophical and methodological tradition
of neopositivism (science with a human face) and seeks to enhance the
social, economic and political explanation of geographical patterns by
adding a consideration of the psychological factors that reflect differences
in human perception and experience. Humanistic geography has advanced
from the constraints imposed by scientific methods and aligns itself more
with the humanities-those areas of study that explore the subjectivity of
human responses to people, places, and events. Thus, like the historian
or the novelist, the humanistic geographer seeks to provide people-oriented
insights into the experiences, character and purpose of human occupation
of the earth (Fien, 1983, pp. 43-44).
From such a perspective humanistic geography is viewed as the study of
the earth as the dwelling place of man, emphasizing the experiential aspects
of such dwelling: Thus, "dwelling" is "defined in the existentialist sense of
living closely to places (ranging in scale from one's home to the entire
planet), feeling comfortable and at home in them, and taking responsibility
for one's actions within them .... This emphasis on dwelling leads humanistic
geographers to perceive geography as a process rather than a body of subject
content .... [Thus] Geography is something which is lived-[since there is]
'the geographer's "antennae" we are all born with'" (Fien, op. cit.). Looked
thus, "Every human being who perceives, explores, experiences, and acts
in space is a geographer .... Being a geographer is nothing more than the
necessary workings of the human mind" (Donaldson, 1975).
THE PRACTICE OF HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY

Reviewing the current practice in humanistic geography, Johnston (1991)
notes that much of the research in the subfield has been concerned with:
exploring and explicating the subjectivity of human action and its base
in meanings (both individual and shared), with relatively little concern
for the claims of idealist, phenomenological, existentialist and other
philosophies. To the extent that such work is explicitly influenced by
philosophical and methodological writings, the stimulus is more often
the pragmatism (and symbolic interactionism) developed by the Chicago
School of Sociologists in the 1920s and 1930s... Pragmatism portrays life
as a continuous process of experience, experiment and evaluation by
which beliefs are continually being reconstructed; such reconstruction is
a social process, whereby individuals learn and behave in the context of
the beliefs of those with whom they interact.
Understanding life within this framework involves participatory fieldwork
aimed at securing data lodged in the meanings ascribed to the world of
active social subjects, so that this method of approach allows the truth of
a social reality to be established in te111,s of its consequences for those who

experience it. Participatory fieldwork helps explain how people in particular
places work and interpret the world around them-that is, the reality with
reference to which they function.
Other repositories of meaning for humanistic geographers include
various kinds of texts including landscapes, and explication of meanings in
''creative'' or ''imaginative" literature. The present day landscape represents
an assemblage of relics of different periods in the past so that when we use
the landscape as a text, "we ·are reading the outcome of a long sequence of
selective retentions of earlier forms, so that we learn about what parts of
their history people wanted to build into their own presents and futures".
It is true, however, that the past does not exist independently of those who
seek to interpret it. In the case of the literary text, the focus is on the novel
(rather than drama and poetry which are generally ignored). The advantage
of the novel lies in that it presents detailed verbal description of the
contemporary condition of life including social relations, and presents graphic
descriptions of places and landscapes.
To sum up, the central focus of humanistic geography work has been
to describe and appreciate the variety of human experience in different
places and localities while the subfield has remained relatively unconcerned
with questions of philosophy so that its practice has remained over
whelmingly empirical and its search for meaning is limited to secondary
sources. This has been the main reason why humanistic geography has
failed to make a mark in the larger social science fraternity. But in the
context of the prevailing climate in human geography in the 1960s,
humanistic geography's contribution in making the discipline a man-centred
or people's geography, focused on the study of social construction of place,
space and landscape was no mean achievement.
In the 1980s, human geography had moved away from its earlier
emphasis on positivism to take on the universalizing and place-neutral
perspectives of structuralism and structural Marxism. Simultaneously,
humanistic geography had moved beyond the simple idealism that tended
to limit inquiry to a recovery of the intentions underpinning particular
decisions in order to develop a more incisive methodology for empirical
investigation that allowed for a bounded conception of human agency.
Following Gregory (1994, The Dictionary of Human Geography, pp. 263--266)
two basic streams of work can be distinguished. The first of these was
characterized by interest in the recovery of the meanings behind actions,
leading to the creation of particular landscapes. Such studies in the
iconography of landscapes was generally associated with historical
geography. Work under this stream "displayed a deep concern with
particularity and specificity, rather than general theories of spatial
organization, but this did not preclude the sensitive and imaginative use
of theoretical constructs often (and increasingly) derived from cultural theory
and historical materialism''. This represented a direct input to the revival
of interest in cultural geography. The second stream was more theoretical
in orientation, drawing on a range of ideas derived from the philosophical

discourses in the human and social sciences, including existentialism and
phenomenology. Research inquiries were often based on ethnographic
methodology and symbolic interactionism, using logical rather than statistical
mode of inference and paying particular attention to questions of reflexivity.
Research under this stream is closely associated with social geography.
"But this stream also fed into studies in the historical geography of social
struggle that were influenced by a humanist tradition within historical
materialism" (Gregory, op. cit.). But, as Gregory has analyzed, by the end
of the 1980s, the two identifiable streams had braided (intertwined) in
diverse ways. With the result that (a) the theoretical sensibilities of many
researchers working in the humanities were accorded far greater prominence
in human geography; and (b) for those conducting a dialogue between
social theory and human geography, the interest in grand theory slackened,
and the claims of multiple and competing local knowledges were increasingly
recognized. The outcome is that it has now become "increasingly difficult
to identify a distinctively humanistic geography in the 1990s ... Many of
those who had been most closely associated with the development of
humanistic geography have since been drawn to postmodernism,
postcolonialism and even to poststructuralism".
CONTRIBUTIONS OF HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY TO HUMAN

GEOGRAPHY
In brief, humanistic geography examines the social construction of place,
landscape, or region, as the outcome of the interplay between people and
contexts which they inherit as well as help define. Such a humanistic
orientation to human geography has made some important contributions
to the larger discipline. The distinctive contributions of humanistic geography
may, according to Ley (1989, pp. 229-230) be briefly enumerated as follows:
1. In its resistance to a pervasive reductionism and its insistence on
a geography with actors, it initiated discussion of human agency,
anticipating a central theme in the theoretical discourse of the 1980s.
2. Second, in its depiction of the particularity of place, landscape, and
region, it established the importance of local difference or
geographical contingency. This realization is now widespread ...but
it encountered great sceptism in the 1970s when featureless space,
the isotropic plain, were the postulates of much theoretical
geography.
3. A third contribution was the elimination of the fact-value dichotomy,
alerting researchers to the irrevokable value-basis of their
work .... It encouraged greater self-consciousness by scholars, and
a self-critical attitude which readily embraced the message of critical
theory of an invariable relation between knowledge and social
interests.
4. Fourth, the emphasis on values, meaning, and place has proven

fertile ground for a revived view of culture and the cultural
landscape. This has been an area of fruitful meeting among
humanists of several stripes, including historical materialists.
5. A final contribution has been to methodology, with the adoption of
a range of qualitative methods, including structured interviews
and participant observation. These have accompanied a more fully
interpretative style research, geographies of thick rather than thin
description.
But, Ley was quick to point out, "if the contributions of humanistic
perspective to a broader human geography are manifest, so too are its
shortcomings. In part they derive from a common flaw in social science,
the oversimplification of distinctiveness, an exclusive concern with the
particularity of a perspective, a form of what Habermas (1983) called 'the
autonomy of the segments'. In the context of humanistic geography this
overstatement can lead to a treatment of subjectivity and experience as a
virtual fetish, separated from context and material life".
REFERENCES
Appleton, J. (1975), The Experience of Landscape, London: John Wiley.
Boulding, K. (1956), General system theory-The skelton of science,
Management Science, vol. 2, pp. 197-208.
Burton, I., Kates, R.W. and White, G.F. (1978), The Environment as Hazard,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Buttimer, A. (1978), Charisma and context:The challenge of La Geography
Humaine, in Ley, D. and Samuels, M.S. (Eds.), Humanistic Geography,
Prospects and Problems, Chicago: Maroufa Press.
_ _ _(1981), On people, paradigms and progress in geography, in
Stoddart, D.R. (Ed.), Geography, Ideology and Social Concern, pp. 70-80,
Oxford: Blackwell.
Cox, K.R. (1981), Bourgeois thought and the behavioural geography debate,
in Cox, K.R. and Golledge, R.G. (Eds.), Behavioural Problems in Geography
Revisited, London: Methuen, pp. 256-279.
Cox, K.R. and Golledge, R.G. (Eds.) (1969), Editorial Introduction: Behavioural
Models in Geography, in Cox and Golledge (Eds.), Behavioural Problems
in Geography: A Symposium, Evanston: Northwestern University Studies
in Geography, vol. 17, pp. 1-13.
Donaldson, O.F. (1975), Children are Geographers: Explorations in Space, National
Council for Geographic Education Instructional Activity Series,
No. lA/E-12.
Downs, R.M. (1970), Geographic space perception: Past approaches and
future prospects, in Board, C., Chorley, R.J., Haggett, P. and Stoddart,
D.R. (Eds.), Progress in Geography, Vol. 2, London: Edward Arnold,

pp. 65-108.
Downs, R.M. and Meyer, J.T. (1978), Geography and the mind, American
Behavieural Scientist, vol. 22, pp. 59-78.
Downs, R.M. and Stea, D. (Eds.) (1973), Image and Environn,ent, London:
Edward Arnold.
___ (1977), Maps in Mind, New York: Harper & Row.
Entrikin, J.N. (1976), Contemporary humanism in geography, Annals of the
Association of American Geographers, vol. 66, pp. 615--fi32 .
•
Fien, J. (1983), Humanistic geography, in Huckle, J. (Ed.), Geographical

Education: Reflection and Action, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Chapter 4, pp. 43-55.
Fien, J. and Slater, F. (1983), Behavioural geography, in Huckle, J. (Ed.),
Geographical Education: Reflection and Action, Oxford: Oxford university
Press, Chapter 3, pp. 30-42.
Gold, J.R. (1980), An Introduction to Behavioural Geography, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Golledge, R.G., Brown, L.A. and Williamson, F. (1972), Behavioural
approaches in geography: An overview, The Australian Geographer,
vol. 12, pp. 59-79.
Gould, P.R. (1966), On mental maps, Michigan Inter-University Community
of Mathematical Geographers, Discussion Paper 9, reprinted in Downs,
R.M. and Stea, D. (Eds.) (1973), Image and Environment: London: Edward
Arnold, pp. 182-220.
Gould, P.R. and White, R. (1974), Mental Maps, Hammondsworth: Penguin
Books.
Gregory, D. (1981), Human agency and human geography, Transactions,
Institute of British Geographers, NS 6, pp. 1-18.
_ _ _ (1994), Humanistic geography, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and
Smith, D. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 263-265.
Guelke, L. (1971), Problems of scientific explanation in geography, The
Canadian Geographer, vol. 15, pp. 38-53.
___ (1974), The idealist alternative in human geography, Annals of the
.
_ _ _ (1981), Idealism, in Harvey M.E. and Holley, B.P. (Eds.), Themes in
Geographic Thought, pp. 133-147, London: Croom Helm.
Harris, R.C. (1971), Theory and synthesis in historical geography, The Canadian
Geographer, vol. 15, pp. 157-172.
Johnston, R.J. (1983), Geography and Geographers: Angl oA - merican Geography
since 1945, 2nd ed., London: Edward Arnold.
___ (1991), Geography and Geographers: Anglo-American Geography since

1945, 4th ed., London: Edward Arnold.
Kirk, W.K. (1951), Historical geography and the concept of behavioural
environment, Indian Geographical Journal (Silver Jubilee Volume),
vol. 25, pp. 125-160.
_ _ _ (1963), Problems of geography, Geography, vol. 48, pp. 357-371.
Ley, D. (1989), Fragmentation, coherence, and limits to theory in human
geography, chapter 12, pp. 227-244, in Kobayashi, A. and l\1ackenzie,
S. (Eds.), Remaking Human Geography, London: Unwin Hyman.
Ley, D. and Samuels, M.S. (1978), Introduction: Contexts of modern
humanism in geography, pp. 1-18, in Ley, D. and Samuels, M.S. (Eds.},
Humanistic Geography: Prospects and Problems, Chicago: Maroufa Press.
Lowenthal, D. (1961), Geography experience and imagination: Towards a
geographical epistemology, Annals of the Association of American
(1975), Past time, present place, landscape and memory, Geographical
Review, vol. 65, pp. 1-36.
Pocock, D.C.D. (1983), The paradox of humanistic geography, Area, vol. 15,
pp. 355-358.
Pred, A. (1967), Behaviour and Location: Foundations for a Geographic and
Dynamic Location Theory, Vol. 1, Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup.
_ _ _ (1969), Behaviour and Location: Foundations for a Geographic and
Dynamic Location Theory, Vol. 2, Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup.
Relph, E. (1970), An inquiry into relations between phenomenology and
geography, The Canadian Geographer, vol. 14, pp. 193-201.
___ (1976), Place and Placelessness, London: Pion.
Saarinen, T.F. (1979), Commentary: critique of bunting Guelke paper, Annals
of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 69, pp. 464 468.
Samuels, M.S. (1978), Existentialism in human geography, in Ley, D. and
Samuels, M.S. (Eds.), Humanistic Geography: Problems and prospects,
Chicago: Maroufa Press.
Simon, H.A. (1956), Rational choice and structure of the environment,
Psychological Review, vol. 63, pp. 129-138.
'
Smith, D.M. (1977), Human Geography: A Welfare Approach, London: Edward
Arnold.
Tuan, Yi-Fu (1971), Geography, phenomenology, and the study of human
nature, The Canadian Geographer, vol. 15, pp. 181-192.
___ (1976), Humanistic geography, Annals of the Association of American
White, G.F. (1945), Human Adjustment to Floods, Univrrsity
'
of Chicago,
Department of Geography, Research Paper 29.
Wolpert, J. (1964), The decision process in spatial context, Annals of the

___ (1965), Behavioural aspects. of the decision to migrate, Papers and
Proceedings of the Regional Science Association, vol. 15, pp. 159-172.
___ (1967), Distance and directional bias in inter-urban migratory
streams, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 57,
pp. 605--{;16.
___ (1970), Departures from the usual environment in locational analysis,
Wright, J.K. (1947), Terrae incognitae: The place of imagination in geography,
7
The Call for Social Relevance In Research:
Reorientation to Political Economy
THE RISE OF THE RELEVANCE MOVEMENT

Beginning around the mid-1960s, there was a widespread resurgence of
political radicalism in the United States. It was a period of mass
demonstrations against government policies both at home and abroad. The
previously defunct socialist parties began to be revived, and vigorous radical
movements sprang up in every field. The reasons behind this changed
climate of opinion were many. In the first place, this was a period of great
economic uncertainty. After two decades of rapid economic growth following
the Second World War, there was now a visible slump, leading to economic
harciships. In this changed economic climate, people began to take stock of
the successes and failures of governmental policies. There was a widespread
feeling among the citizens that the general prosperity of the post-1945
period was not shared by all sections of American society. This became the
primary source of grievance against government, and of inspiration for the
Civil Rights Movements that had over taken almost every American city
during the late 1960s. Another major cause of dissatisfaction was the
American involvement in the Vietnam war, which large sections of society,
particularly the youth, viewed as imperialist and anti-freedom. This was
the most important factor which gave rise to widespread student protest
that, starting in the United States, had by 1968, spread to several European
countries. This was also the time when attention began to be focused on
the problems arising from widespread despoliation of the physical
environment resulting from the unrestricted growth ethic and profit
maximization policy of the past decades.
These together forced a reassessment of the objectives of research in
science and humanities. The condition of man and the future of his species
became from then on, the primary focus of attention in natural as well as
the social sciences, so that commenting upon "the post-behavioural
revolution geography," Kasperson (1971) wrote: "The goals of geography
are changing. The new men see the objective of geography as the same as
that for medicine to postpone death and reduce suffering". There was
perceptible change in the themes of research from the earlier emphasis on
the location of supermarkets and highways, to poverty and race-relations.
159
In the opinion of some writers, geography was experiencing yet another

revolution, described by some as "radical revolution" (Smith, 1971) and by
others as "social relevance revolution" (Prince, 1971).
During the quantitative revolution phase in the 1960s, human
geography research was largely focused on method (i.e., techniques) rather
than on subject matter. Topics that had received special attention of research
workers, such as diffusion of innovations, social ecology of cities, and
multivariate regionalization, had owed their popularity as much to the
availability of convenient techniques of analysis, or computer programmes,
as to the intrinsic interest in the subjects themselves. Thus, "Applied human
geography in regional planning and urban development was often merely
an opportunity for the application of some favoured technique, which might
well have been quite ill-suited to the problem at hand" (Smith, 1977, p. 4).
The result was that the methodology of research in human geography had
got "inverted", since the geographers ignored the basic point that theories
and substantive issues should define data, and not the reverse (Slater, 1975).
Although the radical/relevance revolution, as a conspicuous shift in
research direction in human geography, had occurred only toward the end
of the 1960s, research on social issues had been building up throughout the
decade. Problems of regional economic distress had attracted considerable
attention since some of the new techniques of multivariate areal classification
had begun to be applied to the measurement of "economic health", following
the work of Thompson and associates (1962). The study of physical health
in the form of medical geography, was gaining strength (Stamp, 1960). The
use of a level-of-living index in regional delimitations was also suggested
(Lewis, 1968), and an attempt was made to relate space preferences to
welfare indicators (Gould, 1969).
In the year 1970, in a forceful paper entitled "The Role of Geography
in the Great Transition" Zelinsky identified a most timely and momentous
agenda for the human geographer as follows: "the study of the implications
of a continuing growth in human numbers in the advanced countries,
acceleration in their production and consumption of commodities, the
misapplication of old technologies, of the feasible responses to the resultant
difficulties". He made a fervent appeal that human geographers should
realize the potential for immediate and unprecedented trouble contained
in the current "growth syndrome" in the developed world. Zelinsky
identified three different roles for geographers in meeting the impending
disaster. These were:
• To involve the geographer as a diagnostician, mapping the load of
population on resources (the geodemographic load), environmental
pollution, crowding and stress;
• To involve the geographer as a prophet who could project and
forecast the likely futures; and
• To involve the geographer in the role of an architect providing
blueprints for the preferred futures, and thereby providing guidance
to administrators and policy-makers.
THE CALL FOR SOCIAL RELEVANCE IN RESEARCH: REORIENTATION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY 161
Zelinsky's (1970) paper gave voice to a rapidly growing concern among

professional geographers at that time, which aimed at raising the conscience
of the profession. This is evident from the fact that the Association of
American Geographers at its 1970 annual conference organized a special
session devoted to discussion on "geography and public policy", leading
to the establishment of a Standing Committee on Public Policy. In 1969, a
new journal representing radical thinking in geography was launched under
the title of Antipode at the Clark University, to "ask value questions in
geography, question existing institutions concerning their rates and qualities
of change, and question the individual concerning his own commitments"
(Editorial, Antipode, vol. 1, No. 1). Things were also moving in British
geography. In a report on the A.A.G. conference, Smith (1971) wrote in the
columns of Area that American geography at the time was "a melting pot",
and that it was in for a big revolution. A good deal of discussion followed
in the pages of the journal (Chisholm, 1971; Eyles, 1971 and 1973; Prince,
1971). Three years later in 1974, "geography and public policy" was the
major focus of the Institute of British Geographers annual conference, at
which delivering his Presidential address, Copock (1974) highlighted the
challenges, opportunities, and implications of the geographers' involvement
in public policy research.
The rise of the heightened concern for human condition, and of radical
thinking in geography, in the late 1960s and the early 1970s was by no
means accidental. It represented a natural reaction on the part of professional
geographers to the intellectual, social and political climate of the time.
Indeed, no discipline can exist in complete isolation from contemporary
sociopolitical cross-currents. As Smith (1977, p. 5) wrote, just as in the
United States the era of quantitative revolution was one of societal
preoccupation with technological gymnastics (exemplified by outer space
exploration) and with the rise of a new trend toward rational-managerial
approach to human affairs, so also the late-1960s' episode of all-round
radicalization reflected the social scientists' general disillusionment with
the war in Vietnam, and with the apparent insensitivity of government to
the various manifestations of social injustice: "Radical geography [was] the
geography of the years of 'pollution crises' and of 'crisis in the cities'. It
[was] also the geography of the end of the postwar era of continuous
growth in the real standard of living, in which distributional issues [were]
taking on a new urgency".
The radical, or the social relevance movement had taken a number of
different forms, leading to the inevitable division between liberals and
radicals. The former stream supported the policy of incremental change
within "the system"; whereas the latter group of scholars held onto the
view that nothing short of revolutionary socialism could create a just society
out of the modern capitalist-corporate state. The social relevance movement
in geography was manifested in two different sets of approaches: Among
the academically oriented geographers, there was a concerted effort aimed
at changing the focus of our discipline from the earlier involvement in the
study of, what were described as eclectic irrelevancies, to the study of

urgent problems of the day. Among action-oriented geographers (the
activists), the dominant focus was on the search for more suitable models
of organizational change. In the initial stages, however, the divide between
radical and liberal thinkers was not very evident. The new geography as
spatial science in the 1950s and 1960s (rooted in location theory, and economic
ethic, and using quantitative techniques of analysis) had remained focused
on non-vital societal issues (such as, distribution of central places) or had
devoted itself to the promotion of industrial and commercial interests of
the capitalist class (such as, the search for optimal [i.e., profit-maximizing]
location of industries, supern1arkets, and highways). However, the changed
mood of the contemporary American society had begun to manifest itself
in discussions at the annual conferences of the Association of American
Geographers from 1967 onwards. "Radical geography represented the left
liberal wing of this movement", wrote Peet and added that in common
with the followers of geography as spatial science, radical geographers
also focused on only the surface manifestations of societal inequities and
inequalities, for which they found the current methodologies of spatial
analysis to be adequate, though not infrequently, proposals were made that
the "existing methods of research must be modified ... if they are to serve
the analytic and reconstructive purposes of ... radical applications" (Wisner,
1970). "The result was a geography more relevant to social issues but still
tied to a philosophy of science, a set of theories, and a methodology deve
loped within the existing framework of power relationships" (Peet, 1977).
The Liberal Stream of the Relevance Movement

Liberalism connotes a combination of belief in democratic capitalism
alongside a strong commitment to executive action with a view to minimizing
social and territorial inequalities in levels of human well-being. It represents
commitment to ensure a certain minimum standard of living through state
intervention to the less privileged sections of society. Such a perspective
involved the geographer-in Zelinsky's scheme of things as a diagnostician,
forecaster, and an architect, who could present the blueprints for the
achievement of the preferred futures.
Much of the initial work on social relevance in geography was designed
to describe the existing inequalities in levels of well-being through maps,
with the help of the various multivariate statistical procedures (generally
identified as factorial ecologies) introduced in geographical literature on
the subject by Thompson and associates (1962). Mapping of human welfare
became a major theme of research in the 1970s. The concept of welfare (or
level of living) was divided into three sets of variables to facilitate its
measurement and mapping (Knox, 1975). These included: physical needs
(nutrition,. . shelter and health), cultural needs (education, leisure, recreation,
and security), and higher needs (that could be purchased with surplus
income). Smith (1973) and Knox (1975) were the major contributors on this
theme, each presenting a monograph-length study. The central premise
behind such research was that it was the task of the geographer as a social
scientist to chart out inequalities in society in a spatial context with a view
to informing the decision-makers, and thereby facilitating more meaningful
policy formulation. To use Chisholm's (1971) phrase, the work of Smith
and Knox (and others of that ilk) represented the geographer as a delver
and dovetailer. Here his task was viewed essentially as the provision of
ground-level information for the use of planners and decision-makers.
Combined with it was the related task of educating and infor11,ing the
public-in other words, to create public awareness, since, "to be aware of
the problems and their complexity may induce some sensitivity in a citizenry
which has shown as yet precious little tolerance for the other point of
view" (Cox, 1973). In his book entitled Conflict, Power and Politics in the City
(1973) Cox focused attention on the current urban crisis in the United
States, and offered a geographic perspective on contemporary problems in
ter11,s of conflict over access to sources of power.
In related studies Cox (1973) and Massam (1976) focused upon the
theme of spatial organization of society with a view to help achieving the
desired spatial pattern of the level of living. The themes under discussion
included evaluation of the provision of public services in terms of the
variables of distance and accessibility; redrawing of administrative
boundaries to promote better administration, and location of public facilities
(such as hospitals) with a view to offering more efficient service to society.
A large number of studies on the welfare theme were presented. In an
important textbook entitled Human Geography: A Welfare Approach, David
Smith (1977) attempted to restructure human geography around the theme
of welfare, which according to him, provided "an integrating focus for a
more 'relevant' human geography" (Preface). In Smith's view, the welfare
theme
provides a contemporary equivalent of the regional concept, to which
geographers once looked as a means of tying together their disparate
subject matter. It also asks that we cross disciplinary boundaries more
often, thus contributing to integration [of geography] within the social
sciences at large... A welfare focus provided a centripetal force to counter
centrifugal tendencies in the study of human existence (p. 363).
By focusing attention on the study of welfare, human geographers
could play a unique role among the social science disciplines-
that of helping to reveal the spatial malfunctioning and injustices, and
contributing to the design of a spatial form of society in which people
can be really free to fulfil themselves (p. 373).
Welfare geography corresponded to the general shift in societal
perspectives from the narrow economic criteria of development and progress
to the broader aspects of quality of life, so that distributional issues assumed
great importance. This is quite natural in a period of slow economic growth
since the quality of life for the general public can only be improved through
a policy of redistribution by taxing the rich to provide for the deprived
sections of society. Welfare geography addresses the question of redistribution

in a spatial context, and is inevitably concerned with issues of inequity and
social justice in the distribution of public goods and bads.
Thus the primary focus of welfare geography is on "who gets what
where and how''. Here "who" refers to the population of the area under
reference in terms of its social divisions based on income and ethnic criteria,
"what" refers to the goods and bads (in the form of services, commodities,
and environmental quality) enjoyed (or suffered) by the population. "Where"
connotes the fact that the quality of life differs according to the area of
residence (e.g., the civil lines versus the outskirts and the slums). "How"
refers to the social and political processes through which the observed
differences arise. From this schema it is clear that the study of welfare
starts with detailed description of the present state of affairs in the city or
region under investigation in regard to the distributive aspects of social life
by using the abstract formulations of welfare economics (which has been
the main source of methodological inspiration). In order to delineate
territorial inequality in the distribution of public goods and bads it is
necessary to develop social indicators of such inequalities. Factors that
may be taken into consideration include: income, employment, housing,
health, environmental quality, education, social participation, recreation
and leisure, and law and order. Studies may also focus on individual aspects
of social well-being, such as inequalities in access to health-care facilities or
inter-locality differences in pollutions of different kinds.
Apart from providing basic information about the quality of life in
any region from which welfare planning for the future could be launched
in order to provide better facilities, welfare economics is also helpful in
developing suitable criteria for welfare development in a regional context.
It provides the benchmark for evaluating alternative plans for development
in regard to which one shall be more effective in reducing present-day
inequalities in provision of social services.
Though the bulk of studies in welfare geography were primarily
descriptive, as time passed description gave way to more process-oriented
research focused on the study of how the observed inequalities arise. This
was a by-product of the increasing popularity (and relevance) of Marxian
thought. This involved explanation at two different levels, that is,
understanding the operation of the social-economic-political system as an
integrated phenomenon so that the general tendencies in all aspects of life
are revealed, and to explain how specific elements of the economic-social
political system-for example, the differential distribution of the selected
public services-benefited some people in one locality and put other people
in other localities to disadvantage.
As Smith (1994a) has underlined, issues involved in the study of
welfare problems extend beyond the limits of a single discipline, so that
they render disciplinary boundaries increasingly irrelevant:
The welfare approach logically requires an holistic social science
perspective, including economic, social and political factors, and also
consideration of moral philosophy which underpins conceptions of social

justice. In this rapidly changing world, where new political and economic
institutional arrangements can benefit populations unequally, there is
renewed interest in the issues raised by the welfare approach (Smith,
1994a, p. 676).
Another important theme of study under the revived social relevance
perspective was (and continues to be), the concern for environmental
problems. These included problems of environmental degradation,
conservation, and management. Considerable interest was generated in the
study of tourism and other recreational facilities, and the effect of such
recreational activities on the quality of the local environment.
The Radical (Marxist) Stream

Owing to the absence of a Marxist tradition in American social science, the
rise of a genuinely radical perspective in that country was a delayed process.
This was all the more true of the discipline of human geography wherein
political awareness was at a particularly low ebb, so that:
even the call for more social relevancy was at first greeted with skepticism
and hostility .... Therefore, in this conservative, self-protective little corner
of science, "radical" geography took a liberal form for a time, with interest
focused on bringing the discipline back into the forum of crucial events
and applying geographic skills to the immediate practical problems faced
by the oppressed groups (Peet, 1977, pp. 15-16).
The first conspicuous attempt to radicalize human geography research
was pioneered by the American geographer William Bunge (the author of
the once famous Theoretical Geography, 1962), who, in 1968, founded the
Society for Human Exploration at Detroit, with its declared objective to
induce geographers to take expeditions to the poorest and the most depressed
areas with a view to obtaining unbiased firsthand information about them.
It was believed that by becoming a person of the region in question, the
geographer, by virtue of the experience gained, shall be able to appreciate
better the kind of inputs required to improve the lot of the local residents.
Such a participatory fieldwork prepares the geographer to take to planning
with the people rather than planning for them. Although the methodology
of research developed by the Society of Human Exploration received
considerable attention from discerning intellectuals, for a variety of reasons
(including the American establishment's inherent distate for socialistic ideas),
Bunge's project could not materialize in its entirety, so that his lead to set
a new approach to geographical work remained unfulfilled, though the
Society did manage to publish a few reports on its explorations. Another
related development starting around this time was that articles began to
appear regularly in Antipode, in which the dominant focus was on the
problems of the poorest and most deprived sections of society. Papers and
other presentations were motivated with the view to help stop (or at least
delay) plans for urban renewal, likely to cause large-scale dislocation of the
poor, and to prevent large-size institutions from acquiring inner-city land.

As Peet (1977, p. 15) wrote, these articles may be described as "the concept
of expeditions writ large".
The actual breakthrough for Marxist thinking in geography came only
in early 1970s. The first geographer to initiate a new beginning in this line
of thought, and who succeeded in creating a new trend representing the
change over from the dominantly liberal to the Marxist perspective, was
David Harvey (1972), who, in a paper addressed to the problem of ghetto
formation, had found the existing theories in geography to be quite
inadequate for understanding the problem of ghetto formation in American
cities. Harvey was convinced that the problem could be effectively attacked
only at its source, that is, by eliminating the market-mechanism as the
primary regulator of land-use. He pleaded that geographers should adopt
a revolutionary perspective thoroughly grounded in the reality of the
phenomenon that the researcher may seek to investigate. In his view, a
Marxist approach to the study of social reality offered the soundest basis
for critical examination of the deleterious consequences of the capitalistic
system of social organization. In a critique of Harvey's paper, Folke (1972)
presented a forceful case for Marxist perspective in geographical work, a
perspective that offered a methodological alternative to the currently
dominant liberal perspective in geography and the social sciences in general,
one which was focused on "the values and interests of the ruling class."
Thus,
From 1972 onwards the emphasis of radical geography changed from an
attempt to engage the discipline in socially relevant research to an attempt
to construct a radical philosophical and theoretical base for a socially
and politically engaged discipline. This base was increasingly found in
Marxian theory (Peet, 1977, p. 17).
In this change over, Harvey's Social Justice and the City (1973) had
played a major role. (This book emphasized the need for changeover through
a number of semi-autobiographical essays. The book also represented
Harvey's own conversion from liberalism to Marxism.)
Harvey rejected Kuhn's (1962), then highly popular, model of scientific
development, and its central premise that progress in science is independent
of the enveloping material conditions obtaining in the society in question.
According to Harvey (1973, p. 125),
the driving force behind paradigm formation in the social sciences is the
desire to manipulate and control human activity in the interest of man.
Immediately the question arises as to who is going to control whom, in
whose interest the controlling is going to be exercised, and if the control
is going to be exercised in the interest of all, who is going to take it upon
himself to define that public interest?
In Harvey's view, the Marxian theory provided "the key to under
standing capitalist production from the position of those not in control of
the means of production". He maintained that through the Marxian theory
the researcher is made aware of the roots of the present social system and
the mechanism through which social inequalities are created and perpetuated;
and that with the adoption of the Marxist approach to the study of social
problems, the geographer can no longer remain a detached observer. Instead,
he becomes politically more aware, and gets actively involved in the creation
of a more just society.
From around 1974, a number of the proponents of social relevance in
geographical work began to explore Marxist literature to seek guidance for
conducting more socially relevant research, with the result that radical
geography now became progressively more and more identified with the
Marxist approach to human problems. Such a development inevitably led
to the parting of the ways between the Liberals and the Radicals. The
former began to be labelled by the latter as preservers of status quo (since
from a Marxist critical perspective, researches conducted by the liberals
tended to view societal problems as resulting from immediate causes, so
that such scholars proposed ameliorative programmes of action without
questioning and seeking alternatives to the underlying system that had
generated and perpetuated societal inequities in the first place).
In line with the general trend in new disciplinary movements, radical
geography also had initially advanced as a negative reaction to the
geographical establishment of the 1960s, which had conceptualized
geography as a "fragment of science specializing on spatial arrangement
and man's relationship to the physical environment". According to Peet
(1977, pp. 17-18), two main aspects of this relationship became the special
target of criticism. These were:
First that the relationship is with a body of science whose function is
ideological protection of a social and economic system owned and
controlled by a ruling minority of its members. Second, that because of
this, science has fragmented and, in the particular case of geography, its
relationship with the rest of science has to be made obscure. The result
is a politically safe, isolated discipline which deals with only a fragment
of knowledge; within this fragment, geographers try to find "causes" of
the problems they observe in what is the spatial distribution of the results
of far deeper social causes.
The Marxist critique, therefore, proposed, first, to make geography
more obviously a part of holistic science (and thus to do away with the
artificial barriers between fields of learning); and secondly, to make science
(including geography) act "on behalf of the construction of a social and eco
nomic system owned and controlled by all the people contained within it".
As Smith wrote, few if any geographers will question the discipline's
right to an independent existence. It is necessary for geographers to
remember, however, that the spatial or areal perspective imbued by our
disciplinary training may often impose blinkers that obscure the role and
operation of "non-geographical" factors. Stich a narrow "geographical"
view of societal problems "risks unconsciously supporting status quo, by
failing to identify root causes. Geography must stand or fall by its
168 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT�A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
demonstrated capacity to enhance human well-being, and not by virtue of

its convenience to the existing organization of society and academia" (Smith,
1977, p. 368). He voiced a word of caution to guard against the potential
for familiarity with Marx growing into a fashion effect similar to the one
that had accompanied the quantitative revolution in the 1960s: "Marx may
have been able to dissect the operation of a capitalist economy, polity and
society that we so often miss today. But Marx does not hold the key to
every modern problem in complex pluralistic societies" (Smith, 1977,
p. 368). Philosophical and methodological rigidity in seeking resolution of
societal problems is restrictive of human initiative. Social science research
must remain open to alternative perspectives which must not be condemned
without giving them a try.
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY PERSPECTIVE IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

The term political economy was first used in its current sense in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and was associated with the
ideas of English classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
The classical economists (particularly Ricardo) had emphasized two aspects
of the interaction between society and economy which are central to the
concept of political economy. These are: production and accumulation; and
distribution of the surplus produced. The distribution of the surplus is
pronouncedly a political act. Thus the questions of distributing surplus
among classes of people pushed the enquiry beyond the realm of the purely
economic to the sphere of the social and political. Hence the name political
economy.
Marx (whose ideas dominate current political economy) integrated
the issues of production and distribution into a theory of revolutionary
change through the methodology of dialectical materialism (signifying the
perpetual resolution of binary oppositions, the thesis and the antithesis, as
Hegel put it). From this methodological perspective Marx argued that the
problem of the classical economists was that they treated concepts such as
production and distribution as if they were eternal in nature, and so failed
to recognize that the forms of production and distribution are products of
particular sets of historical and material circumstances. Marx insisted that
we must always be aware of the historicity of our conceptual constructions,
and be willing to challenge the current meaning of such concepts in order
to make them more realistic and to bring about progressive change. The
term political economy had fallen into disuse/from the late nineteenth
century until the 1950s . It was only in the 1960s that the old term was
revived. Although the central ethos of political economy since the 1960s is
derived from Marxian thought, there are several variations on this theme.
Besides, in the 1960s, the term political economy was also appropriated by
the "radical libertarian right" (especially at the University of Chicago).
They adopted a public choice theory perspective in political economy focused
on the problem of choosing from among alternatives. Every facet of human
life was examined in terms of the rational choice theory. Considerable

attention was given to the nature of the state, political choice, and decision
making. Indeed,
it is difficult to find a common thread among the many uses of political
economy within geography, but if one exists it is that in all practices the
political and the economic are irrevocably linked; a sentiment not that
distant from that proposed by the originators of the term (Barnes, 1994,
p. 447).
Following current practice Peet and Thrift (1989) have used the term
political economy to encompass a whole range of perspectives which though
they differ from one another, share common concerns and similar viewpoints.
According to the two authors, here
economy is used in its broad sense as social economy, or way of life,
founded in production. In tum, social production is viewed not as a
neutral act by neutral agents but as a political act carried out by members
of classes and other social groupings. Clearly this definition is influenced
by Marxism... But political-economy approach in geography is not, and
never was, coTlfined to Marxism (Peet and Thrift, 1989).
As Peet and Thrift maintain, the critical thesis to the antithesis of
conventional geography developed unevenly in time and space, so that its
various phases have frequently developed independently rather than in
linked sequence. The three distinct phases in this development identified
by these two geographers are discussed below.
Environmental Determinism and its Critics

Many commentators of the historiography of modem geography have drawn
attention to the fact that geography had initially emerged as a modern
discipline as an instrument of justification for the renewed Euro-American
imperial expansion of the late nineteenth century (Hudson, 1977, details in
Livingstone, 1992, chapter 7). Such a need was urgent, and it was further
compounded by the publication of Darwin's theory of biological evolution
and the rising popularity of social Darwinism in academia. The two together
provided a route to explanation of the phenomenon of social-political
conquest by the Europeans and Americans in terms of the natural law of
survival of the able and strong species at the cost of the "weaker" ones
defined in terms of the "innate" qualities of the people living in different
lands and belonging to different "races". The explanation took the form of
a particular kind of environmentalism: Euro-American hegemony was
justified as the natural consequence of the superior natural environments
of western Europe and North America. Such a perspective was put to
critical examination only in the 1920s beginning with the work of Wittfogel
(1929) who opposed the environmental thesis of the imperialist scholars by
underlining that human labour in different forms of social organization in
particula; places moulded nature into different material (economic) bases
of regional societies, and this was the fundamental basis of the diversity in
social-cultural personalities of particular groups and their habitats. The

conclusion was that man makes himself, rather than being made by nature.
Wittfogel did not, however, altogether discount the influence of
environmental forces, so that he argued that the climatically determined
need for irrigation in the Orient (India and China) yielded a line of social
development that greatly differed from that followed by rainfed agriculture
in the West (Wittfogel, 1957). As in the case of Kropotkin, so also Wittfogel's
ideas remained peripheral to the mainstream discipline which stood firm
in favour of the current social order supported by the wealth derived from
territorial imperialism.
Areal Differentiation and its Critique

Peet and Thrift view the 30 years period between 1920s and 1950s as the
period of conventional geography's retreat from its position as the science
of the origins of human nature in the face of mounting criticism of
environmental determinism both from within and outside the discipline.
The possibilist perspective in geography that had followed it was so vague
a formulation on environmental causation that it virtually precluded
systematic, theoretical, or even causal, generalizations. Later environmental
geography was replaced by geography as the study of areal differentiation
focused on the description of particular places and areas as unique entities.
Dissatisfaction with this turn of the discipline had started surfacing in the
1940s but the criticism was muted in view of the rampant anti-communism
of the postwar period. Thus Schaefer's critique of Hartshomean-Hettnerian
geography was only a mild methodological criticism of the chorological
position against theory and generalization in geography by underlining
that geography explains particular phenomena as instances of general laws.
Quantitative Theoretical Geography and the Radical Geography

Movement
The development of radical geography has already been underlined in the
foregoing discussion. The basic point in this regard is that the theories and
methodologies of conventional geography were proving to be utterly
inadequate for the pursuit of geography as a socially relevant discipline
engaged in the betterment of the human condition. The change-over in
disciplinary perspectives at the time is best illustrated by the example of
David Harvey, the leading theoretician of Marxist thought in post-1970
geography. Harvey had authored a comprehensive guide to explanation in
geography as the spatial science of the earth's surface in 1969, a text that,
because of its timeliness had become an instant success. The Harvey of the
Social Justice and the City (1973) was, however, a transformed intellectual
now busy in exploring ideas in moral and social philosophy, things that
had found no place in his earlier writing.
The journey took him through a series of liberal formulations based on
social justice as a matter of eternal morality, to Marxism with its analysis
of the injustices built into specific societies; and from an interest in material
reality merely as a place to test academic propositions, to the transformation
of capitalist society through revolutionary theory (Peet and Thrift,
op. cit., p. 6).
This represented the usual route to radicalization of thought in the
1970s. Though in the early 1970s, the political persuasion in geography had
adopted a generally liberal perspective, by the second half of the decade,
geographers turned increasingly to Marxian ideas and methodology. Now
radical geography (Peet, 1977) was engaged in the examination of almost
every geographical aspect of life under the capitalistic system of social
organization, including topics such as the geography of women, slums,
mental retardation, rural areas, housing, planning and migrant labour.
In the 1980s, the radical movement in geography had become more
mature and, therefore, sober in approach. This was brought about by four
factors:
• Marxist thought had been put to considerable critical evaluation so
that there was hardly anything like fundamental Marxism.
• The 1979-1983 economic recession, and closer knowledge about
the ground realities in socialist countries of the world had made
revolutionary politics a less attractive proposition.
• The relaxed academic style of the generalist human geographer
was replaced by the narrower professionalism of the 1980s.
Some of the revolutionaries of the earlier period were now comfortably
placed in the establishment. By the end of the 1980s the critical style of
thought had become part of the general methodology of research in
geography, which had become increasingly analytical and problem-solving
in a societal context. Political economy is no longer problematic; it is one
of the central perspectives in research in current human geography.
To sum up, the fundamental premise of political economy perspective
is that whereas production of goods and services may be viewed largely as
economic processes, the distribution of the surplus value of production by
the system is pronouncedly a political process defined by the pattern of
power distribution within society. Thus, the nature of production, and the
pattern of distribution of surplus value differs from country to country, so
that politics and economy are inseparably interrelated. Indeed, political
economy implies that the various aspects of life ate inseparably linked and
any one aspect cannot be understood without taking into consideration the
relevant parts of the other aspects so that social science research is essentially
holistic. In such holism, the political factor, the state, to be precise, plays
the key role since politics pervades all aspects of life in the current phase
of civilization. One reason why human geography was a late adopter of
the political economy perspective in study was its failure to appreciate the
nature of the state as a socio-political instrumentality to guide relations
between communities and groups and between the people (the nation) and
the territory of their inhabitance. Part of this casualty is explained by the

depressed nature of political geography which since its chorological
reincarnation in the 1930s and right through the 1960s phase of geography
as spatial science had remained indifferent to the nature of politics within
the state. Such an appreciation began only in the second half of the 1970s.
As Johnston (1997, p. 258) has underlined, just as geography as science of
space and place is integral to the pursuit of social science so also is political
geography integral to geography in view of the central role played by the
state in the operation of the economy and society in any segment of the
organized earth's space.
GEOGRAPHY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

One conspicuous outcome of the rise of the political economy perspective
in human geography as the dominant philosophical focus in the 1970s was
the rising importance of social geography within human geography. It
became the branch of geography focused on the study of social relations in
space and the spatial structures that underpin those relations. Under the
impact of the rising tide of radical thought in the social sciences (and thus
in geography) since the late 1960s, social geography had for a time in the
1970s become virtually synonymous with the whole field of human
geography. In the 1980s, the earlier focus on economic efficiency (and implied
econonuc determinism) in the study of social/human sciences was progres
sively replaced by increased emphasis on the role of culture. Culture began
to be viewed as an active force in social reproduction-"the negotiating
process and the product of the discourses through which humans signify
their experiences to themselves and others" (The Dictionar y of Human
Geography, Smith, 1994a, p. 116).
Currently social theory increasingly focuses on culture as a text which
the researcher is obliged to interpret ethnographically throug11__the textual
processes of representation (or interpretation). Postmodern perspectives in
current social science increasingly view human activity as culturally
encompassed and, therefore, open to variable interpretations depending
upon the researcher's perspective. Thus, the 1980s had witnessed the virtual
merger of social and cultural geography. As practised in the 1970s and
1980s, social geography was very different in content and approach from
the subfield projected under this name in the spatial science phase of human
geography in the 1960s. In his essay in the Frontiers of Geographical Teaching
(1965), Pahl had defined social geography as the field of study focused on
"the theoretical location of social groups and social characteristics", i.e., a
field of study focused on patterns rather than the underlying processes.
The new social geography of the 1970s, under the influence of the
revised Marxist perspectives and French sociology (as developed by Castells),
became a pronouncedly politicized social geography. Almost simultaneously,
the increased focus on humanistic geography brought to social geographical
studies a.renewed concern with human subjectivity, including the emphasis
THE CALL FOR SOCIAL RELEVANCE I N RESEARCH: REORIENTATION TO POLITICAL ECONOMY 173
on understanding the patterns which arise from the use different social
groups make of the space as they see it. Although initially the two perspectives
in social geography had appeared somewhat contradictory, most workers
soon realized that simultaneous focus on social justice and humanistic
emphasis on the role of human subjectivity were far from contradictory in
practice.
Social justice is aptly described as a pursuit concerned with the study
of the distribution of society's benefits and burdens, and the way this
comes about. Thus, focus on social justice inevitably involves questions of
morality and ethics, so that attention is inevitably focused on the distribution
of income and other sources of need satisfaction on which the material
condition of a population depends. Its general starting point is a pronounced
focus on equalitarianism wherein considerations of individual differences in
strength, skill, intellect, family, ethnicity, place of origin and residential
location etc. are considered morally irrelevant in deciding the quantum of
societal benefits and burdens to be shared between peoples and communities.
Although we generally trace the geographer's concern with social
justice to the rise of radicalism in the late 1960s (which took the form of a
strong movement in the 1970s), it is far from true that geographers in the
earlier periods of the discipline's evolution were completely indifferent to
questions of morality and ethics. We have discussed how Humboldt's
regional study of New Spain had set an early model for the geographer's
focus on social justice in a regional context. The case of Kropotkin (and
Elesee Reclus before him) is well known, but owing to the European societies'
current focus on territorial imperialism with its inherent philosophy of
racial discrimination and environmental determinism, the voices of the
likes of Kropotkin and Reclus were mere cries in the wilderness. As David
Smith (1994b) has underlined it, before the 1970s the geographer's interest
in philosophy (wherever it existed) was generally expressed in concern
over epistemology incorporated in debates on the nature and method (or
"philosophy") of geographical inquiry, so that most geographers remained
content with the task of landscape analysis and regional synthesis---<:oncerns
which were, in the post-quantitative period, replaced by the search for
pattern laws and other forms of locational/spatial analysis. Then under the
combined influence of economics, regional science, and sociology
human geography came to model itself on those social sciences which
had most successfully aped the physical sciences in their commitment to
numerical precision, theory construction and the search for laws. Faith in
value-free social science was strong enough to submerge the actual value
content of the new human geography (Smith, 1994b, p. 5).
It was to be soon realized, however, that mechanistic interpretations
based on the concept of economic rationality were inconsistent with the
day-to-day reality of life, so that by the middle of the 1960s focus was
slowly shifting to the study of human behaviour and of the factors (rational
and "irrational") that influenced that behaviour. The shift of focus on
behaviour soon led to a concern for the human condition in particular
places (both by the humanist and the Marxist scholars) in the early years
of the 1970s. The emerging concern for social relevance in geographical
work marked the real beginning of the geographer's concern with questions
of equity and inequality, with morality and ethics in the distribution of
social goods and bads, and, therefore, with questions of social justice.
As analysed in the preceding discussion, to begin with, this concern
was expressed in an attempt to map inequalities in a spatial context with
a view to highlighting the problem and thereby to influence, and engage
in, the formulation of governmental policy in favour of the poor and under
priviledged sections. However, a focused view on social justice had emerged
by the mid-1970s following the publication of Harvey's formulations in
Social Justice and the City (1973) wherein he advocated that focus on social
justice in geographical work should be based on factors such as priorities
based on the ordering of needs, contribution to the common good, and
merit in the distribution of benefits and burdens of society. It was argued
that a just distribution of social income should be such that the needs of
the people in each area are adequately met in an equitable manner; resources
should be allocated in such a way as to maximize interterritorial multiplier
effects; and distribution of developmental funds should be made in such
a way that the areas suffering from environmental and other disabilities
are given additional help to catch up with the general standard obtaining
across the national space.
Harvey's formulation had set a general trend, but (as analysed in the
foregoing discussion) the theme of social relevance inevitably was pursued
by the somewhat contrasting perspectives of liberalism and refor1r,ationism
on the one side, and radical Marxism, on the other. However:
it was a resurgence of humanism, itself in part a critical response to the
new economic determinism not far below the surface of much
structuralism, which eventually generated renewed interest in what might
broadly be described as the moral dimension of geographical inquiry.
The 1980s saw increasing attention devoted to race and gender, and to
the position of marginalized groups of "others" disregarded in mainstream
human geography.... Power was to be transferred to the researched,
instead of exclusively subjecting them to the "gaze" of external and
supposedly objective observers, who were themselves developing greater
awareness of their own environment and identity (Smith, 1994b, p. 6).
Focus on social justice meant a simultaneous switch over to value-
based considerations in the pursuit of the geography of man. The focus on
values inevitably called for a new set of study procedures. The most
conspicuous development in this regard was the increased adoption of
qualitative research methods ranging from passive observation and personal
reflection, through routine participation, to active intervention-the common
theme in all this being a preoccupation with systems of shared meaning,
subjective understanding (rather than statistical description) with a view
to emancipate rather than to generalize and predict. Thus semi-structured
interviews now had replaced the formal surveys of the earlier phase. Human
geography's renewed focus on ethical and moral issues had occurred in

the context of a fundamental change in the intellectual environment marked
by the emergence of the postmodernist challenge to the established ways
of "modern" thinking based on the principles of rationality initiated in the
age of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment that promoted the search for
grand theories or meta-narratives. Postmodernism in social thought is
sceptical of grand theories in the field of social sciences since it focuses on
human diversity and difference so that it insists on place specificity in
social explanation.
As in the case of other professions, in academic work also questions
of ethics and morality inevitably arise. Indeed, the very choice of the
theoretical mode of explanation adopted is in itself a moral decision, as for
example the researcher's choice between the public choice theory and radical
Marxism. Smith illustrates the problem involved in the context of the study
of inner-city poverty in the West:
One approach would be to observe the spatial association between poverty
and population characteristics, finding perhaps that members of particular
racial and economic groups ... were concentrated in the poverty areas,
which could lead to the conclusion that there is something about their
way of life predisposing them to poverty. Another would be to observe
the spatial mismatch between inner-city residential areas and the
concentration of employment opportt1nities elsewhere, concluding that
the problem was one of spatial accessibility. A third explanation could be
found in the operation of the markets for labour and housing in a capitalist
economy, which tends to consign some people to unemployment and
poverty and to place many of them in the inner city... (T) here is something
in each explanation. But which one we prioritize involves a moral
judgement; we are allocating responsibility for inner-city poverty. The
first explanation blames the victims, the second the spatial structure of
the city, and the third the prevailing mode of production. Each of these
will suggest different solutions: respectively, changing personal behaviour,
improving urban planning, and abolishing capitalism (Smith, 1994b, p. 9).
Likewise, the choice of a particular technique of data collection and analysis
may also involve moral questions, as for example the choice between
qualitative and quantitative modes of analysis, and that between participant
observation and structured questionnaires.
The changed perspectives under the impact of postmodern thought
which places a premium on place specificity i11 social explanation (as against
the earlier emphasis on universal processes and grand theories), has given
a fresh impetus to questions of morality and ethics in geographical work.
Thus, the Social and Cultural Geography Study Group Committee (1991)
of the Institute of British Geographers had called for investigations into the
geography of everyday moralities, that is, of how particular peoples in
particular places hold particular sets of views regarding what constitutes
good or bad, right or wrong, and just and unjust-since these represent the
codes which "glue together their assumptions and arguments". That ethics,
morality and social justice are now clearly on the agenda of human
176 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HiSTORY OF IDEAS
geography's research priority is obvious from events such as the publication

of the April/May 1994 special issue of Urban Geography edited by G. Laws,
and the special session organized at the annual conference of the Association
of American Geographers to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the
publication of Harvey's Social Justice and the City. These have since been
followed by a detailed text on Geography and Social Justice by David Smith
(1994b) to whose work much of the discussion under this section is owed.
This revived interest in questions of social justice in geographical work in
the 1990s is, like other phases of conceptual change, by way of the discipline's
response to the challenges posed by contemporary events, in the present
case by the collapse of the established social order in Eastern Europe and
the former Soviet Union, which has left
large areas of the world with massive populations the task of creating
new economic, political and social institutions, and deciding how economic
rewards and positions of power would be distributed. A market-regulated
economy and democratic political system was assumed, but this did not
provide ready answers to some crucial issues as to how such a society is
created. The privatization of state property is an obvious activity which
requires clear rules, fairly adopted, if it is not simply to replace one
pattern of domination by another (Smith, 1994b, p. 12).
MODERN GEOGRAPHY AND WESTERN MARXISM: THE

SUBORDINATION OF SPACE IN SOCIAL THEORY, 1880-1920
Modern geography in its post-Ritterian phase of the late nineteenth century,
and the system of thought associated with the ideas of Marx and Engels,
were both products of the fin de siecle of 1880--1920-a period that generated
a distinctively different culture and consciousness of space and time from
that which preceded it. As Kern (1983, pp. 1-2) has noted, from around
1880 to the end of the First World War, a series of sweeping changes in
technology and culture had given rise to distinctive modes of thinking
about and experiencing time and space. "Technological innovations including
the telephone, wireless telegraph, X-ray, cinema, bicycle, automobile, and
airplane established the material foundation for this orientation; independent
cultural developments such as the stream-of-consciousness novel, psycho
analysis, Cubism, and the theory of relativity shaped consciousness directly.
The result was a transformation of the dimensions of life and thought".
Strangely, however, this period was also marked by concurrent and
progressive consolidation among social science theorists of an interpretative
prioritization of time over space history over geography. This was visible
at every level of philosophical and theoretical discourse: "from ontology
(how we define the nature of being in the abstract) and epistemology (the
study of how we know or accumulate reliable knowledge about the world)
to the explanation of empirical events and the interpretation of specific
social practices, the historical 'imagination' seemed to be annihilating the
geosraphical" (Soja, 1989, p. 323). The tendency toward an historicism of
theoretical consciousness had become so pervasive by the end of this period
that it remained ,•irtually unquestioned for almost the next half century.
Historicism became the central motive of the newly emerging social science
disciplines as well as in the current Marxist discourse. In such a scenario
modern geography was "squeezed out of the competitive battleground of
theory construction and the attempt to make sense of the dramatic changes
affecting then contemporary society and social life", so that "the once much
more central role of the geographical analysis and explanation was reduced
to little more than describing the stage-setting where the real social actors
were 'making history'. Social theorization thus came to be dominated by
a narrowed and streamlined historical materialism, stripped of its more
geographically sensitive revisionisms (e.g. the utopian and anarchist
socialisms of Fourier, Proudhon, Kropotkin, Bakunin)". As Soja (op. cit.,
p. 324) has underlined, "There was great sensitivity to geographical issues
in the writings of Lenin, Luxembourg, and others, especially to the
complexity and possible necessity of geographically uneven development
(cum imperialism) in the survival of capitalism". However, all through this
period Marxism remained overwhelmingly historicist in perspective and
approach, so that in Marxist analysis the motive force behind uneven
development was viewed as quintessentially historical-representing the
process of making history through the struggle of social classes. The Marxists
viewed the geography of this process as "an external constraint or almost
incidental outcome. History was the emotive 'variable container'. Geography
[in the words of Marx] was an 'unnecessary complication'". The net result
was that "the instrumentality of space was increasingly lost from view in
political and practical discourse. The politics and ideology embedded in
the social construction of human geographies and the centrally important
role which tl1e manipulation of these geographies played in the survival of
capitalism seemed to become increasingly invisible and mystified" (Soja,
op. cit., p. 325). Thus, pointing to the inadequacies of the contemporary
social science (Marxist) discourse of this period, Lefebvre (1976, p. 21) drew
attention to the missing link in the following words: "Capitalism has found
itself able to attenuate (if not resolve) its contradictions for a century,
and consequently, in the hundred years since the writing of Capital, it
has succeeded in achieving 'growth'. We cannot calculate at what price,
but we know the means: by occupying space, by producing a space". Thus,
Lefebvre asserts, "Space has been shaped and moulded from historical and
natural elements, but this has been a political process. Space is political
and ideological. It is a product literally filled with ideology" (Lefebvre,
op. cit., p. 31).
Such an emerging wave of realization about the missing link in the
Marxist system of analysis of social relations in the past, paved the way for
according greater attention to the role of spatiality in social organization,
so that the 1970s witnessed considerable fusion between the historical
materialist and spatial perspectives in understanding h11man organization
and social relations. On our side, this ,vas witnessed in the rise of the
so-called Marxist geography. But before commenting upon this new turn of
events, it is relevant to review the reasons as to why historical and

geographical imaginations came to be separated the way they did in the
1880-1920 fin de siecle period. As Soja (1989, p. 326) wrote:
Part of the story is probably related to the explicit theoretical rejection of
environmentalism and all physical-external explanations of social processes
and the formation of human consciousness, with human geography being
thrown out with the bathwater of environmental determinism. Another
part of the story ... has to do with the modernist political strategies which
were developing at this time. Those seeking the demise of capitalism, for
example, tended to see the spatial consciousness and identity-in localism,
regionalism, 11ationalism-a dangerous fetter on the rise of a united world
proletariat or a deviant and utopian "fetishism" of territorial society,
equally necessary to combat especially at the level of the capitalist state.
Those seeking reformist solutions saw in a similar phenomena an
uncontrollable inefficiency, over-eager rebelliousness (when in opposition
to national patriotism), and a possible threat to the expectantly benevolent
power of the state arid instrumental social "science".
It was therefore inevitable that geography should get isolated from
mainstream social science discourse. No less influential in perpetrating this
isolation was the geographers' perception of the Kantian view of classification
of knowledge in terms of which the separation of geography "from both
the specialized and substantive disciplines in the social sciences (where
social theory was assumed to originate) and from history, its allegedly
co-equal partner in filling up 'the entire circumference of our perception'"
helped to rationalize this separation. Our disciplinary tragedy lay in that
"by this time, putting phenomena in a temporal sequence had become
much more significant and revealing to social theorists of every stripe than
putting them beside each other in space". The net outcome was that:
The historian as social critic and observer, history as a privileged
interpretative perspective, became prevalent and accepted in academic
and popular circles. In contrast, geography and geographers were left
with little more than the detailed description of outcomes, what came to
be described as the areal differentiation of phenomena.... It was almost
as if a high wall had been raised between time, being, and society on one
side, space on the other, keeping human geography and the social pro
duction of space apart from history, its making, and its makers... [So
thatJ Modem geography was reduced primarily to the accumulation,
classification, and theoretically innocent representation of factual material
describing the areal differentiation of the Earth's surface what in more
contemporary terms might be called the outcomes of geographically uneven
development.... [This had continued until late 1960s, since] with postwar
recovery and economic expansion in full flow throughout the advanced
capitalist (and socialist) world, the despatialization of society was at its
peak (Soja, 1989, pp. 327-328).
The half century old separation of geography and Western Marxism
(as distinguished from the increasingly orthodox Marxism-Leninism that
prevailed in the Soviet bloc, which regarded the liberal Marxism on its
western periphery on mainland Europe as revisionist) began to loosen in

the 1960s. At first, it was essentially a one-way traffic of ideas from Western
Marxism to modem geography which saw the birth of a distinctively Marxist
Geography which, in the 1970s, led to the rise of a new critical human
geography primarily as reaction to the increasingly "establishmentarian
positivism of mainstream geographical analysis". Though the new critical
Marxist geography helped to shake the foundations of the value-free spatial
science ethos of the positivist new geography, by and large human geography
remained unsettled in its critical stance so that spatial analysis continued
to be business as ever. As Soja has noted, since around 1980, the scope of
the encounter between modern geography and Western Marxism has
expanded and the flow of ideas has begun to move in both directions, so
that a critical debate on the appropriate theorization of space focused on
the spatiality of social life had started challenging many of the long
established traditions of Western Marxism. Out of this two-way flow of
ideas between geography and Western Marxism "has come a compelling
call for a significant reformulation of social theory based on a radical change
in the ways we look at, conceptualize, and interpret not only space itself
but the whole range of relationships between space, time, and social well
being; between human geography, history, and society .... For the first time
a powerful argument is developing around the need for an explicitly
historical and geographical materialism, a far-reaching rethinking of basic
Marxist principles that would allow the 'making of geography' to combine
with the 'making of history' as the interactive presuppositions of social
consciousness, social structure, and social action" (Soja, op. cit., pp. 318-
319). In the words of Harvey (1985, p. 144), for the reformed critical human
geography of today, "The historical geography of capitalism has to be the
object of our theorizing, historico-geographical materialism the method of
inquiry". This, along side other related developments, have marked the
birth of what may be described as "postmodern critical social theory that
effectively incorporates the best of modem geography and Western Marxism
but transcends their disciplinary identities and traditions" (Soja, op. cit.,
p. 320).
GEOGRAPHY AND SOCIOLOGY

Closely related to the rising intercourse between modern geography and
western Marxism since the 1970s was the development of close interaction
between the geographical and the sociological perspecti,•es in human
geography. Geography and sociology both are in a way "parasitic" in nature,
in that both depend on other sister disciplines for the raw material of their
research. In the case of sociology, its "autonomy" is diluted by the fact that
there is a multiplicity of perspectives on society so that sociological concepts
and propositions cannot be easily demarcated from commonsense concepts
and propositions. As such it is difficult to establish some kind of a progressive
research programme in sociology. Accordingly, it specializes in theoretical
innovations about social structures and relations which may often originate
in discourses outside sociology itself. Thus sociology has the function of
promoting inter-discursive debate and confrontation of a theoretical nature
on questions relating to the social dimensions of human life. And in sociology,
for reasons of its parasitic nature, there are few do's and do'nt's prescriptions.
In geography, by contrast, the discourse is more centralized (at least it has
been so until recently) in that there was a good deal of prescription regarding
what should or should not be included in geographical work. Broadly
speaking, geography has focused on seeking explanation of the spatial
distribution of particular phenomena-physical, economic, social and
political-in terms of one or more other phenomena. The social phenomenon
is present in geography in the sense that much of the subject matter of
geography concerns the spatial distribution of social (human) phenomena.
"However, there is conflict over the exact degree to which the character of
social relations should enter into either the description of what is being
explained, or into the processes which are supposedly explaining the
phenomena in question" (Urry, 1989, p. 296). This is where the opening up
of geography to Western Marxism was crucial in bringing about the marriage
between the sociological and the geographical imaginations. This was
"facilitated by the fact that perhaps the central concern of geography is the
relationship between human being and nature, which is of course the basis
of Marxism.... [O]ne consequence has been that social relations...became
more central to geography and this resulted in an increased openness to
the concerns of sociological discourse."
Commenting upon the separate development of the two disciplines
of sociology and geography between 1920-1970, Urry has noted that:
Broadly speaking... from World War I until about 1970, the two disciplines
... proceeded to develop separately. The social and the spatial were
viewed as distinct domains which did not have much to do with each
other. Sociology and especially geography were transformed into well
organized academic disciplines centred around certain mechanisms of
inclusion and exclusion. Academic reputations came to be made within
each discipline; in turn they generated new subdisciplines. The
subdiscipline of.social geography was, significantly, rather slow to develop
in this period. The only subdisciplines which did cross the sociology
geography divide were those of urban and rural sociology ... (Urry, 1989,
p. 301).
On the post-1970 development he comments
There have been numerous ways in which constructive overlap has recently
developed between sociology and geography. Perhaps illustration of this
is found within the writings of the "sociologist" Giddens and the
"geographer" Gregory and their mutual interest in post-Marxist social
theory and Hagerstrand's time geography .... Also overlapping develop
ments have occurred in the study of housing, race, gender, territoriality
and the state ... (op. cit., p. 304).
THE CALL FOR SOCIAL RELEVANCE IN RESEARCH: REORIENTATION TO POLITICAL EC0NOMY 181
REFERENCES
Barnes, T.J. (1994), Political economy, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and
Smith, D.M. (Eds.), Dictionary of Human Geography, Oxford: Basil
Bunge, W. (1962), Theoretical Geography, Lund Studies in Geography Series
Cl, Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
Chisholm, M. (1971), Geography and the question of relevance, Area,
vol. 3, pp. 65-68.
Copock, J.T. (1974), Geography and public policy: Challenges, opportunities,
and implications, Transactions, Institute of Britislz Geographers, vol. 63,
pp. 1-16.
Cox, K.R. (1973), Conflict, Po1ver and Politics in the City: A Geographic View,
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Eyles, J. (1971), Pouring new sentiments into old theories: How else can we
look at behavioural pattern? Area, vol..3, pp. 242-250.
_ _ _ (1973), Geography and relevance, Area, vol. 5, pp. 15&-160.
Folke, S. (1972), Why a radical geography must be Marxist, Antipode,
vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 13-18.
Gould, P.R. (1969), Methodological developments since the fifties, in
Board, C., Chorley, R.J., Haggett, P. and Stoddart, D.R., Progress in
Geography, Vol. 1, London: Edward Arnold, pp. 1-50.
Harvey, D. (1973), Social Justice and the City, London: Edward Arnold.
_ _ _ (1985), The geopolitics of capitalism, in Gregory, D. and Urry, J. (Eds.),
Social Relations and Spatial Structures, London: Macmillan, pp. 126-163.
Hudson, B. (1977), New Geography and the New Imperialism: 1870-1918,
Antipode, vol. 9, pp. 12-J.9.
Johnston, R.J. (1997), Political economy and political geography, in Dikshit,
R.D. (Ed.), Developments in Political Geography: A century of progress,
New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London: Sage Publications, pp. 240-261.
Kasperson, R.E. (1971), The post-behavioural revolution in geography, British
Columbia Geographical Series, No. 12, pp. 5-20.
Kem, S. (1983), The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918, Cambridge (Mass.):
Harvard University Press.
Knox, P.L. (1975), Social Well-Being: A Spatial Perspective, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Kuhn, T.S. (1962), The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University
of Chicago .Press.
Lefebvre, H. (1976), The Survival of Capitalism, London: Allison and Busby.
Lewis, G.M. (1968), Levels of living in the north-eastern United States 1960:
A new approach to regional geography, Transactions, Institute of British
Livingstone, D.N. (1992), The Geographical Tradition, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Massam, B.H. (1976), Location, Space and Social Administration, London:
Edward Arnold.
Peet, R. (1977), The development of radical geography in the United States,
in Peet, R. (Ed), Radical Geography , Chicago: Maroufa Press, pp. 6-30.
Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (1989), Political economy and human geography,
in Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds.), New Models in Geography, Vol. 1,
London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 3 -29.
Prince, H.C. (1971), Real, imagined and abstract worlds of the past,
in Board, C., Chorley, R.J., Haggett, P. and Stoddart, D.R. (Eds.), Progress
in Geography, Vol. 3, London: Edward Arnold, pp. 1 8-6.
Slater, D. (1975), The poverty of modern geographical inquiry, Pacific View
point, vol. 16, pp. 159-176.
Smith, O.M. (1971), America! America? views on a pot melting-2, Radical
Geography-The next revolution, Area, vol. 3, pp. 153-157.
_ _ _ (1973), Alternative relevant professional roles, Area, vol. 5, pp. 1-4.
_ _ _ (1977), Human Geography: A Welfare Approach, London: Edward Arnold.
_ _ _(1994a), Welfare geography, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and Smith,
D.M. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., Oxford: Basil
___ (1994b), Geography and Social Justice, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Soja, E. (1989), Modern geography, western Marxism, and the restructuring
of critical social theory, in Peet, R. and Thrift N. (Eds.), New Models in
Geography, Vol. 2, London: Unwin Hyman, chapter 13, pp. 318-347.
Stamp, L.D. (1960), Applied Geography, Hammondsworth, Penguin.
Thompson, J.H. et al. (1962), Toward a geography of economic health: The
case of New York state, Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers,
vol. 52, pp. 1-20.
Urry, J. (1989), Sociology and geography, in Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds.),
New Models in Geography, Vol. 2, London: Unwin Hyman, chapter 12,
pp. 295-317.
Wisner, B. (1970), Introduction: On radical methodology, Antipode, vol. 2,
pp. 1 -20.
Wittfogel, B. (1929/1985), Geopolitics, geographical materialism and Marxism
(English Translation of paper originally published in 1929), Antipode,
vol. 17, pp. 21-72.
_ _ _ (1957), Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Zelinsky, W. (1970), Beyond the exponentials: The role of geography in the
great transition, Economic Geography, vol. 46, pp. 499-535.
8
The Regional Concept and
Regional Geography
The concept of region is one of the most fundamental concepts in geography.

For a long time it has been the principal organizing concept in geographical
work. Yet, as in the case of a host of familiar ideas, "the concept of region
floats away when one tries to grasp it, and disappears when one looks
directly at it and tries to focus. Like the ideas of Ttme and Art it is so
obvious yet so difficult to define, but equally so useful, so much part of
geography" (Minshull, 1967, p. 13), that a definition must be attempted.
However, owing to the ill-defined nature of the concept, there has never
been a commonly accepted definition of "region", so that in a wide-ranging
survey of this concept in the late 1930s, two nongeographers, Odum and
Moore, had collected as many as 40 different definitions. Such a wide
variety of definitions of a single concept underlined the fact that the concept
of region has been somewhat personal and special to each major practitioner.
Region has been variously defined as:
A domain where many dissimilar beings, artificially brought together,
have subsequently adapted themselves to a common existence.
�P. Vidal de la Blache
A complex of land, water, air, plant, animal and man regarded in their
special relationships as together constituting a definite, characteristic
portion of the earth's surface. -A.J. Herbertson
An-area characterized by similar surface features and which is ... contrasted
by neighbouring areas. -N .M. Fenneman
An area delineated on the basis of general homogeneity of land character
and occupancc. -R.S. Platt
A geographic area unified culturally, unified at first economically and
later by consensus of thought, education, recreation etc. which
distinguishes it from other areas. -K. Young
Although a source of considerable confusion to the student, this great
variety of definitions also underlines the usefulness and strength of the
concept of region, which is required by every serious student of geography,
and which has proved quite capable of growth and adaptation as directions
183
in geographical research changed over time, from the preclassical focus on

the physical environment to the concept of geography as integrated discipline
of man-environment relationships in particular places, to the Hettnerian
concept of geography as the study of areal differentiation and regional
systems.
Although chorology has a hoary tradition dating back to the ancient
Greeks, the regional tradition in modern geography is traced to around
1800 A.O., when emphasis in the study of the eartb.'s surface shifted from
an overriding concern with the development of metrics of recording absolute
locations (including the evolution of map projections and the associated
task of compiling and revising maps) to the problems posed in recording
what places, now accurately located, are like and how far one place is
similar to or different from another (Abler, Adams and Gould, 1971).
Alexander van Humboldt and Carl Ritter-the twin founders of modern
geography-were the original pioneers in this field, so that a host of German
geographers in the 19th century devoted a great deal of attention to refining
the framework within which geographers should describe the assemblage
of phenomena of diverse origins existing together in particular places. The
most distinguished nineteenth century contributor in this field was the
German geographer Ferdinand van Richthofen (1833-1905), who in his
inaugural lecture (delivered on assuming the chair of geography at the
University of Leipzig) in 1883, defined the distinctive purpose of geography
as a field of learning to focus on the diverse phenomena occurring in inter
relation on the face of the earth. He evolved a framework for the study of
geography that is frequently referred to as the classical approach to regional
geography. The framework of study started with the natural/physical
environment and proceeded therefrom to analyse the distribution of man
and his activities in different parts of the earth's surface. Such an approach
to understanding the earth as the world of man was carried to its finest
tradition in France by Reclus, and later on by Vidal de la Blache and his
school of regional geography.
An important input in the regional tradition in geography, focused on
comprehending the earth's surface in terms of its constituent parts (the
regions), lay in the widely prevalent nineteenth century notion that although
God could not be experienced in a direct sense, He is omnipresent and the
observable phenomena on the earth's surface represent His handiwork; as
such: "the greater our understanding of nature, the greater our knowledge
of the works of God and, therefore, the nearer we would approach Him"
(Chisholm, 1975, p. 32). Another important influence came from the concept
of "oneness" or "wholeness" of things, associated with the philosophy of
Hegel (1770-1831), who advocated that the researcher was required to
"comprehend the entire universe" and that he must try "to know the infinite
and to see all things in God". The Hegelian concept of wholeness had had
a profound influence in geography, one which, Chisholm contended, was
"obscured by the perhaps undue attention geographers have given to
Immanuel Kant" (who is widely credited to have given geography its place
in the overall framework of organized objective knowledge):
THE REGIONAL CONCEPT AND REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY 185
In the name of Kant an essentially Hegelian view of the world was

adopted, especially by Hettner, who in tum exerted a major influence
upon Hartshorne ... Although .... Kant is widely quoted by geographers,
and revered for giving us a place in the sun, it is really the ideas of Hegel
and his concept of wholeness or totality of things that has been pervasive
in geographical work .... The geographer's most important traditional
form of this concept of wholeness of phenomena is the concept of region
or landscape ...[through the study of which] the geographer could attempt
to understand the totality of phenomena and their interrelationships.
Furthermore, the notion of landscape, embodying the sum of natural and
human phenomena, was thought to enable the student to make teleological
inferences concerning man and his relationship to the natural environment
(Chisholm, op. cit., pp. 33-34).
Later on, as a result of the rapidly spreading influence of the Darwinian
theory of evolution, and its supportive concepts of organization, natural
selection, and the role of randomness and chance, teleology was soon
forgotten but the regional framework of analysis had continued as the
fundamental concern in geography. Elaborating upon the concept of region,
Hellner (1927) wrote:
Reality is simultaneously a three-dimensional space, which we must
examine from three different points of view in order to comprehend the
whole ... . From one point of ,,iew we see relations of similar things, from
the second the development in time, from the third the arrangement of
phenomena and their distribution in space . Together with
systematic... and ...historical ... sciences, there must develop chorological
or space-sciences.... As history studies the character of different times,
so geography studies the character of different areas and places-"the
earth-spaces filled with earthly contents", to use Ritter's expression-it
studies the continents, regions, districts, and localities as such (Hettner,
1927; cited in Hartshorne, 1939, pp. 140-142).
THE REGION
The Whittlesey Committee on regional geography which drafted the
document on regional geography published in James and Jones (1954)
clarifying the concept of region in geography observed as follows:
Any segment or portion of the earth's surface is a region if it is homo
geneous in terms of such an areal grouping. Its homogeneity is determined
by criteria formulated for the purpose of sorting from the whole range
of earth phenomena the items required to express or illuminate a particular
.' grouping, areally cohesive: So defined, a region is not an object, either
self-determined or nature-given. It is an intellectual concept, an entity
for the purpose of thought, created by the selection of certain features
that are relevant to an areal interest or problem and by disregard of all
features that are considered to be irrelevant (Whittlesey in James and
Jones, 1954, p. 30).
But, as one author put it, there is, of course, only one region-the
surface of the earth1-on which mankind finds its home, "although much
effort is devoted by geographers towards the study of this diversified

environment as a whole, it has long seemed necessary by methods of 'special'
or 'regional geography', to study its component parts", so that although
nature abhors lines, geographers "appear to adore them, so busily do they
engage themselves in delimiting on their maps allegedly significant areas
called 'regions'" (East, editorial preface to Minshull, 1967, pp. 9-11).
The term "regional geography" had originally been used to distinguish
a new teaching method from the traditional political geography in which
an encyclopedic collection of data, organized by political units, was presented
to be memorized by the student. In this sense regions represented just another
type of unit area-"just another receptacle", as James called it-so that to
many the region appeared as omnium gatherum of information about
particular areas. Wright branded it the "trash can approach", in the sense
that it appeared to him to consist of describing the contents of an arbitrarily
defined "container" (James, 1972, p. 461), so that many felt that in the
absence of a sound philosophical basis as a branch of learning, regional
geography, as taught and as written, presumed too much and achieved too
little (East, op. cit.). In an influential paper, Kimble (1951) discussed "the
Inadequacy of the Regional Concept", wherein he suggested that "regional
geographers may perhaps be trying to put boundaries that do not exist
around areas that do not matter".
Notwithstanding the growing dissatisfaction with region and regional
geography since the 1950s, there has always been a strong body of opinion
in the English-speaking world favouring the view that "in its simplest
essence the geographical problem is how and why does one part of the
earth's surface differ from another", and that "The purpose of regional
geography is simply the better understanding of a complex whole by the
study of its constituent parts" (Wooldridge and East, 1958, pp. 28 and 159).
According to Wooldridge, "the aim of geography" is "to see nature and
nurture, physique and personality as closely related and interdependent
elements in specific regions" (Wooldridge, 1956, p. 53). So central did the
study of regional geography appear to geography as a discipline that
Wooldridge advocated that in every department of geography each member
of the staff should commit himself to the study of a major region.
However, the regional geographers of the old persuasion were, in a
sense, engaged in fighting a losing battle. Thus, commenting upon the
Vidalian tradition of the French regional geography, Wrigley underlined
that
It was essential to the best flowering of Vidal's method that the society
living in an area should be "local" and that it should be basically rural.
It must be local in the sense that the bulk of the materials used as food,
for building, for fuel, in the manufacture of tools and machines and so
on, should be local in origin
so that
The method developed by Vidal de la Blache is admirably suited to the
historical geography of Europe before the Industrial Revolution, or indeed
THE REGIONAL CONCEPT ANO REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY 187
to the limited and shrinking areas of the world today whose economies
are still based on peasant agriculture and local self-sufficiency ..., but it
is not applicable to a country which has undergone industrial revolution
(Wrigley, 1965, pp. 8-10).
But as Wrigley (p. 13) pointed out,
There has been, however, little, if any retreat from regional geography, if
by that one means the study of things in association in an area, which
still affords endless opportunities for ad hoc studies. The regional method
thus remains the means for much geographical work but is no longer its
end. One may say that much geography is still regional, but no longer
that geography is about the region.
The Region as a Concrete Unit

The search for the most suitable areal unit on the basis of which the earth
surface as the world of man could be comprehended, has been a persistent
problem in geography. To begin with, political entities were used for this
purpose. Gatterer (1727-1799) was the first to advocate discarding of political
units in favour of natural regions into which the earth surface was believed
to be divided, according to Buache's (1700-1773) theory, which postulated
the existence of a continuous network of mountain ranges that divided the
earth surface into well-defined regions. However, after Buache's theory
was proved to be unfounded in reality, the concept of natural regions was
not abandoned; it was modified in the light of new information so that
under the lead given by Ritter, the concept of natural regions got established
as the fundamental premise in the study of regional geography. In the
post-Ritterian period, interest in regional geography had considerably
declined, but, by the beginning of the twentieth century, interest in regional
studies was once again revived, and the concept of the region as a definite,
concrete unit (or genuine entity) reappeared in the geographical methodology
advanced by Schuter (1872-1952). Schuter regarded the region or landsc/u,ft
as a concrete unit possessing a form or structure, and he believed that
different regions on the face of the earth are intimately related, so that the
earth's surface may be conceptualized as being made up of a mosaic of
individual landscapes or regions. In line with the concept of Schuter,
Carl Sauer regarded landscapes as concrete objects forming individual
unitary wholes that "have form, structure, and function, and hence position
in a system" (Sauer, 1925). Thus, for a good number of regional geographers,
the region became an organic entity comparable to biological organisms.
According to Passarge (1867-1958), the concept of region as a concrete
unitary object owed its origin to reaction against the concept of region
as merely an analytical method, as pioneered by Hettner (cited in
Hartshorne, 1939).
According to Hartshorne (1939, p. 271),
the thesis on "natural regions"-individual and distinct areas determined
by the non-human elements-whether in its original teleological form or
in its more modern presentations, is unconsciously based on the

assumption of a single sequence of control in the interrelations of natural
phenomena.
In reality, however, there is little relation between the climatic divisions
of the earth and its major landforms, and the most important factor that
"prevents any great correspondence between the regions of different elements
is formed by the entire group of transport or 'circulatory' phenomena, in
the air, the waters, and even on dry land (mass movement of soil)". Indeed,
Heitner (1927) himself wrote that the point missed by the proponents of
natural regions was that
The earth surface owes its nature nl)t to a single cause but to a great
number of causes which have nothing to do with each other .... The
tectonic and climatic phenomena create ... two separate though coexistent
groups of causes. Most of the other geographical facts are conditioned by
these in one manner or another, not, however, certain ones by one of
these, others by the other, but most of them by both together ... [wl1ile]
many important geographical conditions are not based on present causes
but those of the past (cited in Hartshorne, 1939).
The attempt to enshrine regions as concrete individual objects was
part of the general endeavour, at that time, to elevate geography to a position
at par with the systematic sciences, each focusing on a particular class of
objects. The geographers, however, lost sight of the fact that
one essential element that distinguishes geographic thought from that of
all other sciences, namely the constant consideration of the relative location
of things on the earth's surface with reference to each other .... Theoretically
one might talk of the relative location of the region as a unit in reference
to other such units, but any attempt to analyze a concrete situation in
such terms reveals the fundamental fallacy: regions do not have relations
to each other as units-only particular elements and complexes of elements
within regions are related to those in others (Hartshorne, 1939, p. 281).
Kinds of Regions
The Whittlesey Committee has identified a variety of different kinds of
regions. The most fundamental division is that between formal (or uniform)
and functional (or nodal) regions. The i,niforrn region represents a discrete
distribution that is defined in terms of specified criteria, and is homogeneous
throughout in terms of those criteria. The definition of such regions may
be based either in terms of single features or in terms of a well-defined
association of several selected features. The functional region, on the other
hand, is defined in terms of the functional zone (the area of influence)
around a given node (a city or town) or several related nodes. Such a region
represents areas functionally tied to the specified node. The most important
factor in the definition of the functional region, therefore, involves the
measurement of movements (or spatial interaction) from a central place to
its hinterland.
Hartshorne did indeed underline the significance of the concept of

functional region, but most of the discussion about regions, until after the
Second World War, was concerned Y,ith the formal (i.e., single feature)
region. In geographic practice, Dickinson's City Region and Regionalism (1947)
had marked a major development in regional theory. According to Gregory,
what was novel about Dickinson's formulation was its break from physical
geography and the physical environment ... and following from this, its
provision of a central regionalizing principle that lies behind the "spatial
structure of society"
Dickinson's city-region was
an area of interrelated activities, kindred interests and common organiza
tions, brought into being through the medium of the routes which bind
it to the urban centres (Dickinson, 1947, cited in Gregory, 1981, p. 285).
Such a concept of region as spatial organization through movements
was further advanced (and reinforced) by A.K. Philbrick (1957) who
maintained that the task of human geography was to "analyze the areal
structure of human occupance independent of the natural environment"
and through "the functional organization of human occupance in area".
Both Dickinson and Philbrick had been greatly influenced by Christaller 's
"central place theory". Thus the works of Christaller, Dickinson and Philbrick
together "formed the springboard for the eventual translation of functional
regions into spatial systems" (Gregory, op. cit.).
A distinguished committee of the Geographical Association in U.K.
had published a widely acclaimed report of "Classifications of Regions of
the World" (Geography, 1937). The committee (whose members included
Roxby, Stamp, Unstead and Myres-the last named, a historian) dist
inguished between two types of regions: "Regions which fall into types
...may be said to be of generic character", and "Single regions, large or small,
which possess a well-marked geographical individuality may be called
specific as distinct from generic regions" (see Dickinson, 1976, pp. 144 147).
The distinction drawn by the Committee is essentially one between the
single-feature regions that represent a type, and the total-feature or total
topic regions that stand out as non-repetitive and unique examples.
Although regions are under consideration in each of the two types,
the distinction drawn points to the existence of the two original (and equally
important) branches of geography-one called Special, and the other General
geography, as Bernard Varenius had named them long ago. Special
geography is concerned with the unique characteristics of segments of the
earth space which result in each area from a combination of the complete
physical and human environment, which is now generally referred to as
regional geography. Strictly speaking, it represents complete descriptive
geography on a regional basis. General geography on the other hand, is
not concerned with the sum total of phenomena existing together at one
place, but is focused on the distribution and variations in the occurrence
of selected phenomena over the face of the earth. Thus,
General geography may have as much right to be called regional as has

special geography, but the regions in question are of a different type.
Each relief region, vegetation region or farming region has its own
characteristic relief, vegetation or farming which is different from that in
the adjoining regions. This type of single-feature region [also called formal
or uniform region] ... is homogeneous within the limits set by the observer,
but while the region must be different from the adjoining neighbours, it
is not necessarily unique - (Minshull, 1967, p. 29).
The persistent confusion between the concepts of Special and General
(i.e., Regional and Systematic) geography is easily avoided if one remembers
that in General or Systematic geography we are concerned with topical
studies in which the student pursues the examination of one element (or
a group of mutually related elements) over the whole world (or a country,
province or continent), while in Regional geography a variety of elements
of diverse origins is examined in their mutual interdependence in well
defined areas delimited on the basis of selected criteria.
In a paper entitled "Southern Rhodesia: An African Compage",
Whittlesey (1956) put forward the idea of "compage" as a kind of uniform
region defined in terms of all the features, natural and man-made, that are
related to the human occupance of the area. This represented an important
conceptual progress in the study of regional geography. As Minshull (1970)
wrote: those who suggest that the study of specific regions is beyond the
powers of one man may well have the ill-defined total-topic region in
mind; the fact is that most successful regional geographers have been
concerned with what Whittlesey named as compage.
Natural Regions
In geography, we accept the single-feature regions such as those based on
relief, climate, soil or vegetation, or any other related element as partial
representations of reality-as models of reality-just as students of biology
do in respect of their diagrams of the human body. On a worldwide pattern,
it has long been recognized that in respect of soil, vegetation or climate the
single-feature regions reveal some kind of intimately related repetitive
patterns recurring in different continents. On this basis world patterns of
distribution of climate, vegetation and soil types have long been recognized.
It had generally been believed that irrespective of differences in detail, a
close interrelationship existed between the global patterns of the three related
elements . Owing to the apparent influence of climate over vegetation, and
of these two together on soil; soil, vegetation and climate have often been
combined to forr,1 "natural" regions. A grand scheme of natural regions on
a global scale, by combining single-feature regions of important physical
determinants of plant and animal life, was proposed by A.J. Herbertson in
1905. Herbertson's scheme of natural regions became an important tool in
the teaching of geography in the educational institutions in Britain and the
other countries of the British Commonwealth (as it was then called). In the
course of time the so-c_alled natural regions (subsequently called "major
regions") taught in the school, became established in the students' mind as

accepted fact.
As discussed previously, Herbertson's scheme of natural regions
was greatly influenced by belief in the principles of vitalist biology. It
is true, that Herbertson himself did not devote much attention to the
human geography of his regions, but the following statement in his 1905
presentation clearly suggested that the natural regions proposed by him
could provide a useful background to the study of human groups inhabiting
them:
By comparing the histories of the same race in two different regions; or
of a succession of races in the same region, it should be possible to arrive
at some knowledge of the invariable effect of a type of environment on
its inhabitants and permit some estimation of the non-environmental
factors in human development.
Thus, those who used his scheme of regions, generally stepped forward
to prove covariance between human geographical differences in relation to
differences in the natural habitat. Thereby each natural region came to be
regarded by the student as the location (and cause) of a certain definite
way of life, so that the role of non-physical factors such as migration,
history, and tradition was completely overlooked, and geography assumed
a deterministic posture. Many students of regional geography tried to make
"the natural region serve as the plaster cast of a specific kind of human
economy" (Kimble, 1951, p. 153).
In 1913, Herbertson restated his ideas in a paper entitled: "Higher
Units: A Geographical Essay" (reprinted in Geography in 1965, pp. 332-342).
(Excerpts from this as well as another of his papers entitled: "Regional
Environment, Heredity, and Consciousness" [Geography, 1915, pp. 147-153]
are reproduced in Dickinson, 1976). According to Dickinson (1976), the
1915 paper of Herbertson revealed a clear departure from the naive
assumptions of environmental determinism of social Darwinism, in that
Herbertson envisioned regions as living wholes of different orders, from a
local to a worldwide scale. According to Herbertson, "The separation of
the whole into man and his environment is a murderous act. There are no
men apart from their environme11t".
Herbertson's suggestion that his scheme of natural regions could be
used as the basis for the study of human groups in specific regions, was
given focused attention by another British geographer, J.F. Unstead (1916).
Unstead suggested that any scheme of natural regions should be based on
a combination of physical and cultural features. Through a series of papers
Unstead extended this idea further. His effort culminated in a broad-based
system of geographical regions published in 1933. The paper suggested a
hierarchy of regions with a view to "study the interactions of the various
components of the great macroorganism of the earth and its inhabitants".
As Hall noted, while not being avowedly deterministic, Unstead's pap er
"certainly pointed the way to a concept of the geographic region as being
an area where society had adjusted to the local environment and where
there was consequently homogeneity of both physical and cultural features"

(Hall, 1937, paraphrased in Grigg, 1967, p. 469).
Unstead's scheme of regions was synthetic in approach, as contrasted
to the analytical scheme of Herbertson. According to Unstead, regions could
be defined into different degrees of generalization, so that one could start
with the smallest unit area of observation, and move on progressively to
higher level regions. He suggested the te111, "stow" to represent the smallest
unit area, and "tract" for a contiguous group of interrelated stows. (The
tract was roughly equivalent to the French pays.) Tracts could be combined
to create subregions, minor regions, and major regions.
A major difficulty with Unstead's (indeed with any synthetic scheme
of hierarchy of regions) is the concept of a uniform unit of area-a stow.
As James (1972) wrote,
it is clear that stow is only indivisible because it is so conceived by the
observer: actually it is necessary to start with the observable fact that
no two microscopic points on the face of the earth are identical and that
any area enclosed by a line and described as homogeneous is only
homogeneous with respect to the selected features. The face of the earth
is an intricate system of interconnected features that forms a continuum
of varying aspects. Regions are defined and drawn to illuminate some
aspect of the problems geographers are concerned about; and in fact, it
would be impossible to reach any comprehension of the earth's surface
without recognizing areas of partial homogeneity .... The difficulty arises
when the region is identified as a unit area, an indivisible segment of
space. If the geographer were reduced to the size of an ant, he would
start subdividing the indivisible stow Games, 1972, pp. 269-270).
James was referring, in this passage, to Linton's (1951) suggestion to
begin with a still smaller primary unit.
Concept of Region in French Geography

Herbertson as well as Unstead had, each in varying degree, got trapped in
the deterministic theory maintaining that the way people live is a reflection
of their natural surroundings. The result was that the followers of their
schemes of regions were led on to recognize homogeneous associations of
physical and human factors in particular regions. However, such a tendency
was avoided in the French school of regional geography. The French
geographers, in line with the lead given by Paul Vidal de la Blache, defined
their regions in terms of genre de vie. The region was defined as:
A unified, functionally organized pattern of living, characteristic of certain
culture or livelihood group ...in which livelihood is seen as the core around
which a whole nexus of physical, social and psychological bonds develops
(Billinge, 1981).
In his scheme of geography Blache asserted that human occupance
creates homogeneity even where natural features are not homogeneous.
He drew attention to the fact that the same environment frequently leads
to different responses from people with different genre de vie, since the
complex of institutions, traditions, attitudes and technical skills which make

up a genre de vie largely determine which of the many possibilities offered
by nature in any given area shall be selected for development.
The Logic of Regional Systems

Regionalization in geography has for a long time been recognized as a
form of classification (or division), but not until the late 1950s was the
similarity between regionalization and scientific procedures of classification
and division explicitly underlined. Such a recognition came as a by-product
of the general call in favour of adopting quantification and statistical
techniques of analysis, so that writing on "Statistical Methods in Geographical
Research", Reynolds (1956) noted that "the definition of regions is essentially
a classification process". Bunge (1962), De Jong (1962), and especially Grigg
(1965 and 1967) had offered further clarifications on the issues involved.
The work of Grigg is the basis of much of the discussion that follows.
Classification consists of grouping of objects into classes (or categories)
on the basis of certain common property possessed by all the members of
a class, or on the basis of some specified relationship obtaining between
the objects under investigation. In the terminology of science, the objects
being classified are called the individuals, and the totality of individuals
under classification is named as the universe or the population. In the first
stage of classification, one particular property that is possessed by all the
members of the population in greater or smaller degree, is selected to serve
as the basis of classification. Such a property is known as the differentiating
characteristic. When grouping into classes is done on the basis of some
similarity between objects under classification, the procedure is known as
association uy similarity. However, when the grouping is based on certain
specified relationships between interconnected objects of different origins,
the procedure is known as association by contiguity.
Association by contiguity ...is a structural and functional relationship
amongst things that ... may be quite dissimilar, or in any event their
similarity is irrelevant. Such, for instance, is the relationship between a
plant and the soil in which it grows, between a rabbit and the fox that
pursues it, between the separate organs that compose an organism,
amongst all the trees of a forest.... Things in this relationship to each
other belong both structurally and functionally to what may be defined
in a broad but technical sense as a single system (Simpson, 1961, p. 3).
On the basis of the selected differentiating characteristic, individuals
are initially grouped into a number of classes. All classes at the same level
are called a set of classes or categories. Such a first order grouping into
classes may be repeated to obtain a hierarchy of classes. A procedure closely
allied to classification is logical division. Whereas in classification individuals
are grouped into classes and classes are regrouped into super classes, in
the case of logical division, an initial class is taken as the universe, and it
is divided into subclasses on the basis of some logical principle. In the case
of logical division the universe we begin with is called the genus, which
may be divided into species on the basis of some specified principle. The
constituent species occurring at the same level are similar to a category of
classes. The procedure may be carried further in order to arrive at a hierarchy
of classes. Thus, in logical division, although we arrive at results similar to
classification, the process is reversed: Instead of seeking similarities, we
look for differences, and instead of building up, we are involved in breaking
down.
A special case of logical division is dichotomous division, where the purpose
is not to form a hierarchy of species but to isolate single species. Thus,
for example, land may be divided into arable land and non-arable land.
Arable land is then divided into grain crops and non-grain crops, further
division divided grain crops into wheat and non-wheat, and we have
thus isolated wheat as a species (Grigg, 1967, p. 481).
The two processes, of classification and division, can be equated with
the two basic approaches to acquiring knowledge: the inductive and the
deductive. This has been recognized by geographers for a long time, so that
Whittlesey (1954, pp. 38-39) wrote that we could arrive at regional systems
either by aggregation or subdivision. The difference between the two procedures
was most clearly underlined by Unstead (1916, pp. 236-241) who described
his own system of regions as synthetic, as contrasted to Herbertson's method
which was analytical in design, wherein the researcher started with the
world as a whole, which was then divided into smaller order regions.
Synthetic regionalization is analogous to classification, and analytical
regionalization to division. As noted previously, classification may be done
either on the basis of similarity or on the basis of a specified relationship
obtaining between objects of dissimilar origins existing together. As Grigg
noted, this difference is analogous to the distinction between the uniform
and the nodal region:
the delimitation of a single region, where we are isolating a particular
area from the rest of the world (universe under reference) is analogous
to dichotomous division. On the other hand, the generic region wherein we
create a system of regions (a set of coordinate classes) is equivalent to
normal classification and division. The single region is then a special
case of areal classification (Grigg, 1967, pp. 482-483).
Classification, however, is a necessary first step in scientific research, for
If each of the many things in the world were taken as distinct, unique,
a thing in itself unrelated to any other thing, perception of the world
would disintegrate into complete meaninglessness (Simpson, 1961, p. 2).
The purpose of classification is to give order to the universe of objects
studied. Classification helps the researcher in giving a name to things
possessing set characteristics, and thereby in transmitting information, and
making inductive generalization.
Are regions areal classes? Starting with Hettner, many geographers have
shown awareness of the scientific procedures of classification and division
(Hartshorne, 1939, pp. 290-306), but the closest comparison between

classification in science and regionalization in geography was first made
by Bunge (1962, pp. 14-22), who argued that in geographical regionalization
the individual is represented by "place"; and we refer to property of places
as elements whereas the differentiating characteristics are called criteria. Places
are grouped to create regions or areal classes. To Bunge, the similarity
between regionalization and scientific classification appeared so close that
he declared: "geographers have independently rediscovered the entire logic
of classification systems".
Principles of Regionalization
As Grigg (1965) wrote:
whereas many regional systems have been devised by geographers there
have been relatively few attempts to suggest any principles of regional
division. By principle we mean procedures which should be followed in
constructing any system of regions, and which would be as applicable to
a division of the whole world as for a country, and for agricultural regions
or climatic regions as much as, say, religious regions.
Since regionalization is akin to scientific procedures of classification
and division, the principles of classification and division may be fruitfully
applied in the construction of regional systems. Grigg enumerated these
principles as follows:
1. Classification should be designed for a specific purpose; it rarely serves
two different purposes equally well. Purpose determines the differentiating
criterion selected, and the number of regions delimited. Thus a set of soil
regions based upon properties such as colour and texture shall not necessarily
be a reliable guide to regional variety in soil productivity.
2. There exist differences in kind between objects; objects which differ in
kind shnll not easily fit into the same system of classification. Titls is a fundamental
principle of taxonomy. Thus, stones and animals, being different in kind,
cannot be put under the same classification system. In geography, land and
sea differ in kind, so that they are seldom included in the same system of
regionalization. As James (1952) noted, any attempt to define regions based
on phenomena produced by a variety of different processes could lead to
serious errors of interpretation, so that "We may find ourselves trying to
add things like cabbages and kings".
This principle shall not, however, apply to the cases of classification
based on the criteria of association, such as the case of ecological
classifications, where forms of life animals and plants-may be classified
on the basis of their habitat. This is also true in the case of systems of
geographical regions and the general-purpose regions devised by human
ecologists.
3. Classifications are not absolute; they require to be changed as new
iriformation becomes ,available about the object being classified. Owing to this,
"almost eve ry classification which is proposed in the early stage of a science

will be found to break down as deeper similarities of objects come to be
observed" (Jevons, 1887). For geography the lesson is obvious: We must
keep updating the regional systems used in our teaching programmes,
such as Herbertson's model of major regions, or Whittlesey's scheme of
agricultural regions each needs a thorough review. The problem is all the
more urgent because many regional systems used by geographers are often
borrowed from other sciences. This is particularly true of soil and vegetation
systems and it is not always clear whether the criteria used were the most
recently developed or whether they are necessarily suited to the geographer's
purpose. Thus, a map of soil regions where the classification is based upon
soil genesis may not be the most suitable if the geographer is considering
the relationship between soil and landuse {Grigg, 1967).
4. Classification of any group of objects should be based upon properties of
those objects. In other words, the differentiating characteristics used should represent
properties of the objects being classed. This has been frequently overlooked in
a host of geographical classifications. For example, attempts have been
made to delimit agricultural regions not by properties of the system of
farming in practice, but by factors which are supposed to cause the observed
differences in farming systems (such as, differences in soils and climate).
5. When dividing, the division should be exhaustive, and the classes formed
should exclude each other. For instance, if one were to group people of the
world into the following four classes: Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, and European;
the four classes are neither exhaustive nor do they exclude each other since
one may be European and Muslim or Jewish at the same time. In the case
of geographical regionalization, this rule means that if an area is to be
divided into regions then all parts of the area must be assigned to some
region, and each to one region only.
6. When dividing, the division should proceed at every stage, and as far as
possible, throughout upon one principle. In any regional system, regions of the
same order should be based upon the same property or some degree of
variation of the same property. Thus, a system of climatic regions can
logically be based upon variations in annual and seasonal incidence of
rainfall, or in the rate of evapotranspiration, or any other significant element
of climate. It will be illogical if one were to mix up different unrelated
elements and divide a country into, say, the Dry East, the Industrial West,
the Highly Populated South, and the Mountainous North.
7. The differentiating characteristic, or the principle of division, must be
important for the purpose of division. The differentiating characteristic should
be so chosen as to be of help in understanding the distributional pattern
in question, or the spatial relationships of the object or the problem being
investigated. For this reason, a regional system devised for one purpose may not
serve another purpose equally well.
8. Properties which are used to divide or classify in the case of higher order
categories must be more important for the purpose of division than the ones used
to divide lower order categories. In geography, most of our regional systems

consist of regions of a single order only. Examples of a carefully designed
hierarchy of regions, such as the one proposed by Philbrick (1957), are rare .
This principle of regionalization implies that
The initial division should always be upon the principle which is most
important to the purpose of the division. It is not unusual to find this
rule neglected in elementary regional geographies. Thus we may find
that western Europe is divided into a few major regions upon the basis
of physiography, and then subdivided by vegetation and further
subdivided on the basis of occupational structure. Such a procedure often
means that the lower order regions, which are invariably the most
important units of description, separate similar areas simply because
they have been earlier divided on the basis of physiography, which
is largely irrelevant to the purpose of lower order regions (Grigg, 1967,
p. 489).
REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
The chorological concept of geography focused on the study of the earth's
surface in terms of variations between areas (later named areal
differentiation), was originally developed by Richthofen (1883) and
subsequently advanced by Heitner in Ger111any. It was popularized and
raised to the level of the dominant concept of geography in the English
speaking world through Hartshorne' s monumental Nature of Geography
(1939). A strong tradition of regional geography had already developed in
France under the leadership of Paul Vidal de la Blache. Indeed regional
geography reigned supreme in the world of geographical scholarship until
the early 1950s, after which the regional paradigm for comprehending the
earth as the world of man began, starting with Schaefer (1953), to be attacked
as one that propagated "exceptionalism" and "idiography" in the discipline
and thereby led the geographer away from the fundamental goal of science,
i.e., the search for general principles of behaviour. A few years earlier,
Kimble (1951) had condemned the concept of region as an eighteenth century
concept. Kimble maintained that "it is links in the landscape ... rather than
the breaks that impress" the scientific mind. Bunge (1966) was convinced
that the regionalists' error lay in their "notion of the uniqueness of location",
owing to which they emphasized exceptions rather than similarities between
places and locations. Coupled with this was a general impression that the
French tradition of viewing the region as an ecological unit for the analysis
of human groups was no longer relevant to the study of places and regions
in the post-Industrial Revolution societies like those in Europe. All this
contributed to a widespread retreat from regional geography. This meant
the "eclipse of a traditional component of geograph,Y which was until recently
widely considered a sine qua non of the discipline" (Guelke, 1977).
The reason why regional geography at rnidtwentieth century had such
a hostile reception may have been partly owing to the fact that "the people
who write regional geography are not the same people who write about
regional geography", wrote Paterson, who defined regional geography as

"the work in which the purpose of the study is to clarify a specific situation
in a particular locality; in which, in other words, attention is focused upon
the region for its own sake and of its inhabitants" (Paterson, 1974, p. 4). As
a practising regional geographer, Paterson made a strong plea for regional
geography. Referring to Wrigley's foregoing comments, Paterson noted that
it is curious ... to argue that, with the overriding of local differences [in a
market economy], all places have now in effect become the same place,
and so the whole exercise of regional analysis should be abandoned. All
places are manifestly not the same place, chemical fertilizers notwith
standing (p. 16).
Paterson underlined that the changes brought about by the Industrial
Revolution affected the scale and range of interpretative factors rather than
the process of interpretation itself:
Formerly, the geographer may have been preoccupied with local
correlations .... Now he is increasingly likely to be concerned with national,
if not international, influences and effects. So long as there are contrasts
between region and region, no matter to what they are attributable, there
is work for the geographer to do (Paterson, 1974, p. 16).
A beneficial outcome of the post-Second World War trend in favour
of interdisciplinary programmes of area studies in close association with
geography, especially in North America, was that it conferred on regional
work in geography a new measure of reality, in that the geographer studying
a particular area was no longer required to master all aspects of the area
under investigation-since other experts were at hand-so that the
geographer could now concentrate more on "regional analysis" as the special
area of his expertise. Relieved of this unnecessary burden, geographers
were now encouraged to widen the scope of regional analysis to include
new themes of research, such as literature, law, religion, and architecture.
During the period between 1930 and 1960, regional geography had
expanded its vision to incorporate historical geographical studies involving
reconstruction of the past geographies of particular areas. Likewise, perceptual
studies also acted as a significant multiplier on the scope and content
of regional geography in the 1960s and the 1970s. As a result, "the
unidimensional regional study, the region as it is today, has been expanded
into two new dimensions, past or present, as perceived by the observer
rather than as its own object self" (Paterson, op. cit., p. 17). The concept of
region had received a new appraisal following the rise of behavioural and
humanistic studies in the discipline.
It would appear, that the very words "region" and "regional" have
been misunderstood, and so too is regional geography as traditionally
practised and taught; so that Mead (1980) felt that perhaps it should never
have been called regional geography, but simply "the geography of other
lands", which needs to be projected at certain educational levels as a
pedagogical necessity, since: "Adventurous human contact with the strange,
the unfamiliar, the exotic, the dramatic remain central to the appeal of
geography in the schoolroom-and it is in the schoolroom that most
geographers are born".
Since regional feeling among groups of people today is as widespread
as ever, the regional approach to analysis and resolution of problems
continues to be of great relevance to the understanding of social relations.
The functional region and the developmental region may have replaced
the traditional region as frameworks of enquiry, but they too proclaim
that, in one way or another, the regional concept today is very much
alive. Emotion that prevails over reason and the myth that takes over
reality are as significant today [as ever before] .... Change is generated
by spiritual forces as well as by technical.Poets, philosophers, and artists
continue to play a role in creating regional feeling. Historical experience
suggests that what begins as poetry often finishes as politics (Mead,
1980, pp. 293-294).
The charge that regional geography is essentially concerned with the
study of the unique cannot be fully denied, even though regions may, in
some ways, be viewed as individual cases. But, as Paterson (1974, p. 22)
wrote,
this is a charge that should be readily admitted: it is indeed a concern for
the unique, but only in the sense that we have one world, and one only,
and most of its inhabitants have in it only one home. Beyond that concern
for the unique, the regional geographer will be attentive to the application
of any and every finding of his non-regional colleagues to a specific
situation; in fact he will want to insist that only when hypotheses have
been tested in specific regional contexts, by specialists in those regions,
are they worthy of acceptance.
Regional Geography and Regional Science

Until the 1950s, regional economics was descriptive and non-theoretical,
the mainstream economic theory was highly aspatial while human geography
was positively anti-theoretical; so that location theory continued to be a
highly underdeveloped field of study. Dissatisfaction with the prevailing
state of affairs prompted American economist Walter Isard to propose a
new discipline called Regional Science, which was created to serve as a
bridge discipline linking economics, geography, and planning with a view
to promoting a more sophisticated theoretical and quantitative analysis of
regional economies and the related problems. The Regional Science
Association was founded in December 1954, and branches of the Association
were soon started in other countries in the 1960s by which time the discipline,
under the leadership of Isard, had gained considerable respectability.
Regional science helped greatly to rejuvenate the study of regional economics,
and it left considerable impact on the study of human geography which at
that time was deeply involved in looking for ways and means for gaining
scientific respectability through the introduction of quantitative techniques
of analysis and model building. Most of the leading lights of the quantitative
_ revolution in geography in the 1960s and early 1970s were closely associated
with regional science, which had become a major source for many fresh
ideas and insights, particularly in the fields of economic and urban
geography. This had led many geographers to
assume that regional science is what regional geographers should have
been doing all along ... , would now be doing if its complexities were not
beyond them; in other words, that the regional geographer is a failed
regional scientist, ...and that the relationship between the two workers is
approximately that of an operative in a textile mill to the hand.loom
weaver whom he has displaced and superseded (Paterson, 1974, p. 20).
Part of the problem lay in that in the formative period of geography
as a field of professional inquiry, regional geographers were required to
work for a wide range of purposes starting from topographic description,
and landscape analysis to regional planning, at one and the same time, so
that many of the regional geographical studies proved unsatisfactory on
every count. Late in the 1950s there came some measure of division of
labour between regional geography and regional science. We may briefly
underline here the basic difference in the perspectives of the two fields of
study.
As Paterson wrote,
Regional science is concerned to evolve a body of theory about inte r - and
intra-regional relationships which may be used to solve specific problems
in decision-making. It is, in this sense, problem-oriented, which means
that it is by nature forward-looking and precise.
Regional geography need not be any of these things:
Its goals are general rather than specific; it is not primarily problem
oriented but concerned to provide balanced coverage, and its aims are
popular and educational. Such relevance as it possesses it gains by its
appeal, at the lowest educational level, to the two universal l1uman
responses of wonder and concern-that is, wonder about the nature and
range of the earth phenomena and concern about the life of those whose
circumstances differ from our own.
At higher levels, regional geography
builds on the less universal, but still strongly developed, faculty which
John Betjeman has called "topographic predilection"-attachment to
particular places or, even more simply, the recognition that not all places
are the same place, and that in that fact lies their interest (Paterson,
op. cit., p. 21).
THE GRIGG-BUNGE DEBATE (1966): "THE ONE AND THE ONLY

REVOLUTION IN GEOGRAPHY"
The Quantitative Revolution in geography-which, Burton (1963) wrote
had reached its culmination during the period from 1957 to 1960�·was
THE REGIONAL CONCEPT AND REGIONAL GEOGR,.\PHY 201
over by early 1960s in the sense that by that time (Burton added) accepted
ideas had been overthrown or modified to include new ones, so that the
revolutionary ideas had themselves become part of conventional wisdom.
Quantitative revolution was claimed to have brought about a radical
transformation of the spirit and purpose of geography. It was in the midst
of such intellectual ferment that Grigg's paper on the logic of regional
systems appeared in the Annals, A.A.G. By this time, geography had started
moving away from the exceptionalist position of Heitner and Hartshorne,
and geographers in ever-increasing numbers were using the general approach
of the hypothetico-deductive methodology of science. James Bird (1989,
p. 11) has identified June 1966 as the date representing "the last straw,
when the last idiographic bastion in geography was overthrown-the
destruction of the idea that locations could never be anything but unique".
According to Bird, this event of transformation was occasioned by Grigg's
attempt to deal with the problem of regionalization on scientific lines.
Grigg maintained that "all parts of the earth's surface are unique",
and that "classification and regionalization obscure this fundamental fact";
so that, he added, "All locations are unique by definition, hence whereas
location can be a property, it cannot be a differentiating characteristic''.
Thus, notwithstanding his exposure of similarities between regionalization
in geography and the process of classification in the sciences, Grigg's
perspective on the region was very much in line with the idiographic
chorological perspective of Heitner and Hartshorne. The disciplinary
implication of such a view was that: "if it is held that geography includes
the study of location of its data and that 'locations are unique', then
geography cannot fully employ the scientific method" (Bird, 1989, p. 12;
see also Dikshit, 1994, Chapter 12).
Commenting upon Grigg's paper, Bunge asserted that "locations are
not unique", and that locations are indeed "general" and they are
"comparable" as the frequent use of terms such as "near", "far", "close",
"distant" and "adjacent" would show. These terms emphasize "relativity
of location" which implies their comparability. Clarifying the point further,
Bunge stated that geographical locations are unique only in the sense that
no two things in the real world are exactly alike. To admit that no two
things are identical, that is, have everything in common, in no way
contradicts the statement that these objects may have much in common;
and added that

science is the deadly enemy of uniqueness (Bunge, Annals, A.A.G., June
1966, pp. 375-376).
In his response to Bunge's comment, Grigg (1966), while still insisting
on the essential uniqueness of locations, conceded, nevertheless, that
"locations are essentially relative". Thus, according to Bird (1989, pp. 12-13):
Here was encapsulated the one and the only Revolution in geography,
because tjle data studied were henceforth not held to be always discretely
differentiated in space and possessed of unavoidable qualities of total

uniqueness .... June 1966 was the apogee of the view that geography
could employ the methods of science because there was no longer any
inherent quality in its data that prevented it from so doing ... [Bunge's]
1966 commentary... symbolized the one and the only revolutionary change,
for henceforth it would be a case of constant revision [in the true spirit
of science].
REFERENCES
Abler, R.F., Adams, J.S. and Gould, P.R. (1971), Spatial Organization: The
Geographer's View of the World, Englewood Cliffs (N.J.): Prentice Hall.
Billinge, M., (1981), Genre de vie, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Haggett, P.,
Smith D. and Stoddart, D.R. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography,
1st ed., pp. 131-132, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Billinge, M., Gregory, D. and Martin, R.L. (1984), Reconstructions, in Billinge,
Gregory and Martin (Eds.), Recollections of a Revolution: Geography as
Spatial Science, London: Macmillan.
Bird, J.H. (1989), The Changing World of Geography: A Critical Guide to Concepts
and Methods, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bunge, W. (1962), Theoretical Geography, Lund Series in Geography, Series
Cl, Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 2nd ed., 1966.
(1966), Locations are not unique (Commentary), Annals of the
Burton, I. (1963), The Quantitative Revolution and Theoretical Geography,
Chisholm, M. (1975), Human Geography: Evolution or Revolution?,
Hammondsworth: Penguin Books.
De Jong, G. (1962), Chorological Differentiation as the Fundamental Principle of
Geography: An Inquiry into the Chorological Conception of Geography,
Griningen, The Netherland: J.B. Wolters.
Dickinson, R.E. (1947), City Region and Regionalism: A Geographical Contribution
to Human Ecology, London: Kegan Paul Trench and Trubner.
___ (1969), Makers of Modem Geography, London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
_ __ (1976), Regional Concept: Anglo-American Leaders, London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul.
Dikshit, R.D. (Ed.) (1994), Art and Science of Geography, New Delhi: Prentice
Hall of India.
East, W.G. (1967), "Editorial Preface" to Minshull, R., Regional Geography,
London: Hutchinson University Library, pp. 9-11.
Fleure, H.J. (1952), Later Developments in Herbertson's Thought: A study
in application of Darwinian ideas, Geography, vol. 37, pp. 97-103.
THE REGIONAL CONCEPT ANO REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY 203
Gregory, D. (1981), Region, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D., Haggett, P., Smith
D. and Stoddart, D.R. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, 1st
ed., pp. 284-285, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Grigg, D. (1965), The logic of regional systems, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, vol. 55, pp. 465--491.
(1966), Comment in reply, Annals of the Association of American
___ (1967), Regions, Models and Classes, in Chorley, R.J. and Haggett,
P. (Eds.), Models in Geography, London: Methuen, pp. 461-509.
Guelke, L. (1977), Regional geography, The Professional Geographer, vol. 29,
pp. 1-7.
Hall, R.B. (1937), Tokaido road and region, Geographical Review, vol. 27,
pp. 353-377.
Hartshorne, R. (1939), Nature of geography, Lancaster (PA): Association of
Herbertson, A.J. (1905), The major natural regions: An essay in systematic
geography, Geographical Journal, vol. 25, pp. 300-312.
___ (1913/1965), Higher units: A geographical essay, Geography,
originally published in 1913, Reprinted 1965, vol. 40, pp. 332-342.
(1915), Regional environment, heredity and consciousness
Geographical Teacher, pp. 147-153.
Heitner, A. (1927), Die Geographie-Ihre Geschichte, ihr Wesen, und ihre
Methoden, Breslau: F erdinand Hirt.
James, P.E. (1952), Toward a further understanding of the regional concept,
(1972), All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas,
James, P.E. and Jones, C.F. (1954), American Geography: Inventory and Prospect,
Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Kimble, G.H.T. (1951), Inadequacy of the regional concept, in Stamp, L.D.
and Wooldridge, S.W. (Eds.), London Essays in Geography, pp. 151-174,
Cambridge (Mass.): Harv.ard University Press.
Linton, D.L. (1951), The delimitation of morphological regions, in
Stamp, L.D. and Wooldridge, S.W. (Eds.), London Essays in Geography,
pp. 199-217.
Mead, W.R. (1980), Regional geography, in Brown, E.H. (Ed.), Geography,
Yesterday and Tomorrow, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 292-303.
Minshull, R.M. (1967), Regional Geography: Theory and Practice, London:
Hutchinson University Library.
(1970), The Changing Nature of Geography, London: Hutchinson
University Library.
204 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS
Paterson, J.H. (1974), Writing regional geography, in Board, C. et al. (Eds.),

Progress in Geography, vol. 6, pp. 1-26, London: Edward Arnold.
Philbrick, A.K. (1957), Principles of areal functional organization in regional
human geography, Economic Geography, vol. 33, pp. 299-366.
Reynolds, R.B. (1956), Statistical methods in geographical research,
Sauer, C.O. (1925), The Morphology of Landscape, University of California
Publications in Geography, No. 2, pp. 19-54.
pp. 226-249.
Simpson, G.G. (1961), Principles ofAnimal Taxonomy, Oxford (cited in Grigg,
D., 1967).
Unstead, J.F. (1916), A synthetic method for determining geographical
regions; Geographical Journal, vol. 48, pp. 230-249.
Unstead, J.F. et al (1933), Classification of regions of the world, Geography,
vol. 22.. pp. 253-282.
•
Whittlesey, D. (1954), The regional concept and the regional method, in
James, P.E. and Jones, C.F. (Eds.), American Geography: Inventory and
Prospect, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, pp. 19-69.
___ (1956), Southern Rhodesia-An African compage, Annals of the
•
Wooldridge, S.W. (1956), The Geographer as a Scientist, London: Thomas

Nelson.
Wooldridge, S.W. and East, W.G. (1958), The Spirit and Purpose of Geography,
London: Hutchinson University Library.
Wrigley, E.A. (1965), Changes in the philosophy of geography, in Chorley,
R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.), Frontiers of Geographical Teaching, London:
Methuen, pp. 3-24.
9
The Historical Explanation
in Geography
THE ROLE OF TIME AND GENESIS IN GEOGRAPHY

A close relationship between history and geography has long been
recognized; for according to Heylyn (1621): "As Geographie without Histoire
has life and motione but at randome, and unstable: so Histoire without
Geographie like a dead caracasse hath neither life nor motion at all".
However, owing to the fact that throughout the twentieth century academic
geography has remained dominated by a non-temporal regional approach
patterned upon the Kantian view of geography, which scholars at that time
had interpreted to mean that geography and history are methodologically
different from the other sciences in that the two are peculiarly concerned
with the study of the unique and the particular-and that unlike the
systematic sciences, geography (like history) is a discipline defined in terms
of the method of study rather than by the subject matter studied and
analysed: History analyses facts as they are re.lated through time; whereas
geography is concerned with the study of phenomena related across space.
Geographers viewed the two disciplines as separate from and unrelated to
each other. This so-called regionalist/ exceptionalist view of geography,
pioneered in Germany by Hettner in the beginning of the twentieth century,
had through Hartshorne' s Nature of Geo graphy (1939) become the dominant
concept of the discipline in the English-speaking world until well after the
Second World War. Paraphrasing Hellner, Hartshorne (1939, p. 184) wrote:
geography is a field of learning for which "time in general steps into the
background ... geography does not follow the course of time as such...
but lays a limited cross-section through a particular point of time and
draws on temporal development only to explain the situation in the time
chosen". This one particular time should be short enough so that within
it there are no major changes disrupting the cross-section .... "Geography
requires the genetic concept but .it may not become history".
Contemporary geographers as regional analysts interpreted this line
of difference between history and geography, between space and time,
rather rigidly.
The legacy of such an interpretation of Kant's view of the classification
of sciences and the place of geography in it, was that:
205
1. Geography began to be treated as an autonomous discipline, a

branch of knowledge that pursued a course of development separate from
(and in isolation from) the other fields of knowledge. Such a notion of
science and geography was largely responsible for the failure of geography
to develop close links with the other branches of knowledge.
2. Geography as a discipline began to be identified with an exclusive
concern with space (the earth's surface); a concern which, under Heitner
and Hartshorne, had concretized into an exclusive focus on the study of
regions in terms of areal differentiation.
3. Geography and history came to be regarded as two entirely unrelated
and fully autonomous disciplines. There was, therefore, an inevitable parting
of ways between time and space, and between region and process so that
geography, in the first half of the twentieth century, and still later, neglected
time.
Beginning with Schaefer's (1953) paper, the Heitner-Hartshorne view
of geography as chorology focused on the study of areal differentiation,
was branded as the "exceptionalist" view of the discipline, one that
encouraged idiography and thereby led the discipline away from the path
of theory and generalization, the basic purpose of all sciences. Schaefer's
paper had appeared at a time when there was a general rise in scientific
temper, so that Schaefer's plea in favour of establishing geography as
preeminently the science of spatial analysis in search of pattern laws had
fallen on sympathetic ears. The new generation of geographers had become
disenchanted with the regional paradigm in geography-focused on "areal
analysis", and, therefore, essentially descriptive in approach. By the mid-
1950s, the regional paradigm in geography began to be abandoned in favour
of geography as "spatial analysis". Such a shift in perspective involved
change in emphasis from area to space, from description to analysis, and from
the idiographic to the nomothetic perspective. It also involved changeover to
the scientific methodology in the form of increased recourse to the
quantitative mode of analysis. The new geographers turned spatial scientists,
in the 1960s, "focused upon static patterns. The statistical techniques required
to operationalize diachronic models are much more complicated than those
used in synchronic models, and the power to predict diminishes rapidly
with each step through time" (Prince, 1980, p. 230).
Spatial scientists of the1960s regarded the historical method as
essentially empirical and idiographic·-one concerned with the understanding
of unique events and phenomena so that the transition from the regional
to the spatial paradigm provided little stimulus to the flowering of the
historical/temporal perspective in geography. Schaefer's paper itself had
emphasized the nontemporal character of geography. Despite the chorologists
and spatial scientists, the importance of historical thinking in geography
and the value of the temporal perspective has long been recognised as
essential to the understanding of places and landscapes. So long as
geographers remain concerned with the study of places-what they are
THE HISTORICAL EXPLANATION IN GEOGRAPHY 207
like, how they differ from each other, and how one part of the earth space
is related to others-they need to know how these places came to be what
they are today. A historical perspective may also be required to the
understanding of why things are where they are (Smith, 1965). Geographical
research often calls for simultaneous application of the functional as well
as temporal perspective in the understanding of reality, since the being and
the becoming of places are intimately interrelated.
Clarifying his methodological stand in regard to "Time and Genesis
in Geography" (under the chorological persuasion, which had contributed
to restricting the study of regions to the "present"), Hartshorne (1959,
pp. 82-84) had distinguished four different ways in which the study of
time is of concern to the geographer:
•
1. The cross-section which geography cuts through the dimension of
time must ... have certain thickness, or duration, to provide a representative
picture of the existing situations. It is consistent with common usage to
refer to such p€riod as "the present" although even the last immediate
moment was in fact in the past.
(How far back in history one needs to go shall depend on the nature of the
problem (or the phenomenon) being investigated.)
2. Geography is the study of both "being" as well as "becoming" of
places on the earth's surface as the world of man. Since the phenomena
that geographers study are often subject to cumulative changes over time:
The full description of the geography of an area "as it is" ...must include
description of the direction and rapidity of change. To determine present
trends requires examination of the course of change over a period of the
past commonly longer than that required to measure the other
characteristics of the present.
3. In geography we are often required to study phenomena which are
results of the relationships established some time in the past when at least
some of the phenomena were quite different in character. Geographers are,
therefore, required to use historical materials in order that the present-day
character and distributional patterns of the objects being studied are placed
in proper perspective. Indeed, Ritter had underlined the value of the historical
perspective in geography long ago in his celebrated lecture on "The Historical
Element in Geography". Thus, according to Hartshorne:
The so-called static theory, that geography could explain existing
phenomena solely in terms of contemporary conditions, is an invention
of the critics who attack it. In fighting this windmill they lose sight of the
valid issues: the question of how far back in the past it is necessary or
desirable to investigate the development of the present features, and the
degree to which geographic studies of the present should be organized
in historical sequence.
4. In regard to genetic studies in geography, Hartshorne wrote:
A somewhat different issue is raised by studies which seek to explain,
not the integration of phenomena, but the origin and development of
individual features in present geography of an area. Such genetic studies,

reaching infinitely back in time, focus on the causes of development of
particular kinds of features, and are considered by many as more closely
e,related to the systematic sciences or to history than to geography.
(This may, however, be no valid reason for excluding such studies from the
domain of geography since the geographer, like any other scientist, should
be free to contribute his share to the extension of the frontiers of knowledge;
and disciplinary boundaries should not be allowed to create barriers in this
regard. As a professional, however, the geographer must keep his vision
closely focused on space relations.)
Finally, geographers study the past not only as "the key to the present",
but also (and more importantly ) in terms of the geographic content of each
past period since:
Each past period had its own present geography, and the comparative
study of different geographies through successive periods of time depicts
the changing geography of an area. Thereby the historical dimension of
time is combined with dimension of space....
wrote Hartshorne (1959) who regarded such studies to constitute the domain
of historical geography as a special branch of geography.
MAJOR AREAS OF TEMPORAL EXPLANATION IN GEOGRAPHY

The main areas of geographic research specifically involving the study of
change through time are: cultural geography, innovation diffusion, time
geography, and the process-form approach to explanation. A brief
introduction to each is given below:
1. In cultural geography the principal area of interest where historical
explanation plays a dominant role is the study of the landscape . The cultural
landscape in any area embodies "a heritage of many eras of natural evolution
and many generations of human effort" . Indeed, "behind most cultural
areas of today lies a long succession of different cultures and cultural
development" (Wagner and Mikesell, 1962, pp. 11-13). The study of the
cultural landscape was a major focus of study in human geography in
North America under the leadership of Carl Sauer at the University of
California at Berkeley. The historical perspective was so deeply involved in
the study of landscape by Sauer and the members of his Berkeley School,
that "the study of landscape might be most correctly identified as cultural
historical geography" (Norton, 1984, p . 2 1).
2. The study of innovation diffusion-which may be defined as the
spread of any phenomenon over space through time was an important
component of traditional cultural geography. This theme of study received
special attention, a_nd experienced considerable development in research,
during the 1960s under the influence of the quantitative revolution in
geography and following the enshrining of spatial analysis as the dominant
focus in geography. Diffusion was regarded as one of the few primitive
processes of concern to spatial analysis and was found to be vitally important

to the construction of a general theory of landscape evolution (Morrill,
1970). Diffusion studies became a major focus in study and research in the
new geography as spatial science under the leadership of the Swedish
geographer, Hagerstrand. It included a wide .variety of topics of research.
Such studies conceptualized the adoption of innovation as the outcome of
a learning process operating through time. Such a concept was in close
accord with the current research orientation in rural sociology (which had
served as a major source of inspiration to innovation-diffusion research in
human geography). A major problem in diffusion research was related to
the role of time, and the continually changing role of each component
variable through time (Brown and Moore, 1969, p. 148), so that "innovation
of diffusion analyses represent perhaps the most successful incorporation
of time into geography outside of historical geography" (Norton, 1984,
pp. 22-23). Most of these studies adopted Hagerstrand's simulation model
of diffusion process, and were based on the premise that all spatial forms
are, in some degree, dependent on previous forms so that diffusion studies
were able to focus attention on the study of process in geography.
3. Time geography relates to analyses of space-time patterns and
processes which result when individuals and groups are seen as drawing
upon time and space as resources essential to the realization of particular
projects or objectives. The time geography research was closely allied to
(and derived its basic inspiration from) Hagerstrand's earlier work on
diffusion as a space-time process. It was first adopted by his associates at
the University of Lund in the 1960s. Students of time geography argued
that different projects compete with each other for the available time-space
paths, and that the collective outcome is the result of a multifaceted
competition in which time and space play the pivotal role. Thrift (1977)
identified three varieties of time: biological, psychological, and socio
ecological. He also focused on the relationships of these respectively to
social behaviour, learning process, and temporal organization of society.
However, according to Norton (1984) "it appears that the basic ideas of
time-geography have little to contribute to historical geography".
4. Dissatisfaction with static theories and static explanations in the
study of present-day forms and patterns led to the increased demand on
dynamic theories emphasizing upon the processes through which the present
day patterns had evolved. Geographers were now increasingly convinced
that "reference to spatial process is inescapable in any analysis of spatial
structure" (Abler, Adams, and Gould, 1971, p. 60), and it was generally
agreed that one determinant of present location is the past location of the
phenomenon concerned (Morrill, 1970; Pred, 1969).
To begin with, attempts to relate process and forrr, involved, first, a
description of a given pattern (i.e., form) and then an effort to explain the
process through the analysis of the resultant pattern. But it was soon realized
that generalizing about process through the analysis of form is an uncertain
route to knowledge (Berry, 1973, p. 3). A given form may result from a
number of different processes. Hence, analysis of form cannot lead to
identification of the complete set of causal processes involved. Geographers,
therefore, rejected the procedure of drawing inferences about process through
fonn, since the reasoning from form to process essentially involved reasoning
about the cause from the examination of the effect.
Thus, the most useful form of temporal explanation involves
approaching the explanation of form through the analysis of process.
Chronologically, process precedes form, but the major problem is how to
arrive at the initial understanding of the underlying process. A typical
procedure in this regard is to develop the concept about the process of
development in a given case on the basis of the available explanatory
theory, in combination with the relevant empirical analysis, and possibly
also form analysis: "On the basis of information from these three sources,
generalizations are derived and are organized into simplification of the
process. This simplification or model is used to generate forms, often by
means of simulation. The simulated are compared to the known outcomes
and an assessment of the model is possible. Such a procedure is typically
stochastic. This type of analysis closely accords with the scientific method
as defined by Kemeny (1959); induction, deduction and verification"
(Norton, 1984, p. 24).
In this type of analysis, process is interpreted as a set of rules which
transform map forms through time (Norton, 1984, p. 26):
Processes comprise variables, indicating their interaction with one another,
their changing emphasis through time and relative irnportance, in an
analysis which is focusing on process.
Nature and Development of Historical Geography

Historical geography is essentially the geography of the past. Three broad
phases in the development of historical geography in the Anglo-American
realm have been identified: The first comprised the period in which historical
geography was seen as central to the rest of geography, so that Darby
(1953) regarded it, alongside geomorphology, as one of the main pillars of
geography. Indeed, as Gregory (1981) explained:
Both these subdisciplines found their field in the study of the landscape,
and while the methodology established by Darby was concerned to
differentiate historical geography from the other historical disciplines
through a focus on assembling sequences of cross-sections to depict the
evolution of rural landscape (e.g., Darby, 1951), the closure could not be,
and in fact never was complete.
The most characteristic feature of the geographical studies of the past (which
emphasized the distinction between historical geography and other forms
of historical analysis) was a predilection for cartographic representation of
individual historical sources, of which "Darby's own series of Domesday
Geographies of England is perhaps the finest example". Reconstruction of
past landscapes, as in the case of landscape geographies of the Berkeley

School, was another stream of this kind of historical geography. Both in
Britain as well as North America, historical geography in this phase was
characterized by a "resolute empiricism" which assumed that observational
statements are the only ones which make direct inference to reality, and
that they can be declared true or false without reference to truth or falsity
of any theoretical statements.
Such an empiricism was greatly out of tune with the new geography
as a spatial science in the 1960s, increasingly focused on formulating theories
of spatial organization based on the analysis of idealized landscapes shaped
by the universal dictates of an abstract spatial geometry. The functionalist
perspective of new geography as a spatial science neglected historicity and
the historical mode of explanation, owing to its overwhelming focus on
spatial form, which contributed to the avoidance of considerations of the
historical processes involved. Thus, as one commentator put it, during the
1960s
historical geography was pitched through the eye of the storm over
exceptionalism, eventually to find itself becalmed on the periphery of
the subject and assigned at best a subordinate role as a testing ground
for models whose essential purchase was on the present and the future
(Gregory, 1981, p. 147).
The 1960s represented a period of decline for historical geography as
a field of research. Many historical geographers now busied themselves in
exploring the possibilities opened up by the new concepts and techniques
of geography as the spatial science of the earth-techniques such as nearest
neighbour analysis, graph theory, central place theory, regression models,
and multivariate techniques. For many historical geographers, however,
this clearly represented "a denial of the classical conception of their
subdiscipline, a reduction of its richness and complexity to a one dimensional
contemplation of planes and point patterns" (Gregory, 1981, p. 148). Most
students of historical geography, therefore, continued to pursue the
established preoccupations of the subdiscipline.
As Gregory noted, owing to the fact that British historical geographers
were more accustomed to the essentially cartographic analysis of their data,
the new concern with spatial structures was less antipathic to historical
geography in Britain. Thus it was natural that the most forceful attack on
the "neo-classical" spatial-structure orientation in the study of historical
geography should come from North America. In an article published in
1971, R.C. Harris argued that historical geography is not a science of spatial
relations. Historical geography, Harris insisted, is more properly concerned
with regional synthesis; and regional synthesis, Harris and other historical
geographers maintained, could be pursued on a level very different from
the old Hartshornean orthodoxy. The myth of the apparent dualism between
process and pattern (Blau!, 1961), and between genetic and functional studies
(Smith, 1965) was already exploded, so that by the.late 1960s many historical
geographers were attempting studies in regional synthesis making use of
the concepts and techniques of systems analysis. Research output in this

direction included Pred (1969, 1973), Wrigley (1965), Harvey (1967), and
Langton (1972, 1979).
Harris's critique, however, was as much an affirmation of idealism in
historical geography as it was a rejection of conventional space science.
Harris referred to the need for the "confrontation between scientific and
humanistic cultures" in historical geography. Attempts at reconciliation
between the two viewpoints in historical geography were attempted by
Jakie (1971) and Prince (1971). Jakie recommended consideration of "historical
contexts, especially that of the behavioural environment" in the building of
models of the past spatial change; while Prince pleaded in favour of attention
to "real, imagined and abstract worlds" of the past. In the 1970s, therefore,
historical geography had experienced a kind of new beginning (Baker, 1972a,
1972b, 1978, 1979), a period in which the subfield was witnessing the
slow emergence of a historically informed regional geography which,
while now accepting the contribution which quantitative methods can
make to analyses of space-time data matrices, is at the same time breaking
out from the planar prison to recover an anterior hllmanism and a
traditional environmentalism .... The first indicates a rapprochement with
the concerns of social and economic history and historical anthropology
through (in particular) a recognition of the reciprocal relations between
human agency and social structure entailed in the concepts of class and
community .... The second ..., environmentalism, gestures towards an
increasing cooperation between historical geographers and palaeobotanists,
historical climatologists, and archaeologists in reconstructing the cultural
ecology of past landscapes and in determining the significance of
environmental change in human history (Gregory, 1981, p. 149) .
•
The most far-reaching gain of these developments in historical
geography (and the historical geographer's interdisciplinary discourse) has
been a general recognition of the importance of historical specificity in the
explanation of phenomena in human geography, and re-enshrining of the
retrospective approach, i.e., the study of the past for the light it throws on
the present, in the study of contemporary human geography.
Approaches to the Study of Historical Geography

1n the course of the discussion on aims and methods of historical geography
Smith (1965) listed four different approaches to the study of historical
geography. These are:
• The operation of the geographical factor in history;
• The evolution of the cultural landscape;
• Reconstruction of past geographies; and
• The study of geographical change through time.
He underlined, .however, that
each of the four concepts ... shade into the other; many studies would be
difficult to classify under no more than one of the headings given above.
In regard to the operation of the geographical factor in history, Smith

noted that
it suggests a view of causation by which it was thought that the phenomena
could best be understood by studying, listing and classifying the operation
of particular groups of factors and effects, each group producing its own
particular pattern of determinism: social, economic, technological
determinisms thus take their place side by side with the geographical
determinism.
Indeed, so long as
geography was seen to be essentially concerned with the relationship of
man with his environment, geographers could clearly search for materials
in the records of the past just as logically as in those of the present for
examples of "responses" to physical environment which could be
catalogued as a stage enroute to the formation of geographical laws (Smith,
op. cit., pp. 122 and 123).
As Sauer (1941) put it, at its worst, this type of historical geography may
be nothing more than the task of "adding the missing environmental
notations to the work of historians".
The concept of historical geography as the study of the changing
landscape was an obvious extension of the wider concept of geography as
the study of landscapes (Landschaften). Such a concept of the subfield had
led to the widely subscribed view that historical geography must concern
itself with the study of the process through which human groups have
over time succeeded in transforming the area of their habitance from a
mere piece of territory into a cultural landscape reflecting their thoughts
and way of life. This approach to historical geography was given form and
substance by Darby's attempt at systematization of the major items to be
included in the study of the evolution of the landscape in Britain. These
comprised the clearing of the woodland; the drainage of the marsh; the
reclamation of the heath; and the changing agricultural, industrial and
urban landscape. In 1951 Darby had attempted a study of "The Changing
English Landscape" on lines somewhat similar to Wooldridge's study of
the physical landscape of Britain. Such an approach to historical geography
had its apparent shortcomings. As Smith (1965, p. 125) noted:
part of the price which is paid for this rediscovery of unity of geography
by way of landscape studies is the danger that man may be deposed
from a central position in the study of geography and regarded as no
more than an anonymous automaton whose task is to produce the visible
features of the landscape, as impersonally as the processes responsible
for soil creep.
The reconstruction of past geographies was by far the most orthodox
and unexceptionable view of historical geography. Mackinder subscribed
to this view of the subfield, so that historical geography was defined as the
branch of geography specifically concerned with the study and analysis of
the historical present. Most of the more important studies in historical
geography (outside the Berkeley School) belonged to this type. Darby,

Ralph Brown, Braudel, Whittlesey, and East all viewed historical geography
in this way. The rationale of this approach was aptly summarized by Mitchell
(1954, cited in Norton, 1984):
Some elements of geographical design that develop in response to passing
conditions are extremely stable in their form or long lasting in their
effects, and the understanding of the present demands the study of
geography of the period of their establishment and development.
The methodological foundation of this approach essentially lay in the
separatist view of the division of knowledge between chronological (genetic)
and chorological (areal functional) studies, so that this approach to historical
geography was in line with the current (1920 to 1950) focus on geography
as the study of areal differentiation. According to this view of the discipline,
geography remained essentially concerned with the study of areal functional
relationships between the phenomena of diverse origins existing together
in particular segments of earth space. This concern was logically stretched
back to the study of "past periods" each of which had its "present
geography". Maintaining this fundamental disciplinary division between
the genetic and the chorological perspectives, Whittlesey (1929) recom
mended that historical geography "must not be concerned with the processes
of development. It describes and explains the geographical interrelationships
for a fixed period". Viewed as the reconstruction of the regional pictures
of past periods by means of the methods and techniques of geography as
chorology, historical geography was easily justified as methodologically
quite distinct from any kind of history of the same place during the same
period.
However, reconstruction of past geographies is no longer the part of
any major methodological debate. It has come to be regarded as one of the
several ways of looking at the past in geography, and it continues to be
pursued by many. As one commentator put it,
With the resolution or simple removal, of the methodological issue there
is no longer a need to justify such studies vis-a-vis alternative approaches;
rather such studies are appropriate where required by the research problem
or data (Norton, 1984, p. 31).
.
Some scholars have, however, disputed the claim of the "period pictures
of the past" as a valid part of historical geography. Guelke (1982, pp. 192-
193) found no logical basis for differentiation of historical geography from
history. According to him the notion that "historical" is synonymous with
"the past" is a major misconception . A historical study is by definition
concerned with change. The geographical study of a past period is, therefore,
not necessarily historical, even if the study is based on archival material.
In Guelke's view studies like Ralph Brown's Mirror for Americans should be
classified as contemporary regional geography rather than historical
geography, since the concern with "past change'' is a necessary element in
any historical study.
The most ardent advocate of the concept of historical geography as

"geographical change through time" was A.H. Clark. He defined historical
geography as "the study of the past circumstances of, or change in,
phenomena of concern to geography" (Clark, 1954). A little earlier, British
geographer Ogilvie (1952) had underlined that the discussion of cause
and-effect relationship necessitated a search for origins; and the knowledge
of previous evolution is important to the understanding of the existing
landscape; so that in regional geography we need to take into consideration
the past developments. Such a dynamic view of historical geography as
the study of historical process received considerable support from Flatt's
influential paper on "A Review of Regional Geography" (1957) wherein
geography was defined as "the science of regional process patterns of
dynamic space relationships".
The approach to historical geography as the study of change through
time does sometimes pose the problem of distinction between what is history
and what is geography; but as Smith (1965) wrote:
The problem itself is often artificial and arid, since what matters is
the contribution made to knowledge, but it is frequently helpful to
bear in mind the rule of thumb that geographers are essentially
concerned with places and what they are like, whether in the past or the
present.
More recently Guelke (1982) saw "no logical basis for differentiating historical
geography from history".
Such a view of historical geography emphasizes on geographical
change, which calls for attention to time period as well as to the process
of change. This became the dominant view of historical geography from
the mid-1950s. The reason was twofold:
First, as an approach, a means of analysis, it proved much less restrictive
than the somewhat contrived past geography. Second, it is directly
concerned with causes or processes, and is, therefore, by definition more
oriented toward explanation (Norton, 1984, p. 32).
Another approach to the study of historical geography may be defined
as the "study of the present" with a view to utilizing the present-day
landscape as a means to the understanding of the past through a retrogressive
approach-a term that had gained currency from Maitland's Domesday Book
and Beyond (1897), and was popularised through the work of Mark Bloch
(1954) who insisted that the analysis of past landscapes demands prior
analysis of. the present landscape. Establishing analogy between history
and a film, Bloch argued that "only the last picture remains quite clear" so
that "in order to reconstruct the faded features of the others" it is first
necessary "to unwind the spool in the opposite direction from that in which
the picture was taken".
The study of the theme of the past in the present also includes the
study of relict features of the present landscape without any reference to
the relevant past landscapes. It is maintained that
For the study of relict features a re trospective approach may be appropriate

for it involves studies of the past as a means of elucidating the present
conditions with the focus being on the present (Norton, 1984, p. 34).
Also included within this theme are studies pertaining to conservation
and preservation of the past landscape features.
What is Historical Geography?

In a wide-ranging review of the field of historical geography Norton (1984)
posed the question: "What is Historical Geography?", and concluded that
the review of recent literature shows that the question "has not been
answered", and that recent developments "emphasize continuing diversity
of the field". In an article entitled: "In the Pursuit of Historical Geography
and other Wild Geese" Zelinsky (1973) questioned the status of historical
geography as a separate field of study. He asserted that there was no logical
basis of historical geography, and that historical geographers could be better
described by other terms, since all geography is spatial, and the historical
geographer does not ask a set of questions distinct from those of the wider
body of researchers pursuing different systematic branches of geography.
This was by no means a novel charge against historical geography as
a branch study. Way back in 1962, Clark had asserted that "the concept of
a separate field of 'historical geography' may be one of our esoteric taxonomic
myths". Jakie (1974) responding to Zelinsky's paper proposed to redefine
historical geography as the study of the geographic past. Goldenberg (1972)
in his article "About the place of historical geography in the system sciences"
stated that:
the apparent conflict of views and definitions of the concept of "historical
geography" can be resolved only on the condition of recognizing a unified
historical geography (both "geographical" and "historical") as an
independent scientific discipline located in the transition zone between
geography and history.
Ward (1975) argued that the source of controversy lay in the lack of a new
and commonly accepted methodology in historical geography. Gregory
(1976) drew attention to the inadequacy of explanatory structures, and
lamented that "Despite so many bugle calls, however, there have been few
changes in historical geography". More recently, the• emerging convergence
between historical geographers and social and economic historians and
historical anthropologists on the one hand, and between historical
geographers and palaeobotanists, historical climatologists, and archaeologists
on the other, has been found as a major source of interdisciplinary integration,
evidenced by the increasing methodological convergence between historical
geography and the rest of the subject, as also the general recognition given
by geographers to the important role played by historical specificity in the
explanation and understanding of problems in human geography. In a
review of historical geography in Britain in the 1970s, Bullin (1982) wrote:
"as far as the bulk of published work is concerned there is not a great
amount of evidence that the new ideas have penetrated very far". Butlin
thought that
what is badly needed is debate, between geographers and their colleagues
from other disciplines, and between geographers and geographers, for
the literature of British historical geography shows little evidence of
passionate debate on critical issues.
Time and space are so intimately intertwined that the relevance of the
historical and geographical perspectives to either of the disciplines-history
and geography-need to be continuously focused and debated.
THREE REALMS OF HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: REAL, IMAGINED,

AND ABSTRACT WORLDS OF THE PAST
In a long review essay written with a view to indicating new approaches
to knowledge of the past, to see if past investigations on the subject could
contribute to the enlargement of the work of the non-historical specialists,
Prince (1971) stated that it is helpful to think of the ideas about the past as
deriving from three arbitrarily defined realms of knowledge, namely, the
real world of the past, the view of the world in the past as held by
contemporary (or later) observers, and models of abstract worlds of the
past created by theoreticians. The first realm, that is, the external world of
features that actually existed in the past, and of the events that can be
verified to have actually taken place at the time, has until recently been the
chief object of study in historical geography. More recently, many historical
geographers have tried to reconstruct and rediscover the past worlds as
they were perceived by the contemporaries who saw and interpreted reality
around them according to their culturally acquired preferences, prejudices
(or beliefs) and the assumed needs of society. Thus, as Bloch (1954) noted,
"in the last analysis, it is human consciousness that is the subject matter of
history. The interrelations, confusions and infections of human consciousness
are, for history, reality itself". One of the earliest geographical contributions
of this type was of Ralph Brown's Mirror for Americans: Likeness of Eastern
Seaboard, 1810 (1943). Few studies of a past period for any other region
have so successfully and so completely captured the perceptions of the
contemporary writers about their habitat and its environment.
Neither the empirical studies of the real worlds of the past, nor the
behavioural studies of the imagined worlds of the past provide a full
understanding of how phenomena were organized in space in that period,
how the areal aggregate functioned, or how they have got transformed
from one stage of development to the other. This is, according to Prince,
the third realm of inquiry into the past, the realm which is "being invented
into the minds of the theoretical geographers".
Increasingly the possibility emerges that models may be used to depict
a large number of changing abstract landscapes against which their real
world counterparts may be measured and more fully understood. The
218 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF 1DEAS
effects of the speed of new ideas or techniques, or the decline of old

economies, or the breakdown of old social orders or political institutions
may be explored or reconnoitred by· fabricating counterfactual situations
comparing what actually happened with what would have happened
under alternative situations (Prince, 1971, p. 5).
The explicit introduction of the study of both perceived and abstract

worlds within the purview of historical geography was obviously a reflection
of the current developments in human geography in the 1960s when
this field of study had begun increasingly to be viewed as the spatial
science of the earth's surface. Human geographers in increasing numbers
began to make use of the behavioural perspectives in their research.
However, "Despite significant growth in both these categories it is the first
category, that of real world of the past, which has dominated historical
geography" (Norton, op. cit.).
THE NEED FOR DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE ROLE OF THE

PAST IN NATURE AND CULTURE: COLLINGWOOD'S THEORY OF
HISTORICAL KNOWING
Much of the academic geography in modern times had derived its inspiration
and sustenance from a severely natural science tradition of the Victorian
era. Most of the philosophical ideas in geography were derived from the
natural sciences, some directly and the others indirectly. This was generally
true of all branches of geography, historical geography included. As
Gregory wrote:
mid-twentieth century geography formalized the ideas of its Victorian
forebears .... What was distinctive about it was that the earlier emphasis
on the ontological emphasis on the natural world was replaced by the
epistemological primacy of the natural sciences. This implied tacit
allegiance to a positivist philosophy of science, which in its original
Comtean form grounded knowledge in the direct experience of an
immediate reality (Gregory, 1978, pp. 19-20).
Such a philosophical stance contributed to the geographers' neglect
of the role of the past in the present geography of places, and thereby led
to a distorted perspective on history. As Collingwood (1946) noted, history
is not concerned with offering explanations of events in the style of the
natural sciences. History does not seek to provide full causal explanation
of an event, it does not attempt to list all the necessary and sufficient
conditions for the occurrence of particular events. The historian is more
fundamentally concerned with elucidating the historical significance of the
event in question. To Collingwood, "All history is the history of thought".
He underlined the fundamental distinction between the role played by the
past in the phenomena in nature vis-a-vis the nature and organization of
man in society. In the natural sciences, "historical" inquiry is concerned
essentially with the reconstruction and understanding of the material
processes, i.e., the physical and chemical processes involved.
In the natural sciences, therefore, the present is used as a key to the

past, since the laws of nature are universal laws which are assumed to
have operated in similar fashion in the past as in the present. Collingwood
maintained that the task of the historian (and other students of man's past)
is of a very different nature. The primary interest of the historian in the
study of the past does not lie in the external manifestations of human
activity, but rather in the internal thought that lay behind them. The
historian's mode of inquiry is, therefore, very different from that of the
natural scientist's. The historian's objective is to understand human activity
from the "inside" by rethinking the thoughts of the historical agents of the
relevant period. Through such a process of rethinking, the historian is able
to create an image of the past in the present. Thus, unlike the geological
past, which is dead, the human past is a living past.
Drawing attention to Collingwood's theory of historical knowing,
Guelke (1982) noted that Collingwood's ideas provide "an explicitly historical
basis on which a stronger historical geography can be built". Guelke
maintained that there is no logical basis for differentiating historical
geography from history, except that geographers have mainly been concerned
with the study of human settlement and land-use. He wrote:
If all history is the history of thought, all historical geography is the
history of thought with a bearing on human activity on the land... In
historical geography, the events of interest are those related to human
activity on the earth. This activity is dependent, in the first instance, on
understanding the physical environment in terms of the human meanings
it has. These meanings have changed as human condition has changed
and as the knowledge of the environment has expanded. The environment
must, therefore, be understood by thinking the thoughts of those who
are seeking a living within it.
Guelke maintained that a historical geography patterned on
Collingwood's theory of historical knowing can easily adopt an empirical
approach to explanation which is helpful in avoiding "mere description"
or extreme scientific empiricism, on the one hand, and the non-historical
aims of theoretical approaches on the other. To conclude with Guelke:
,
A concern with thought permits the historical geographer to explore the
meanings of geographical activities in their unique historical settings.
This exploration holds out the promise of providing us with valuable
insight into the evolution of human society without need of the formal
theory that is inseparable in studies of natural phenomena (Guelke, 1982,
p. 196).
GEOSOPHY AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

The foregoing view of historical geography modelled on Collingw ood's
theory of historical knowing brings the subfield face to face with geosophy,
which Wright (1947) regarded to be "to geography what historiography is
to history, it deals with the nature and expression of geographical knowledge,
both past and present-with what Whittlesey called 'Man's sense of territorial
space'". Geosophy deals with "geographical ideas both true and false held
by all manner of people, accounting for human desires, motives and
prejudices". However, Yi-Fu-Tuan (1977) lamented that the history of
environmental ideas has many times been studied largely in detachment
from the question how, if at all, these ideas guide the course of action, or
how they arise out of it. Thus may scholars regard these studies as no more
than "catalogues of images: capes and bays geographies of the mind".
They, therefore, propose a role for such studies within (but not apart from)
historical geography. Indeed, "geosophy" has little value when removed
from historical geography; yet it is the most human level on which we can
know the past, since every past event is a complex combination of images,
concepts and acts, intended and unintended consequences, and environment.
To remove images from this context and use them alone to explain an
event simply ignores too much of the evidence available to us.
History and geography have often been interpreted as the outcomes
of intentional acts, and there is a tendency to play down the importance of
unintended and unforeseen consequences, and to ignore the influence exerted
by the local environment. Chambers (1982, p. 200) emphasized that
people are not free to create the world narcissistically as they see it.
Conscious decisions can be made on the basis of perceptions of the world,
but actions are played out in the real world. There will be unintended
consequences whenever there is discrepancy between the world as
perceived [and acted upon] and the world as it is .... The world has been
created as much by mistake as by intent, and it is for this reason that to
understand the past we need images, acts and consequences.
"IDEOLOGY", MARXIST HISTORY AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

From historical geography to "ideology" (which Chisholm, 1975, defined
as the expression of ideas and values which together constitute "a
metaphysical system" that is "not amenable to scientific analysis") is but
a short step. As Gregory (1978) wrote: ideology in geography is now used
increasingly in the Marxist sense to refer to a set of beliefs with which
people deceive themselves-a body of unexamined discourse. Projecting a
Marxist viewpoint, Anderson (1973) defined ideology as "systems of ideas
which give distorted and partial accounts of reality, with the objective and
often unintended consequences of serving the interests of a particular social
group or class". Baker (1982) has pleaded that historical geography must
embrace ideology because:
there is potential here for a significant detente even the development of
entente cordiale- between historical geography and contemporary human
geography stemming from an increasingly shared concern with
geographies viewed historically.
Baker noted that while there has been a general acceptance by historical
geographers of the famous aphorism of '.:,'a1 by that all geography is historical
geography, either actual or potential, there has been scant recognition of

the adage of Karl Marx that all history is the history of class struggle. To
Baker it appeared that
Given the richness of the contributions to social history by Marxist
historians, the time is long overdue for historical geographers to consider
seriously Marxist methods of historical analysis, and to ask to what extent
it would be a constructive step to move toward Marxian humanism.
In this regard Baker singled out the following themes:
1. History and historical geography must be viewed as humanism.
Both must be, first and last, about people, and only secondly about periods
and places. Marx rejected long ago the view of history (i.e., time) as an
external force just as geographers are now rejecting space as an autonomous
realm. History (and historical geography) are the outcome of the activity
of man pursuing his ends, so that:
The history of mankind is ... always a geography of man's search for
roots. The first man is, as it were, the man who invented a boundary to
delimit his place, and human history is, therefore, a history of boundary
making, maintaining and changing (Samuels, 1978).
2. History is essentially a space specific study of the particular.
According to Marx, historical analysis involves reconstructing the system
of material production and of productive relations in terms of their tensions,
antagonisms and contradictions in each area since it is these which are
seen as promoting change. A central theme in Marxist historical analysis is
class struggle and changing class consciousness. Such a view of history
offers a more sound framework for the study of historical geography by
regions. It also allows due appreciation of the perception that the past
social groups under reference had of each other. Such an approach to
historical geography facilitates integration of the real and the imagined
world of the past so that the observer's (the researcher's) and the historical
actor's views are duly reconciled. Marx viewed history as specific
to particular places. The same is true of historical geography which is
"more properly concerned with period and place than with time and space".
3. Place specificity of history, and the study of historical developments
in particular places, does not imply that history and historical geography
preclude theory and generalization. Far from it, according to the Marxist
theory, history involves a fundamental change from feudal, religious and
hierarchical societies to capitalist, secular and egalitarian societies. The Marxist
conception of history, therefore, calls for a marriage between the empirical
and theoretical modes of analysis. There is no contradiction in this position,
as the following statement from another commentator would clarify.
It would be incorrect to hold that no regularity can be expected in the
experiential (historical) approach to geographical analysis. Human
behaviour is far from being unstructured and quixotic. It is subject to
shared responses to common situations. At the same time, individual
solutions to situations can be expected, and the study of experience of
man in shaping resolutions for problems has two logical concerns: the
commonly shared responses and the exceptional acts (Vance, 1970, p. 140).
Thus the study of both, the particular as well as the general and hence,
generalization as well as particularization, are integral to history (and by
implication, to historical geography).
4. The Marxist view of history emphasizes that the historical process
should be studied in its totality.
History and geography are quintessentially synthetic disciplines: If the
essence of geography is the study of regions, a kind of place synthesis,
then the Marxist argument would lend support to the view that all
geography must be historical in its perspective (Baker, 1981, p. 242).
5. The fundamental significance of a holistic concept of history, and
of historical geography, lies in its inclusion not merely of the past and the
present but also of the future. The concept of history as a process of
humanization incorporates within it the idea of progress.
For the Marxist, there are two criteria of progress: whether it increases
man's power over nature and diminishes man's power over men. Historical
geographers should, therefore, focus their attention not only on man's
developing control over nature but also his developing cooperation with
or domination of men. Progress needs to be viewed not only in terms of
material production but also of human emancipation.... The Marxist
approach sees the writing of history as an integral part of the making of
history (Baker, 1981, pp. 242-243).
As a holistic and humanistic endeavour, history asks questions of the
past-as Lucien Febvre puts it-in terms of humanity's needs of today.
So the historical geography which we write needs to make sense, to have
meaning, for the present (Baker, 1984).
[Thus], a central task of historical geography is to clarify the ways in
which human history is instantiated in human geography: to show how
spatial structures are at once the condition and consequence of social
practice (Baker and Gregory, 1984, pp. 188-189).
But there is scope for disagreement on this point. According to Harris
(1978), the historical mind is
contextual, not law finding... , the historical mind is dubious that there
are overarching laws to explain the general patterns of human life.
The historical mind, according to this author,

is acutely sensitive to the motives behind action, contextual in its approach
to understanding motives, and skeptical that covering laws can provide
a full explanation for the motivation behind particular events (Harris,
1978, pp. 126-127).
Harris agreed, however, that
The historical mind readily accommodates some forms of Marxism but
no abstract theories of spatial analysis ( Harris, op. cit., p. 134).
Historical Geography: A New Resurgence

As Harris (1978, p. 134) wrote:
some of the historical geographers' most central predilections-so widely
disparaged by the spatial analysts of the 1960s-suddenly have a large
geographical constituency. To be sure, the routes of convergence are quite
different. The humanists have not discovered historical geography so
much as phenomenology, structuralism, Marxism, or even theology ....
But there is now a wide awareness of the impossibility of separating
facts, values, and of the importance of contextual studies.
The most important point to remember is that "There is no useful
disciplinary line separating present from past, space from time" (Harris,
1978, p. 136).
Clearly visible since the 1980s is a new sense of historicity now
abroad within the discipline, so that the more recent methodological writings
in geography "have been characterized by a determined break with
functionalism. Discussions of idealism and a phenomenologically informed
humanism, of the limitation of structuralism and the construction of a
realist social science, and their conjunction in various models of structuration:
All these, despite their differences, signal a profound departure from the
deeply sedimented partitions between 'cross section' and 'vertical theme'
or between 'synchronic' and 'diachronic'"; so that historical geography is
poised to regain the central place it had within the wider subject when
Darby (1953) wrote that classical essay "On the relations between history
and geography" half a century ago.
Development of Historical Geography as an Autonomous Branch of

Human Geography, 1930s to 1980s
As the human geography of the past, historical geography has a long history
dating back to the last quarter of the nineteenth century ·When geography
had got formally recognized as a university level discipline. The topics
taught in university departments of geography then included the history
of the Holy Land and of explorations and discoveries as well as changes
in the location of political boundaries. However, during this period historical
geography was by no means a distinct branch of the geographical science.
As such, the origins of modern historical geography are traced back to the
1930s when the study of the geography of the past became, in the words
of Darby (1983), a "self-conscious discipline".
In its meaning as the geography of the past, historical geography has
been all through pursued by two sets of scholars: One set consists of
researchers who regard themselves as the practitioners of a branch discipline
with a distinct identity of its own; and the other consists of researchers
who invoke the knowledge of the past in the course of comprehending
present-day relations in regard to the problem or the phenomeno11 under
investigation. Both types of studies have contributed significantly to the
study of human geography of the past, so that developments in historical
geography, in the broadest sense of the terrn, may, following Overton (1994),
be divided into three distinct phases:
1. From the 1930s to the 1960s, when historical geography was viewed,
alongside geomorphology as central to geography as a discipline so that
most studies in regional geography included a historical component as an
essential preface to the discussion of the present-day landscape. However,
the tradition in the study of historical geography in North America differed
considerably from that in Britain. The historical regional geographies as
pursued by the Berkeley School, were focused on reconstruction of the
cultural landscapes (Williams, 1983). In Britain, interest in the study of
landscape development was by no means absent, the more common pursuit
of historical geography consisted of recreating the geographies of the past
in the form of historical cross sections (or period pictures). This consisted
of cartographic reconstructions based on descriptions contained in individual
historical sources. Darby's series on Domesday England (1952-1977) stands
out as one of the earliest and by far the most celebrated example. This type
of historical geographies generally conformed to Gilbert's (1932) dictun1,
according to which,
Historical geography should confine itself to a descriptive geographical
account of a region at some period and should not endeavour to make
the explanation of historical events its main objective.
2. In the post-quantitative Revolution phase during the late 1960s
and 1970s, the central role assigned to historical geography in the study of
human geography was challenged by the new crop revolutionary
geographers, so that historical geography (like political geography during
the same period) was transformed into a marginal sector of geographical
research. In the first place, the descriptive approach of the earlier studies
in historical geography was out of tune with the current focus on analysis
and explanation by means of overarching theories and generalizations.
Besides the subfield as then pursued and conceived, was not amenable to
the current methodology of quantitative analysis. In general, the historical
geographers of that period had lacked the necessary equipment to pursue
the new methodology. The net outcome was that the role of the past in the
understanding of the present-day phenomena and relations was considered
inconsequential, owing in the main to the overwhelming focus of the new
geography as spatial analysis on "functionalism", and on the geometries of
space, both of which were opposed to the historical mode of explanation.
Under such a changed perspective in human geography, while some historical
geographers had continued to pursue the subfield as before though their
studies were now becoming increasingly analytical in approach, the more
fashion-conscious historical geographers began to incorporate new techniques
of quantitative-statistical analysis in their work. Side by side, the disciplinary
isolation of historical geography was slowly broken, particularly following
Baker's (1972a, 1972b,) call to fellow historical geographers to interact
increasingly with the social and economic historians, and historical
anthropologists who were pursuing related problems. This interaction

became the source of many fresh ideas and conceptual breakthroughs.
3. The post-Spatial Science phase circa 1980. The mounting dis
satisfaction with the post-Quantitative Revolution human geography focused
on the search for pattern laws of behaviour in space, now led to the third
(and current) phase of development in historical geography. The revival of
historical geography as a lively sector of geographical research was brought
about by two related developments: (a) The rise of historical materialism
in the social science discourse which contributed to bringing history to the
forefront in the understanding of the present-day societal relations. (b) The
rise of the humanistic perspective (which incorporated "idealism" as a
related premise, one which seeks to understand the development of the
earth's cultural landscapes by uncovering the thought that lies behind them,
Guelke, 1984) contributed to transform human geography once again into
a man-centred study. But, as always, historical geographers continue to
comprise a small community of researchers, so that the subfield continues
to be a "dangerously weak field" of study. Outside the formal subfield of
historical geography, human geographers in general are now according a
more central role to historical explanation in geographical explanation.
Current research continues the old established traditions, though there
are some clear departures (Earle, 1989). These include: research on themes
such as the geography of language (Withers, 1984) and geography of madness
(Philo, 1989). According to one commentator, "For the first time in its history,
the discipline of geography, with an essential contribution from historical
geography, is taking a lead in theory building for the social sciences as a
whole" (Overton, 1994). As Overton noted: "Perhaps the most significant
contribution of historical geography to the discipline as a whole is the
construction of an explicit social theory within geography (Harris, 1991)".
Thus, during the last decade or so "the long debilating separation of
geography from history, and more broadly, the social sciences, has begun
to be overcome" (Genovese and Hochberg, 1989).
REFERENCES
Abler, R., Adams, J.S. and Gould, P.R. (1971), Spatial Organi-zation, Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Anderson, J. (1973), Ideology in geography: An introduction, Antipode,
vol. 5(3), pp. 1--ti.
Baker, A.R.H. (1972a), Rethinking historical geography, in Baker, A.R.H.
(Ed.), Progress in Historical Geography, Newton Abbott: David and
Charles, pp. 11-28.
_ __ (1972b), Historical Geography in Britain, in Baker, A.R.H. (Ed.),
Progress in Historical Geography, Newton Abbott: David and Charles,.
pp. 90-110.
Baker, A.R.H. (1977), Historical geography, Progress in Human Geography,

vol. 1, pp. 465-474.
_ _ _(1978), Historical geography: Understanding and experiencing the
past, Progress in Human Geography, vol. 2, pp. 495-504.
_ _ _(1979), Historical geography: A new beginning, Progress in Human
_ _ _(1981), An historico-geographical perspective on time and
space and on period and place, Progress in Human Geography, vol. 5,
pp. 439-443.
_ _ _(1984), Reflections on the relations of historical geography and the
annals school of history, in Baker, A.R.H. and Gregory, D. (Eds.) (1984),
Explorations in Historical Geography, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 1-27.
Baker, A.R.H. and Gregory, D. (1984), Some terrae incognitae in historical
geography: An exploratory discussion; in Baker A.R.H. and Gregory,
D. (Eds.), Explorations in Historical Geography, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 180-194.
Berry, B.J.L. (1973), A paradigm for modern geography in Chorley, R.J.
(Ed.), Directions in Geography, London: Methuen, pp. 3-21.
Blaut, J.M. (1961), Space and process, The Professional Geographer, vol. 13,
pp. 1-7.
Bloch, M. (1954), The Historian's Craft, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Brown, L.A. and Moore, E.G. (1969), Diffusion research: A perspective, in
Board, C., Chorley, R.J., Haggett, P., and Stoddart, D.R. (Eds.), Progress
in Geography, vol. 1, London: Edward Arnold, pp. 120-157.
Brown, R.H. (1943), Mirror for Americans, New York: American Geographical
Society.
Bullin, R.A. (1982), The Transformation of Rural England, c. 1518-1800, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Chambers, R. (1982), Rural Development: Putting the last first, London: Longman.
Chisholm, M. (1975), Human Geography: Evolution or Revolution? Hamrnonds
worth: Penguin Books.
Clark, A.H. (1954), Historical geography, in James, P. and Jones, C.F. (Eds.),
American Geography: Inventory and Prospect, Syracuse: Syracuse
University Press, pp. 70-105.
(1962), Praernia Geographiae: The incidental rewards of a
geographical career, Annals of the Association of American Geographers,
vol. 52, pp. 229-241.
_ _ _ (1972), Historical geography in North America, in Baker, A.R.H.
(Ed.), Progress in Historical Geography, Newton Abbott: David and
Charles, pp. 129-143.
Collingwood, R.J. (1946), The Idea of History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Darby, H.C. (1951), The changing English landscape, Geographical Journal,

vol. 117, pp. 377-398.
___ (1952, 1971), The Domesday Geography of England (7 vols.), Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
_ _ _ (1953), On the relationships of geography and history, Transactions
of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 19, pp. 1-11.
(1962), Historical geography, in Finberg, (Ed.), Approaches
in History: A symposium, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
pp. 127-156.
___ (1983), Historical geography in Britain, 1920-1980: Continuity and
change, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, vol.(NS) 8,
pp. 421-428.
Earle, C. et al (1989), Historical geography, in Gaile, G.L. and Wilmott, C.J.
(Eds.), Geography in America, Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Publishing Co.,
pp. 156-191.
Gevonese, E.D. and Hochberg, L. (Eds.) (1989), Geographic Perspectives in
History, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Gilbert, E.W. (1932), What is historical geography?, Scottish Geographical
Magazine, vol. 48, pp. 129-136.
Goldenberg, L.A. (1972), About the place of historical geography in the
sy stem of sciences, in Adams, W.P. and Helleiner, F.M. (Eds.),
International Geography, Vol. 1, !GU, Montreal, pp. 420-422.
Gregory, D. (1976), Rethinking historical geography, Area, vol. 8, pp. 295--298.
_ _ _ (1978), Ideology, Science and Human Geography, Hutchinson: London.
___ (1981), Historical geography, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. Haggett,
P., Smith, D.M. and Stoddart D.R. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human
Geography, 1st ed., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 146-150.
Guelke, L. (1974), An idealist alternative in human geography, Annals of the
Association of American Geography, vol. 64, pp. 193-202.
___ (1975), On rethinking historical geography, Area, vol. 7, pp. 135--138.
_ _ _(1982), Historical Understanding in Geography: An Idealist Approach,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
_ _ _ (1982), Idealist dispute in Anglo-American geography: A comment,
Harris, R.C. (1971), Theory and synthesis in historical geography, The Canadian
Geographer, vol. 19, pp. 157-172.
___ (1978), The historical mind and the practice of geography,
in Ley, D. and Samuels, M.S. (Eds.), Humanistic Geography: Problems
and prospects, Chicago: Maaroufa Press, pp. 123-137.
_ (1991), Power, modernity and historical geography, Annals of the
_ _
Hartshorne, R. (1939), The nature of geography: A critical survey of current

thought in the light of the past, Lancaster (PA): Association of American
Geographers.
_ _ _ (1959), Perspective on the Nature of Geography, Chicago: Rand McNally.
Harvey, D.W. (1967), Models of the evolution of spatial patterns in human
geography, in Chorley, R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.), Models in Geography,
London: Methuen, pp. 549---{;08.
Jakie, J.A. (1971), Time, space and the geographic past: A prospectus for
historical geography, American Historical Review, vol. 76, pp. 1084-1103.
_ __ (1974), In pursuit of a wild goose: Historical geography and the
geographic past, Historical Geography Newsletter, vol. 4, pp. 13-16.
Kemeny, J.G. (1959), A Philosopher Looks at Science, Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Langton, J. (1972), Potentialities and problems of adopting a systems
approach to the study of change in human geography, in Board, C.,
Chorley, R.J., Haggett, P. and Stoddart, D.R. (Eds.), Progress in Geography,
vol. 4, London: Edward Arnold, pp. 125-179.
___ (1979), Geographical Change and Industrial Revolution, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Morrill, R.L. (1970), The Spatinl Organization of Society, Belmot: Duxbury Press.
Norton, W. (1984), Historical Analysis in Geography, London: Longman.
Ogilvie, P.G. (1952), The time element of geography, Transactions of the Institute
of British Geographers, vol. 18, pp. 1-15.
Overton, M. (1994), Historical geography, in Johnston, R.J. et al (Eds.), The
Dictionary of Human Geography, 4th ed., Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
pp. 246---250.
Philo, C. (1989), Enough to drive mad: The organization of space in nineteenth
century lunatic asylums, in Welch, J. and Dear, M. (Eds.), The Power
of Geography: How territory shapes social life, London: Unwin Hyman,
pp. 258-290.
Platt, R.S. (1957), A review of regional geography, Annals of the Association
Pred, A. (1969), Behavior and Location: Foundations for a Geographic and Dynamic
Location Theory, Lund Studies in Geography, Part 2, Lund: Gleerup.
___ (1973), Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United
States System of Cities, 1790-1840, Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard
University Press.
Prince, H.C. (1971), Real, imagined and abstract worlds of the past, in
Board, C. et. al. (Eds.), Progress in Geography, vol. 3, London: Edward
Arnold, pp. 1-86.
Prince, H.C. (1980), Historical geography in 1980, in Brown, E.H. (Ed.),

Geography: Yesterday and Tomorrow, Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 229-250.
Saarinen, T.F. (1974), Environmental perception, in Manners, J.P. and Mikesell,
M.W. (Eds.), Perspectives on Environment, Association of American
Geographers, Washington, Commission on College Geography,
Publication No. 13, pp. 252-289.
Samuels, M.S. (1978), Existentialism and human geography, in Ley, D. and
Samuels, M.S. (Eds.), Humanistic Geography: Problems and prospects,
Chicago: Maroufa Press, pp. 22-40.
Sauer, C.O. (1941), Foreword to historical geography, Annals of the Association
of Geographers, vol. 31, pp. 1 2-4.
pp. 226-249.
Smith, C.T. (1965), Historical geography: Current trends and prospects, in
Chorely, R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.), Frontiers in Geographical Teaching,
London: Methuen, pp. 118--143.
Thrift, N. (1977), Time and theory in human geography: Part 1, Progress in
Human Geography, vol. 1, pp. 65-101.
Tuan, Yi-Fu (1977), Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Vance, J.E. (1970), The Merchant's World: The Geography of Wholesaling,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Wagner, P.L. and Mikesell, M.W. (1962), The themes of cultural geography,
in Wagner P.L. and Mikesell, M.W. (Eds.), Reading in Cultural Geography,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 1-24.
Ward, D. (1975), The debates on alternative approaches in historical
geography, Historical Methods Newsletter, vol. 8, pp. 82-87.
Whittlesey, D. (1929), Sequent occupance, Annals of the Association ofAmerican
Williams, M. (1983), The apple of my eye: Carl Sauer and historical
geography, Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 9, pp. 1-28.
Withers, C.W.J. (1984), Gaelic in Scott/and 1698-1981: The geographical history
of language, Edinburgh: John Donald.
Wright, J.K. (1947), Terra incognitae: The place of imagination in geography,
Wrigley, E.A. (1965), Changes in the philosophy of geography, in Chorley,
R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.), Frontiers of Geographical Teaching, London:
Methuen, pp. 3-24.
Zelinsky, W. (1973), In pursuit of historical geography and other wild geese,
Historical Geography Newsletter, vol. 3, pp. 1 5-.
10
Impact of Evolutionary Biology on
Geographical Thought: Organization
and Ecosystem as Geographical Models
Much of geographical work over the past hundred years has been inspired
by the evolutionary theory about the origins and development of biological
species most particularly by the ideas of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), ,vhose
book The Origin of Species (1859) had marked a great divide in the history
,,f ideas. Most people today tend to associate the idea of evolution as solely
the contribution of Darwin. However, like all great ideas that changed the
course of history, the idea of evolution alslJ had its antecedents in the
earlier literature on the subject, in biology as well as in other fields of
knowledge, most specifically in geology. It is logical that we briefly recount
the antecedents ,,f the theory of evolution before taking up a review of
Darwin's theory and its impact on geographical wr>rk.
With a view to tracing the antecedants of Darwin's theory some
students have g,,nc far back to the ancient Greeks for statements that
indicated the possibility that species of living organisms in nature could
record changes over long periods of time. But this certainly is too far
fetched. It is true though that this idea had engaged the attention of many
a scientist since the time of Buffon (1707-1788) and Lamarck (1744-1829),
since the last quarter of the 18th century. Eighteenth century geologists
James Hutt,,n (1726-1797) and William Smith (1769-1839) had provided
clear conceptual leads without which Darwin's own contribution might
have been impossible. Hutton collected evidence to show that the earth's
surface had suffered many long-range upheavals that had led to changes
in the sea level, leading to a process of renewed land sculpturing. This
demonstrated that the earth is much older than had been generally believed.
William Smith contributed to develop a method by which geological strata
could be dated, through the study of the fossils embedded in them. Through
the analysis of the fossils he ,vas able to demonstrate that quite different
types of pla11ts and animals had inhabited the earth's surface at different
periods of its geological history. Thus was presented a general picture of
the evolution of organisms from the simple to the complex and from the
aquatic to the terrestrial en,rirL1nment. Clearly enough, these scientific
discoveries revealed new facts that were at variance with, and contradictory
230
IMPACT OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY ON GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT 231
to, the accounts contained in the book of Genesis so that there was
considerable resistance to them from the religious establishment.
Notwithstanding any oppositions of this kind, the mounting scientific
evidence in support of the new findings made it abundantly clear that
through the course of the many millions of years of the earth's history, life
upon its surface has been continuously involved in an endless process of
evolution leading progressively to the rise of new and improved species in
place of the old ones, which with the passage of time became extinct.
THE DARWINIAN THEORY OF EVOLUTION

Charles Darwin was greatly excited about the idea of biological evolution.
He was attracted by the mounting evidence in support of the central idea
about progressive and cumulative changes in life, from the simple to the
most complex. He engaged himself in amassing all available information
on this subject, which appeared to him to offer irrefutable proof that life
upon the earth had evolved through a long-drawn. process of gradual change
spread over millions of years. This encouraged and inspired him to delve
deeper into the hitherto unresolved processes through which evolution of
life had taken place. Through many years of tireless work, Darwin succeeded
in finding the answer. The detailed account of his findings was published
in his monumental book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection,
first published in 1859. Although many finer points of Darwin's original
thesis have since been revised as a result of later advances in knowledge
in the field of genetics, the basic theory remains intact. The fundamental
ideas in Darwinian theory of evolution included:
1 . The struggle for existence. In nature there is continuous struggle for

existence among the various species of plants and animals. Scientific evidence
showed that over considerable periods of time, the number of individuals
in any species (in any community of plants or animals) remains almost
constant. From this he inferred that the number of offspring of any species
that survive to reach maturity and to breed, is balanced by the number of
mature individuals that die each year.
2. Variation within species. We find that in any given generation there is

considerable variation among individuals in any society. The same is true
about other organisms in nature. Except for some cases in twin births, we
hardly ever come across two individuals completely resembling each other
in detail. Darwin wrote that when a large number of individuals belonging
to a single species are examined, we find considerable variation among
them in regard to structure, complexion, activity pattern, and the like and
that these differences appear to have been passed on from one generation
to the next so that, for example, children of tall parents tend to be tall.
3. Survival of the fittest. Since individuals in any given society vary in
individual characteristics, it is inevitable that some are stronger than others.

Given the fact of perpetual struggle for survival in nature, it is obvious that
only the strongest-the fittest-shall survive and proliferate. This helps to
maintain the characteristics that had enabled the species to get the better
of others who had lacked this quality. This process of struggle and selection
in nature goes on endlessly, so that with the passage of time, the members
of the species progressively become better adapted to withstand the vagaries
of its environment.
4. Natural selection. The environment itself undergoes a slow process of

long-term changes. The changed environment of the species demanded
from it a new set of characteristics to withstand its hardships, so that the
process of selection and survival had to start afresh each time, and only
those individuals of the species survived to breed and perpetuate that
were most capable of meeting the demands of environmental change.
From the foregoing discussion it is clear that "Darwin's theory was
not simply one of evolution, but concerned a mechanism whereby random
variations in plants and animals could be selectively preserved, and by
inheritance lead to changes at the species level" (Stoddart, 1966). As Stoddart
underlined it, in geography, however, Darwinism was interpreted in the
sense of a "continuous process of change in a temporal perspective long
enough to produce a series of changes" (Scoon, 1950, p. 5). It was in this
restricted sense that the term evolution was used by many a worker in the
natural as well as the social sciences. These students ignored the fundamental
point that Darwin's main interest in propounding his theory of evolution
was in the mechanism through which evolution progressed rather than in
"evolution" (in the sense of change through time) itself. In the social sciences
in general, and geography in particular, the central element in Darwinian
theory, i.e., the role of randomness and chance, had passed almost unnoticed.
Following the pattern set by Stoddart (to whom we owe much of the
discussion that follows) the rest of this discussion is focused on the following
four main themes in Darwin's theory, which appear especially relevant to
discussion on the impact of evolutionary biological theory on geographical
thought:
1. The idea of change through time;
2. The idea of organization;
3. The idea of struggle and selection; and
4. The role of randomness and chance variations of character in nature.
Time and Evolution

Early in the 19th century (1830-1833), Scottish geologist Charles Lyell (1797-
1875) published a three-volume work on Principles of Geolo gy , which
challenged the widely held mediaeval notion regarding the age of the earth.
On the. basis of scientific evidence collected, Lyell put forward the theory
that the present-day landforms on the earth's surface are produced by a

slow process of evolution spread over a long process of geological change.
This theory of landfornt evolution cut at the root of the mediaeval notion
of catastrophic origin of the earth as a divine creation. His predecessor
James Hutton (1726-1797) had already demonstrated the theory of
uniformitarianism in landform evolution, according to which the processes
of landform change seen to be operative at the present time are sufficient
to account for all the landform changes that occurred in the past, and that
the cumulative effect of this ceaseless process of change is visible in the
structure and form of the present-day landforms. The works of Hutton and
Lyell had greatly impressed Charles Darwin, so that his first major scientific
publication on The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs in 1842 was
inspired by the idea of evolution through change over time. The work
demonstrated how atolls were formed by slow transformation of fringing
reefs into barrier reefs and then into atolls through the process of slow
subsidence spread over a long period of time. The initial deduction and
subsequent development of the theory of atoll evolution closely resembled
his later approach to the origin of species.
Darwin's work on the origin of atolls, and the idea regarding slow
transfor1nation of biological species over time, together inspired American
geographer W.M. Davis to develop his own theory of the cycle of erosion
and landform transformation as a slow process of change in time. However,
Davis' major difficulty lay in the fact that, unlike Darwin who dealt with
species, Davis took his illustrations not from the species or the population,
but from the individuals, i.e., isolated landforms. As such, Davis' cycle of
erosion was essentially nothing more than denudation chronology.
As Huxley (1887) had underlined long ago, "the Origin of Species
[wasJ the logical sequence of [Lyell's] the Principles of Geology". The concept
of uniformitarianism in geology, and later on in biology, involved the need
for time far in excess of what was until then allowed by theology.
Once the reality of small but cumulative variations was established in
biology, a similar conclusion followed. Time became one of Darwin's
chief requirements... When Davis in 1899, therefore, wrote his paper on
cycle of erosion ... it was time which he singled out as of most practical
value (Stoddart, 1966).
Thus the Davisian concept of cycle of erosion was inspired by the central
idea in the Origin of Species regarding changes in species through time
and Davisian geomorphology adapted the biological analogy of aging to
the development of landfo1111s: It was deductive, time-oriented, and imbued
with mechanistic notions of causation. It derived its uniformitarianism from
Lyell, and its theme of change through time from a simplified view of the
theory of biological evolution.
Very similar views were propounded in plant geography, especially
ecology, under the leadership of Clements (1916). In the social sciences,
however, the development of the time perspective had to await the emergence
of a historical tradition following the concept of prehistory in the 1830s.
The first major contributions in this regard included Sir Henry Maine's
Ancient Law (1861), E.B. Taylor's Early History of Mankind (1865), and his
Origin of Civilization (1870). These together set a fashion in the developmental
interpretation of history, until Malinowski offered a functional interpretation
in the 1920s.
The concept of change through time also became a dominant theme
in human geography, more specifically in the Berkeley School under the
leadership of Carl 0. Sauer. Sauer and his students focused on in-depth
study of historical evolution of settlements in the American southwest and
elsewhere. It was also the central theme in Whittlesey's idea regarding
sequent occupance. To conclude:
Primarily ... geographers interpreted the biological evolution in terms of
change through time: what for Darwin was a process became for Davis
and others a history... For a time "evolution" implied little more than
the idea of change, development, and "progress" and Darwin was in
spite of himself seen as its author (Stoddart, op. cit.).
Organization and Ecology

The theme of organization and ecology was implicit in Darwin's theory of
evolution. In Chapter 3 of the Origin of Species he wrote that he was greatly
impressed by the "exquisite" adaptation and interrelationships of organic
forms "to each other and to the physical conditions of life". This was a
major inspiration in Haeckel's (1869) New Science ofEcology. Thus, irrespective
of theological resistance and opposition to any concept that attempted to
contradict the concept of divine creation, in the immediate post-Darwinian
period, man had himself become a subject matter for scientific investigation.
Part of the reason was that in his later publications such as, Expression of
Emotions of Man and Animals (1868), and Descent of Man (1871) Darwin had
himself treated man at the same level as other living organisms.
Haeckel's views on ecology were highly influential in setting a trend
in the study of man in relation to his environment. From about 1910 onwards,
the term "human ecology" was frequently used to refer to studies of this
kind. Writing in the year 1946 American sociologist Richard Park had
observed that human ecology deals with the web of life, the balance of
nature, the concepts of competition, dominance and succession, biological
economics and symbiosis. The source of inspiration lay in the contemporary
cross currents in biology. American geographer Harlan H. Barrows (1923)
had echoed similar sentiments in his Presidential address to the Association
of American Geographers, wherein he said that the aim of geography was:
to make clear the relationships existing between natural environments
and the distribution and activities of man... to view this problem ... from
the standpoint of man's adjustment to the environment, rather than that
of environmental influence.... The centre of geography is the study of
human ecology in specific areas.
Barrows' views had led to a good deal of opposition, since it appeared to
banish the study of geomorphology from the field of geography. As such,

his ideas failed to receive any significant support among fellow geographers,
except for the Berkeley school which was concerned with studies of the
origins of settlements from a developmental-ecological perspective.
The concept of organization, and organism, in geography predates
Darwin but the earlier concept of organism was purely teleological in origin,
and it involved explanation by analogy. After Darwin, organic analogy lost
its earlier metaphysical connotations, so that it became more biological in
orientation and expression. It had now got replaced by a more explicitly
ecological approach. Ecological studies became more specifically empirical
in method, and they slowly replaced the previously popular geographical
tradition of synthesis through analogy that was so dominant in the time of
Humboldt and Ritter, and half a century later, in the French school of
regional studies under Vidal de la Blache. No doubt, organismic analogy
had had its uses: It served as a unifying theme in our increasingly
particularistic discipline, so that referring to his scheme of Natural Regions,
Herbertson (1913-1914) stated that his Natural Regions represented "definite
associations of inorganic and living matter with definite structures and
functions with a real form and possessing regular and orderly changes as
those of a plant or an animal". Herbertson maintained that like plants and
animals, regions could also be ranked into species, genera, orders and classes.
Such organismic thinking also pervaded the scheme of regions proposed
by another British geographer, Unstead (1926). Likewise, Ratzel's scheme
of political geography had been deeply inspired by the Darwinian theory.
As Fleure (1929, p. 13) wrote: the fundamental criterion for application
of organismic analogy was that the phenomenon under consideration should
possess properties of organization of its constituent parts into a functionally
related mutually interdependent complex, which possesses properties which
are more than the sum of its parts. Methodologically, however, the organismic
analogy in geography was theoretically an unsound approach to explanation,
since it was a synthetic notion that gave no assistance in the actual course
of investigation. Besides, it was an idiographic concept in an increasingly
nomothetic science (Siddal, 1959), and so was abandoned as a working
principle in geography by the end of the 1930s.
Selection and Struggle

Among geographers who used the concept of struggle and selection in the
course of environmental adaptation by human communities, the names of
Fleure, Huntington and Griffith Taylor stand out most prominently. Fleure
(1919, 1937, 1952) stressed the need for physiological study to assess
environmental effects on man. To facilitate such studies he devised a typology
of human regions-regions of difficulty, of effort, of increment. However,
the theme, as it has developed since the time of Fleure, is far too technical
in approach, and therefore, beyond the competence of the average student
of geography. Elsworth Huntington, on the other hand, had focused on the
theme of natural selection, environmental influences and human populations
on a worldwide scale, so that it required little expert knowledge of the

biological sciences. Griffith Taylor used this in his studies on races, states,
and towns, but the questions that Huntington and Taylor asked could not
be meaningfully answered in terms of the generalized approach adopted,
so that the whole determinist-possibilist controversy had moved on to a
philosophical rather than an empirical level. This theme was, however,
most effectively developed in Ratzel's political geography. (For details see
Dikshit, 1997, chapter 1.)
Randomness and Chance

As discussed in the foregoing paragraphs, the Darwinian theory in geography
was generally interpreted either in terms of change through time (Davis)
or as struggle and selection (Ratzel). In either case, the Darwinian theory
was applied in an overwhelmingly deterministic perspective. This was
contrary to Darwin's own intentions since in his theory of biological
evolution, the element of chance played a major part, so that irrespective
of the running theme of environmental adaptation the Darwinian approach
to evolution was, at its core probabilistic rather than deterministic. Only
much later, in the 1960s, did geographers begin to recognize the importance
of stochastic processes, i.e., processes involving randomness and chance, in
geographic change.
The geographers' neglect of the role of randomness and chance is
somewhat surprising in view of the fact that "the study of this blind chance
in theory and practice [was] one of the greatest scientific performances of
the nineteenth century" (Merz, 1928). Part of the reason for the neglect lay
in Darwin himself, in the sense that his theory "made a clear distinction
between the way in which evolution was effected, and the course of evolution
itself: Geography seized on the latter and ignored the fo1mer. Darwin began
with the idea of the selection of 'chance' variations, which are 'no doubt'
governed by laws. These laws Darwin failed to discover, and in time came
to emphasize chance less and less" (Stoddart, 1966). Thus, "Darwinism in
the sense of development or evolution through time was seized on in
geography as a unifying principle to subsume vast quantities of otherwise
discrete and apparently unrelated data.... But called Darwinism or not, it
omitted Darwin's central theme" (Stoddart, 1966).
Conclusion
The foregoing discussion showed that of the four major themes in Darwinian
theory of evolution, geographers picked only the following three: the notion
of change through time (Davis), of struggle and selection leading to survival
of the fittest (Ratzel), and of interrelatedness of phenomena existing together
in specific locations on the earth's surface (the concepts of organization,
organic analogy, and ecology). Thus, the central point in Darwin's theory
regarding the role of randomness and chance in the process of evolution,
was completely neglected, so that Darwin's essentially probabilistic theory
was interpreted in geography in a conspicuously deter111inistic manner.

The influence of Darwin in the chorological geography of Hettner-and
Hartshome was also clearly visible in its central focus on the concept of
spatial organization, which emphasized the interdependence of phenomena
of diverse origins existing together in particular segments of the earth's
surface.
Darwin's lasting contribution to the philosophy and methodology of
modem science lay in that:
1. He separated scientific inquiry from a priori assumptions of the
teleological kind;
2. In the face of irrefutable evidence presented by Darwin in favour
of gradual evolution of phenomena in nature, theology itself began to tum
away from meddling in scientific matters, and soon started to acknowledge
that the Bible was no authority in the field of science (Livingstone, 1992,
pp. 149-155);
3. Darwin also succeeded in giving the final seal of approval to the
general acceptance of the concepts of uniformitarianism and law-like
statements in science, and thereby completed the dismissal of the notions
of Providential interference and catastrophism in science;
4. Darwin's unique contribution to modem thought lay in that he
was the first to establish man's place in nature, and thereby succeeded in
making man himself a valid subject for scientific inquiry.
ECOLOGY AND ECOSYSTEM AS A GEOGRAPHICAL PRINCIPLE

AND METHOD
The preceding discussion underlined the intellectual roots of Haeckel's
science of ecology in Darwinian theory of evolution, particularly his concept
regarding close relationships obtaining between organisms and their natural
habitats. Sadly, however, mainstream geography as a chorological science
focused on the study of areal differentiation, had completely failed to gauge
the methodological potential of the concept of ecology as a working principle
in geographical work. The Heitner-Hartshorne paradigm had projected
geography as a branch of knowledge with a unique integrating function
focused on the synthesis of knowledge derived from other specialized
disciplines about phenomena of diverse kinds existing together in particular
segments of earth-space. (In this the function of geography was seen as
almost parallel to that of history, which synthesizes information in a time
context.) Such an exceptionalist position for geography implied that as a
branch of knowledge, geography stood isolated from mainstream scientific
thought. The wind of change came only in early 1950s initially through the
works of Schaefer and Ackerman-a line of thought that received more
focused attention from William Bunge (1962, 1966). By the end of the 1960s,
geography bade goodbye to exceptionalism, so that it became generally
accepted that in its aims and method, geography is no different from other
fields of scientific inquiry. Each of them is engaged in the pursuit of extending

the frontiers of knowledge through the search for general principles and
theories.
Neither of the two concepts of geography, namely areal differentiation,
and search for organic analogy in man-environment relationships could
provide the discipline an analytical tool of sufficient power to lead to new
insights. Only in the 1960s did the geographic profession become alive to
the methodological potentialities of the ecosystem concept. Many a scholar
began to underline that geography and ecology had much in common:
Both are concerned with distribution, organization, and morphology of
phenomena on the surface of the earth, so that the two disciplines inevitably
converge in terms of concepts and techniques. Also, both are concerned
with the study of organisms in the context of the natural environment in
particular places and locales.
The term ecosystem was formally proposed by Tansley, the noted
plant ecologist, in 1935. He further elaborated this concept in 1946, in his
book Introduction to Plant Ecology. As originally presented, ecosystem was
a general term to signify both the biome the whole complex of organisms
naturally living together as a sociological unit-and its habitat. All the
elements-organic as well as inorganic in any ecosystem represent a closely
interacting system. In any mature ecosystem the diverse elements constituting
the system are in approximate equilibrium. Tansley's concept has since
been further refined and elaborated by other students of ecology. Fosberg
(1963, p. 2) has defined the concept as follows:
An ecosystem is a functioning interacting system composed of one or
more living organisms and their effective environment, both physical
and biological .... Description of an ecosystem may include spatial relations,
inventories of its physical features, its habitats and ecological niches, its
organisms and its basic reserves of matter and energy; its patterns of
circulation of matter and energy; the nature ·of its income (or input) of
matter and energy; and behaviour or trend of its entropy level.
Viewed thus, the earth's surface itself represents a huge ecosystem, first
named by Cole (1958) as the ecosphere (derived from ecosystem and
biosphere).
Properties that Recommend Ecosystem Concept to

Geographical Work
1. The ecosystem concept is monistic, so that it brings together man
and the plant and animal worlds within a single framework, within which
their mutual interaction can be analysed. Whereas, being aesthetic in nature,
the Hettnerian as well as the Vidalian concepts of terrestrial unity could
not provide a useful tool of analysis; the ecosystem concept being functional
in design, offers a sound working principle for geographical analysis of
man-environment interaction in specific areas and regions. Besides, since
the ecosystem concept combines both the physical and the biological
environment in a single interacting system, it helps to resolve the age-old

•
problem of dualism in geography-that between physical geography

(focused on study of the physical environment) and human geography
(concerned with the study of human organization and its spatial conse
quences).
2. Ecosystems are structured in an orderly, rational, and comprehensible
way, so that once the framework of any spatial system is clearly defined, •
it is possible to systematically analyse it.
3. Ecosystems are functioning systems involving continuous through
put of matter and energy. Thus, after the framework is clearly set out,
it is easy to quantify the nature of the interaction patterns between its
components.
4. Ecosystem is a kind of general system-an open system tending
towards a steady state under the laws of open system thermodynamics.
Following the development of the laws of open system thermodynamics,
many of the older concepts of ecology are being reinterpreted.
5. Ecosystems may be conceptualized at different levels of complexity
from a single farm unit to the national system of agriculture in any country.
The ecosystems possess structural properties of theoretical models, so that
as in the case of theoretical models, a first approximation of system structure
may be reached by selection, simplification, and ordering of data at a series
of levels. Accordingly, with the adoption of the concept of ecosystem,
geographical systems may be examined at a series of levels or scales,
beginning with the framework level (such as settlement hierarchies or a
transportation network), to simple information systems focused on the
analysis of the mechanisms of supply and demand, to the still more complex
levels of social organization.
The Concept's Problems and Potentialities

As Stoddart wrote, tradition-bound geographers may object that the study
of ecosystems in geography is not new, and that it is not geography. It is
true that the concept of system was implicit in most geographic work, but
as contrasted to older geographical work implicitly subsuming the notion
of system (or organization), the ecosystem analysis calls for explicit
illustration of the structure and functions of the community or the system
under investigation with a view to establishing precise (quantified) links
between its components. This certainly is very different from the earlier
work in geography that remained focused on generalized description of
the phenomena under investigation. This was what had generally passed
on as geographical synthesis.
As regards the charge that the ecosystem model is nongeographical,
in that it does not define the earth's surface as its special object of study, it
may be instructive to cite Davies (1961), who wrote: "Ecology is the study
of environmental relationships; geography is the study of space
relationships", but "what is not clear is where one stops and the other
starts". To sum u p,
Within any areal framework the ecosystem concept will give point to
inquiry, and thus highlight both form and function within a spatial setting.
Simplistic ideas of causation and development, or of geographic dualism
are irrelevant; ecosystem analysis gives the geographer a tool with which
to work (Stoddart, 1965).
As Stoddart further wrote, by virtue of its general systems properties,
the ecosystem concept brings geography back into the realm of natural
sciences, and allows geographers to participate in the scientific revolutions
of the twentieth century from which the exceptionalist stance of the
chorological model geography (adhering to rigid application of the Kantian
notion of division between fields of knowledge) had until the 1960s excluded
us. With the introduction of the concept of general system "geography
could no longer stand apart in its isolated 'integrating' position". (For
fuller discussion on this theme, refer to Stoddart, chapter 10 in Dikshit,
1994.)
REFERENCES
Barrows, H.H. (1923), Geograph)'._ as human ecology, Annals of the Association
Bunge, W. (1962), Theoretical Geography, 1st ed., Lund Studies in Geography,
Series C, vol. 1, Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
_ _ (1966), Theoretical Geography, 2nd ed., Lund Studies in Geography,
_
Series C, vol. 1, Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup.
Clements, F.E. (1916), Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of
Vegetation, Washington: Carnegie Institute.
Cole, L. (1958), The ecosphere, Scientific American, vol. l, 1984, pp. 83-92.
Darwin, C.R. (1842), The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, London:
Smith, Elder.
_ _ _ (1859), On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The
Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, London: John
Murray.
Darwin, F. (1887), Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 3 vols., London: John
Murray.
Davis, W.M. (1899), The geographical cycle, Geographical Journal, vol. 14,
pp. 481-504.
Davies, J.L. (1961), Aims and method in zoogeography, Geographical Review,
vol. 51, pp. 412-417.
Dikshit, R.D. (Ed.) (1994), The Art and Science of Geography: Integrated Readings,
New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India (Chapter 10 by Stoddart, Chapter 11
by Dikshit).
___ (1997), Developments in Political Geography: A Century of Progress,
New Delhi/Thousand Oaks/London: Sage Publications.
Fleure, H.J. (1919), Human regions, Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. 35,
pp. 94-105.
___ (1929), An Introduction to Geography, London: Benn.
___ (1937), Geography and the scientific movement, Geography, vol. 2,
pp. 17&--188.
___ (1949), Geography and evolution, Geography, vol. 34, pp. 1 9-.
___ (1952), The later developments in Herbertson's thought: A study
in the application of Darwin's ideas, Geography, vol. 37, pp. 97-103.
Fosberg, F.R. (1963), The Island Ecosystem, in Fosberg, F.R. (Ed.), Man's
Place in the Island Ecosystem, Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, pp. 1-6.
Herbertson, A.J. (1913 /1965), The higher units: A geographical essay, Scientia,
vol. 14, pp. 203-213. (Reprinted in Geography, vol. 50, pp. 332-342.)
_ _ _(1913-1914), Natural region, Geography Teacher, vol. 7, pp. 158-163.
Huxley, T.H. (1877), Physiography: An Introduction to the Study of Nature,
London: Macmillan.
Livingstone, D.N. (1992), The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History
of a Contested Enterprise, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Merz, J.T. (1928), A History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century,
Vol. 2, Edinburgh: William Blackwood.
Park, R. (1946), Human ecology, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 42,
pp. 1-15.
Scoon, R. (1950), The rise and impact of evolutionary ideas, in Parson, S.
(Ed.), Evolutionary Thought in America, New Haven: Yale University
Press, pp. 4 42.
Siddal, W.R. (1959), Idiographic and nomothetic geography: The application
of some ideas in the philosophy and history of science to geographic
methodology, Ph.D. thesis submitted at the University of Washington
(cited in Stoddart, 1986).
Stoddart, D.R. (1965), Geography and the ecological approach: The ecosystem
as a geographic principle and method, Geography, vol. 50, pp. 242-251.
___ (1966), Darwin's impact on geography, Annals of the Association of
American Geographers, vol. 56, pp. 683-698:
(1967), Organism and ecosystem as geographic models, in
Chorley, R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.), Models in Geography, London:
Methuen, pp. 511-547.
___ (1986), On Geography and its History, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Tansley, A.G. (1946), Introduction to Plant Ecology, London: Allen & Unwin.
Unstead, J.F. (1926), Geographical regions illustrated by the Iberian peninsula,
Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. 42, pp. 159-170.
11
Geography and Environmentalism
MAN-NATURE RELATIONSHIP
The relationship between mankind and the physical environment is a theme
that has held the attention of man from the beginning of civilization. During
the premodern phase, the general assumption the world over was that
nature sets the stage for human development, though the approach to
nature-man relationship varied from one society to another, depending
upon whether nature of the habitat was friendly and, therefore, benevolent
or the natural conditions were hard from the viewpoint of the mechanics
of living. The former case is exemplified by wet tropical and subtropical
environments of old cultural lands of South and East Asia-the traditional
realms of Chinese and Indian cultural influence. In these civilizations, Nature
was viewed as the gift from the benevolent Almighty God, so that it needed
to be preserved: It was necessary to develop a state of peaceful coexistence
with nature so that in the process of their use by mankind, the resources
of the natural environment were not disturbed beyond the natural capacity
of the environment to replenish itself. The indigenous philosophies and
religions were geared to the maintenance of the ecological balance in nature:
Man was part of nature (like the rest of sentient nature-the plant and
animal kingdom). The case of the Hebrew and Greek cultures which grew
through a process of hard struggle against an unfriendly and harsh
environment was altogether different. Nature had to be vanquished, to be
conquered and won over, in order to clear the path for cultural development.
Progress depended on changing the character of land through human
ingenuity, by irrigation and the use of fertilizers, for instance, in order to
make it yield the required resources for progress. Thus, under the European
cultural realm, "the environment came to be seen as a metaphor for triumph
over struggle, for dominant forms of social management over the weak,
and for the production of capital and resource surplus as an essential
prerequisite to the class domination that was necessary to allow society to
progress" (O'Riordan, 1989, p. 78). This was the view of Nature-as-usufruct,
a view that (in the words of O'Riordan) was used as an excuse for persistent
exploitation of the weak, whether the weak was the natural world or the
lesser mortals e.g., in the overseas colonies in the tropical lands (Asia,
Africa, and Latin America).
242
GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTALISM 243
Nature-as-usufruct is still the dominant view in all industrial societies

the world over, who hold on to essentially an "I-thou" perspective an
essentially conflictual view of the man-environment relationship. It is rare
to come across such a conflictual perspective in man-nature relationship in
the case of marginal cultures occupying marginal environments and
possessing rudimentary technologies. They had not, unlike in India and
China, worked out any elaborate philosophy (it could not be possible given
the stage of development) but their propensity for disturbing the natural
environmental balance through excessive use of natural resources was
checked by intricate social institutions that rewarded communal sharing
and punished self-indulgent expenditure.
The Deterministic Perspective

Geographers' interest in the study of man-environment relationships got a
new lease of life after the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species
(1959), owing to the underlying emphasis on ecological relationship between
an organism and its environment in the evolutionary thesis, and the notions
of organization, and struggle and selection. The Darwinian theory gave
new respectability to geography as a field of learning. The fact that the
Darwinian theory of biological evolution through selection and struggle in
which the fittest survived appeared to offer a scientific justification for
European domination of the lesser mortals in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Geography as the science of environmental relationships became the vehicle
for putting forth this justification for European imperialism in the second
half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, many modem geographers (e.g.,
Hudson, 1977; Stoddart, 1986) have argued that the rise of geography as a
university-level discipline in the last quarter of the nineteenth century owed
a great deal to its usefulness in the task of justifying the current phase of
European imperialism
•
in terms of the varying natural qualities and abilities
of the different "racial" groups. The justification was carried out through
disciplinary focus on environmental determinism. The line of argument
pursued was: Differences in physical and mental abilities of different societies,
and in the level of their cultural and economic potential and achievement,
were caused by the regional differences in the quality of natural environment,
so that European domination of people in other lands was natural and in
line with the wishes of the Creator. The inherent competitiveness and
aggression in capitalism and imperial expansionism were justified as the
natural pattern of behaviour for any species in terms of the Darwinian
thesis. Indeed, English philosopher Herbert Spencer advocated the
application of the Darwinian theory to the study of human society-a line
of thought that came to be known as social Darwinism of which the best
advocate in geography was German geographer Friedrich Ratzel. This was
the most popular theory of geography pursued the world over during that
period of European domination.
As noted in the discussion on the rise of political economy perspective
in human geography, such a deterministic perspective on man-environment
relationships was opposed by the anarchist Russian geographer Kropotkin

(1924). He agreed that man's interaction with nature generated certain human
qualities, but he was opposed to the social Darwinist view of what these
qualities were. As against the social Darwinist view that man-nature
interaction naturally led to qualities of competitiveness and aggression,
Kropotkin argued in favour of the qualities of cooperativeness and sociability,
though his was almost a lone voice in the wilderness; environmental
determinism in geography reigned supreme.
According to Glacken (1956, 1967) three different modes of nature
society or man-environment relations have permeated the history of Western
thought:
• Humanity in harmonious relationship with nature;
• Humanity as determined by nature; and
• Humanity as modifier of nature.
The man as modifier and conqueror of nature view has dominated
modem thought though the other two perspectives have by no means been
completely absent. The first forceful attack on the tenets of environmental
determinism in modem geography came only in the late 1920s from Wittfogel
(1929) who denied the thesis of direct natural causation of inherent human
characteristics. He maintained instead that human labour organized in
different social forms moulded nature into the different material bases for
economic development of regional societies. This is what created the
distinctive regional cultural traits, rather than the environment per se. Thus,
man made himself: Societies are human creations rather than natural/
environmental creations. Wittfogel was, however, not opposed to the idea
of natural forces being a potent influence in man's life upon earth. In
particular, he drew attention to the climatically determined need for irrigation
which in the East (India and China) gave rise to a line of social development
that was greatly at variance with the one followed in the rainfed agriculture
pursued in the West, giving rise to entirely different kinds of civilizations
in the two cultural realms (Wittfogel, 1957). But, conventional geography
tended to stand firm in its support of the current social order, and this was
one of the reasons for its widespread adoption in schools and universities.
The Possibilist Perspective

An alternative view of environmentalism in geography around the beginning
of the twentieth century found wide acceptance in France according to
which the physical environment offers opportunities for a range of possible
directions of development, and it depended on human initiative as to which
particular direction of progress was chosen. This basic premise that the
environment presents a range of opportunities, and it is for human groups
in particular places to choose between them, came to be known by the
name of possibilism. This view is generally identified with the French school
of human geography that developed around the tum of the twentieth century
GEOGRAPHY ANO ENVIRONMENTALISM 245
under the leadership of Vidal de la Blache. The possibilistic view of man

environment relations developed by Blache represented a middle course
between the views of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim (who proposed
that human geography should be reduced to the study of social morphology,
comprising, "the mass of individuals who comprise the society, the manner
in which they are disposed upon the earth, and the nature and configuration
of objects of all sorts which affect collective relations") and the German
geographer Friedrich Ratzel.
Vidal rejected Durkheim's view of human geography as social
morphology, and insisted instead that man "joins in nature's game" and
the external environment (milieu externe) was a partner not a slave of human
activity. On the contrary, he shared Ratzel's view that society ought not to
be left "suspended in the air", that it must be placed against the environment
in which it grows; but he squarely rejected any notion of environmental
determinism associated with the Ratzelian view of geography as propounded
by his American disciple Ellen Churchil Semple (1911). He was emphatic
that "nature is never more than an advisor", and that man's interaction
with the external environment revealed the human being as "at once both
active and passive". The Vidalian approach to the environment followed a
middle course between extreme (radical) possibilism and strict environmental
determinism. Blache rejected the view that society and nature stood out as
adversaries in the man-environment confrontation. For him, man was part
of nature ("living creation") and, therefore, its most active collaborator.
The concept of genre de vie (way of life) was Vidal de la Blache's formulation
to resolve the man-environment duality, in that the life styles of the people
in particular locales revealed that physical geographical factors and human
ingenuity collaborated to create distinctive genre de vie.
French historian Lucien Febvre supported Vidal's view in his famous
phrase "there are not necessities but everywhere possibilities; and man as
master of these possibilities is the judge of their use" (Febvre, 1932). This
was a modified view of the Vidalian perspective, since in its essentials the
Vidalian view of possibilism "could still legitimately be regarded as a
qualification rather than a negation of environmental determinism" (Gregory,
1994). As Gregory points out, the possibilist concept became so distorted
by the 1950s that it seemed to pose a threat to the scientific status of
geography as an autonomous discipline. In the first place, critics argued
that scientific laws are essentially deterministic, so that in order to become
a branch of scientific learning, human geography required laws "similar in
stringency to those of physical science" (Martin, 1951). This was countered
by the view that the traditional emphasis in geography on contingency
(something liable to happen as an adjunct to something else) and probabilities
was consistent with the concept of modem physics Oones, 1956; Luke111,ann,
1965). Secondly, the distinctiveness of geography was defined in terms of
the relationship between society and nature in which the physical
"foundation must in large part control the superstructure" (Spate, 1957).
Spate suggested the concept of "probabilism" as compromise between
extreme positions of environmental determinism on the one hand, and

radical possibilism on the other. Probabilism held the view that although
the physical environment does not exactly determine human actions, it
does exert considerable influence on human action so that certain responses
are more likely than the others. Human action was a combined response to
natural environment interacting with technological advance of the society
under reference. The environment offered a range of probable choices but
only one of these could become actuality (or possibility). Which particular
probability shall become actuality depended on the stage of technological
advance.
The concept of probabilism was closely parallel to the neo-environ
mentalist view of stop-and-go determinism developed by Griffith Taylor (1951).
Taylor maintained that it may be that the well-endowed parts of the world
offer a number of different possibilities for making a living; but in some
nine-tenths of the earth's land area, nature speaks out clearly- "this land
is too dry, or too cold, or too wet, or too rugged". He wrote that the settlers
who fail to heed this nature-given limitation must face disaster.According
to Taylor, the role of nature was far from crudely deterministic, but the
environment was nevertheless a potent force in human action which man
could ameliorate but not escape. It is like the case of the flow of traffic on
a busy road. The traffic policeman cannot wish away the traffic that must
necessarily flow. All that he does is to regulate the traffic through the
temporary stop-and-go method. The human agency, through the use of
technology, can modify the force of nature but it cannot escape it. The role
of human agency is similar to that of the traffic regulator.
NATURE-AS-NURTURE: THE CURRENT VIEW OF MAN·

ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS
Although an old perspective on man-environment relationship in the East,
the nature-as-nurture view in the West caught the attention of academics
and social activists only in the 1960s as an antidote to the long prevailing
view of nature as usufruct; though (as O'Riordan, 1989, p. 79, recalled) "In
essence, ever since it broke clear of pure subsistence economics, ... human
society has always recognized its capacity to destroy the environs as greater
than its ability to restore the damage within a manageable period of
adjustment". The central objective of the current view on environment is
"to place humankind in its ecological setting, simply as one of the sentient
species". It aims at human well-being, and is focused on the belief that this
is possible only if nature is accorded its rightful place as a friendly partner
in the process of development and growth. It is built upon a deep faith that
survival of mankind is dependent on the survival of a healthy and
ecologically balanced earth environment. The debate on environmentalism
revolves around two fundamental issues: First, resource exploitation is
inevitable for human survival; and that in this process, it is inevitable that
man shall take more than he returns. This leads to entropy-the steady
increase in energy dissipation (and chaos)-that makes it progressively

more difficult to maintain the organs of social stability, so that eventually
society may begin to spend more effort in maintaining order than it generates
by way of new energy and wealth. It is also obvious that the very process
of competitive exploitation is a class-dominated process: The rich and
resourceful always have the upper hand. The second issue revolves around
the hope that there is hope for a better future based on the faith that
ultimately the moral fibre in human nature shall prevail leading to greater
concern for the survival of the species as against narrow personal gains.
As O'Riordan wrote, "Environmentalism is a collage of values and
views of the world, a general patterning of predispositions, being first and
foremost a social movement, though with political overtones", so that "green
politics" is currently in ascendence in Europe. It is based on the philosophy
that "embraces Earth-centredness, a sense of altruistic communalism, non
violence, and a concept of time that is almost timeless" (O'Riordan, 1989,
p. 80). In the 1970s, green politics in the West had moved from the state of
voluntary environmental pressure group to the mainstream party politics,
in that there are now open debates on environmental implications of
governmental policies in diverse areas. The promoters of green politics
view themselves as the "people of the old world trying to create a new
one" (Petra Kelly's foreword to J. Porritt's Seeing Green, 1984). According to
Porritt, greenness is the politics of ecology and life interests, against the
current politics of exploitation and class interests. It is the politics of Earth
respectfulness and people-caring. But with the adoption of greenness as a
manifesto in mainstream European politics, the advocacy of greenness in
politics has assumed a "predatory purpose" showing disposition to
exploitation with a view to political gain.
The Current Meaning of Environmentalism

Modern writing on this subject distinguishes between two alternative
perspectives on environmentalism: The conservative view of society-nature
relationship wherein nature provides a metaphor for morality and a guide
to rules of conduct; and the radical or manipulative perspective in which
the spirit of competition in skill dictates the terms of ethics and conduct.
God as the personification of the unknown, the unknowable, and the
mysterious is a common metaphor in both. This is considered important
because man is supposed to possess a sense of responsibility to nature
(Creation) in seeking guidance regarding how to act on the Earth. It becomes
the vital restraining mechanism in avoiding the destructive power of societal
exploitation of resources.
The essential difference in perspective between the conservative or
maturing and the manipulative view of environmentalism lies in the
conceived position regarding the relationship between God, Nature, and
Man. Under the conservative mode of thought the order of precedence
was: God-Nature-Man, that is, God first made the Earth (nature) and then
man. This was the original Hebrew view of Genesis later adapted by the
nineteenth century European Romanticists. According to this vie,v, therefore,

human morality was shaped by the right of nature-environmental
conservation and maintenance of ecological balance in nature. Man was,
under such a perspective, supposed to live with nature, preserve the
environment, avoid wastefulness and recognize the essential unity of sentient
existence. In the manipulative perspective on the environment on the other
hand, the order of precedence is: God-Man-Nature, so that it is believed
that the Earth (nature) was created for human exploitation; man was primary
and nature secondary, so that man created his own standards of morality.
The conservative mode of thought and practice is essentially ecocentric, as
contrasted to the manipulative perspective which may be described as
technocentric. "Environmentalism seeks to embrace both worldviews: indeed
it is the constant interaction between these positions that gives environ
mentalism its special dynamic qualities" (O'Riordan, op. cit., p. 85).
The technocentric perspective on the environment is essentially a
usufruct perspective: it is interventionist in ethos and approach, based on
faith in the application of scientific skill, market operation and managerial
ingenuity. A milder version of this approach is accommodative in man's
relations to nature, and is based on faith in the adaptability of societal
institutions and approaches to assessment and evaluation with a view to
accommodating environmental demands. The ecocentric perspective is based
on the belief that
the Earth has her own law, a natural law in the original sense of these
words, deeper than human enactments and beyond repeal.... Who treats
her well receives blessings; who treats her ill suffers privation, for she
gives with even-handed measure. Earth forgives but only to a certain
point, only until the balance tips and then it is too late (Hughes, 1983,
p. 56, cited in O'Riordan, op. cit).
In the current literature on environmentalism, such a faith is identified as
Gaianism-a term derived from the Greek goddess Gaia, the nurturing mother
figure from whom all sustenance on the Earth was derived. Gaia's daughter
Themis was the Goddess of Justice. Under the Greek concept, justice was
equated with retribution (i.e., reward for those who treated the environment
well �rd punishment for those who treated it ill through over-exploitation
and thereby disturbed the ecological balance). The scientific view of Gaianism
is presented by the geochemist James Lovelock (1979). According to this
view life upon the Earth is manipulated by living organisms which through
their naturally coordinated interaction help smooth out disturbances in the
atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere so that a complicated life
sustaining state is maintained on the earth surface. The operative aspect of
Gaianism is faith in communalism, that is, faith in the cooperative capabilities
of societies to establish self-reliant communities based on renewable resource
use and appropriate technologies.
A closely akin environmental concept is the concept of deep ecology
developed by several Scandinavian, Australian and American thinkers (Fox,
1984; Devall and Sessons, 1985; Tobias, 1985). The philosophy of deep ecology
provides a justification for sacredness of life upon the earth, and promotes
equality of, and respect for, all sentient beings in terms of their essential
interdependence for survival and their origins from the same cosmic force.
For adherents of deep ecology, self-realization for human beings consists in
recognizing the inherent solidarity with the totality of life for11,s constituting
nature. Green movements in various countries in the West, as also the
Animals Rights campaigns are the manifestations of this kind of thought.
Indian philosophy has, from the beginning, recognized the basic unity
of man and nature. For Indian thinkers man has always been a part of
nature, and there has been a basic faith in the cosmic brotherhood between
man and other species in the plant and animal kingdoms, so that one of
our ancient rishis was Shukdev (parrot god), one of our mythological gods
was Varah (boar), not to mention the most popular God fo11r1, Hanuman
(the monkey-vanar-avatar). The deep ecology ethos has been an inherent
part of the Indian way of life and thought. Compassion for non-human
forms of life, including non-violence and special attention to the cow, have
been its manifestation in the day-to-day life of country folk, and the Hindu
tradition had enjoined special blessings for those who preserved the
environment through planting trees and building water-storage tanks for
public use. The various environment protection movements in India,
beginning with the Chipko Movement in the U.P. Himalayas, are recent
manifestations of this old tradition made necessary by destabilization of
the fragile environment in the relatively marginal lands. Mahatma Gandhi
was-in terms of the living practitioner of the dying tradition-a true Gaian
or Deep Ecologist. The Chipko and other movements owe a great deal to
the Mahatma's principles. The main environmental movements of various
kinds in India include: Chipko and related movements for forest life and
environmental protection in Uttarakhand (the U.P. Himalayas), the "Save
Narmada" movement in Madhya P radesh and the protest movements
associated with the construction of Narmada Sagar Dam, and the Sardar
Sarovar Dam in Gujarat, and the Silent Valley Movement in Kerala, the
protection of environment against bauxite mining which threatens tribal
life in the Gandhamardan Hills in Orissa, and the Appiko Movement for the
protection of the environment in the Western Ghats. (Brief descriptions of
these and some others are given in Karan, 1994.)
The Concept of Sustainable Development

The concept of sustainable development, made popular through the 1987
report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, presents
an intermediary position between the somewhat contrasting perspectives
of the developers and the ecology-minded environmentalists. According to
the World Commission's report, sustainable development stands for
"development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs" (p. 43). It is
based on the concept of wealth creation attuned to nature's capacity to
renew and replenish resources; it is rooted in the utilitarian concept of
resource-management, and it insists on a synthetic view of the complex

interrelationship between the physical and the social, and combines an
ecological basis to economics and local self-reliance. However, such a
perspective, in order to succeed, calls for a comprehensive shift in the
distribution of power in society and, as such, wholesale changes in
institutional structure which is a tall order. These considerations do not,
however, stop the sustainability and development advocates. The idea has,
however, come under attack from those who perceive ultimate limits to
growth, and view further development (in terms of economic growth) and
sustainability as mutually exclusive propositions. The idea has also been
criticized as "a convenient formula used to maintain the notion of growth
ar,d development as a way of avoiding or finessing intractable questions of
distribution" (Emel, 1994).
As O'Riordan wrote, a distinction must be made between sustainability
and sustainable utilization. Sustainable utilization is the term used by the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (1980) to denote a rate
of resource uptake which equals the rate of renewal and replenishment.
Although it is possible to increase yield by technological manipulation, the
basic principles of replenishable extraction have to be honoured. Sustainability,
on the other hand, incorporates ethical norms in the Gaia tradition, including
emphasis on taking due consideration of the rights of the future generations
of all living species. Sustainability, therefore, is "a reformist notion in the
[neo-Marxist] radical tradition of opening up institutions of economic
investment and resource development to a far greater sense of Gaian
accountability" (O'Riordan, 1989, p. 94).
Geography and Environmental Education

Right from the days of George Perkin Marsh geographers have been involved
in environmental protection and the creation of a concerned attitude towards
the environment. The book, Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth
presented by the followers of Sauer in his honour, was part of this continuing
interest. As Mikesell (1974, p. 2) wrote: "developments in geography have
been such that the several phases of national preoccupation with
environmental problems have not produced a general awareness of interests
and skills". As part of such a realization on the part of the geographical
profession in the United States, the Commission on College Geography of
the Association of American Geographers (AAG) had set up a l'anel on
Environmental Education, and established a Task Force on Environmental
Quality which reported (Lowenthal, et al., 1973) that geographers were
best qualified to function as leaders in environmental education in view of:
(a) The breadth of their training which imparts them the ability to handle
and synthesize material from a wide range of sources, (b) The geographers'
view of causation as a multi-lateral and complex phenomenon, (c) The
geographers' training in tapping or deriving information from diverse
sources, (d) Geography's focus on the spatial distribution of phenomena
GEOGRAPHY ANO ENVIRONMENTALISM 251
on the earth surface, and (e) The established tradition of environmental

study in the discipline.
More recently, Stoddart (1987) underlined that the reason for the
geographers' failure to contribute to the current debate on environmentalism
in a meaningful way has arisen from the fact that they have failed to
recognize what, according to Stoddart, should be "the central intent and
indeed self-evident role in the community of knowledge", that is: the study
of "Earth's diversity, its resources, man's survival on the planet". Such a
role for geography calls for a unified discipline both physical and human
in which our task as a profession should be: "To identify geographical
problems, issues of man and environment within regions-problems not of
geomorphology, history or economics or sociology, but geographical
problems: and to use our skills to work to alleviate them, perhaps to solve
them" (Stoddart, 1987). For Stoddart, the geographers' focus on research in
topics like the geographical influences on the cinema, or the distribution of
fast food outlets, and such other esoteric topics of little relevance to societal
problems of the day are wasteful diversions-unnecessary fiddling with
trifles. His message to fellow geographers is loud and clear: "Fiddle if you
must, but at least be aware that Rome is burning all the while". The current
position in the discipline is that:
While bridges have been built across the human-physical geography
interface, there has been no integration of the study of the physical and
social processes; for human geographers their links with other social
scientists are much stronger than environmental scientists (Johnston, 1991,
p. 209).
Through its input in environmental education----<:reating informed
attitudes about the environment, and the ways and means of preserving
the balance of nature geography has the opportunity for contributing in
the all-important task of preparing the students as responsible citizens. It
is an area of study through which geography can be projected as the
integrated discipline focused on the study of the earth as the world of man;
but this would require consid�rable effort at updating our physical geography
syllabi with much greater input of science. (For a comprehensive statement
on geography and teaching of the environment, reference may be made to
Dikshit, 1985,,reproduced in Dikshit, 1994.)
REFERENCES
Devall, W. and Sessons, G. (1985), Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered,
Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books.
Dikshit, R.D. (1985), Geography and the teaching of the environment: A
review and suggestions, Transactions, Institute of Indian Geographers,
vol. 7, pp. 113---123. (Reprinted in Dikshit, R.D. (Ed.), The Art and
Science of Geography, New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India, 1994, Chapter
11, pp. 112-126.)
Emel, J. (1994), Environmental movement, in Johnston, R.J. et al. (Eds.), The

Dictionary of Human Geography, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 165-166.
Febvre, L. (1932), A Geographical Introduction to History, London: Kegan
Paul Trench Trubner.
Fox, W. (1984), Deep ecology: A new philosophy for our time? Ecology, vol.
14, pp. 194-232.
Glacken, C.J. (1956), Changing ideas of the habitable world, in Thomas,
W.L. (Ed.), Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, Chicago: Chicago
University Press, pp. 70--92.
(1967), Traces on the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in Western
Thought from Ancient Times to the End of Eighteenth Century, Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Gregory, D. (1994), Possibilism, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and Smith,
D.M. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
pp. 558-559.
Hudson, B. (1977), The new geography and the new imperialism, 1870--
1918, Antipode, vol. 16, pp. 23-36.
Hughes, D. (1983), Gaia: An ancient view of our planet, Ecologist, vol. 13,
pp. 54 60.
Johnston, R.J. (1991), Geography and Geographers, 4th ed., London: Edward Arnold.
Jones, E. (1956), Cause and effect in human geography, Annals of the
Karan, P.P. (1994), Environmental movements in India, Geographical Review,
vol. 84, pp. 33-41.
Kropotkin, P. (1924), Ethics: Origin and Development, New York. (For detailed
treatment, see Breitbart, M.M. (1981), Kropotkin: The anarchist
geographer, in Stoddart, D.R. (Ed.), Geography, Ideology and Social •
Concern, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.)

Lovelock, J. (1979), Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Lowenthal, D. et. al. (1973), Report of the AAG task force on environmental
quality, The Professional Geographer, vol. 25, pp. 39-46.
Lukermann, F. (1965), The calcul de probabilites and the ecole Francaise de
geographie, The Canadian Geographer, vol. 9, pp. 128-137.
Martin, A.F. (1951), The necessity for determinism, Transactions, Institute of
British Geographers, vol. 17, pp. 1-12.
Mikesell, M.W. (1974), Geography as the study of environment: An
assessment of some old and new commitments, in Manners, R. and
Mikesell, M.W. (Eds.), Perspectives on Environment, Commission on
College Geography, Association of American Geographers, Washington,
D.C., pp. 1 -23.
O'Riordan, T. (1989), The challenge for environmentalism, in Peet, R. and

Thrift, N. (Eds.), New Models in Geography, Vol. 1, London: Unwin
Hyman, pp. 77-102.
Porritt, J. (1984), Seeing Green: The Politics of Ecology Explained, Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
Semple, E.C. (1911), Influences of Geographic Environment, On the Basis of
Ratzel's System of Anthropogeography, New York: Henry Holt.
Spate, O.H.K. (1957), How determined is possibilism? Geographical Studies,
vol. 4, pp. 3-12.
Stoddart, D.R. (1986), On geography and its history, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
_ __ (1987), To claim the high ground: Geography for the end of the
century, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, vol. NS12,
pp. 327-336.
Taylor, G. (Ed.) (1951), Geography in the Twentieth Century, London: Methuen.
Tobias, M. (Ed.), Deep Ecology, San Diego, CA: Avant Books.
Wittfogel, K. (1929), Geopolitics, geographical materialism and Marxism,
Antipode, vol. 17, pp. 21-71, 1985 (translated from Wittfogel, K. (1929),
Geopolitik, Geographischer Materialismus und Marxismus, in
Ulmen, G.O. (Ed.), Unter dem Banner des Marxismus).
___ (1956), The hydraulic civilizations, in Thomas, W.L. (Ed.), Man's
Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, Chicago: Chicago University
Press, pp. 152-164.
___ (1957), Oriental Despotism, New Haven: Yale University Press.
World Resources Institute (1986), World Resources, New York: Basic Books.
12
Place, Space and Locality: The Current
Focus In Human Geography
LOCALE, LOCATION AND SENSE OF PLACE

The concepts of place, space and locality are closely related. Place denotes
a portion of geographical space occupied by the phenomenon under reference
(a person, thing or event). The concept of space is more complex, and it
subsumes the concept of place. Blau! called space as "a treacherous
philosophical word", and distinguished between the concepts of "absolute
space" and "relative space". Absolute space was described as "a distinct,
physical and eminently real or empirical entity in itself" so that absolt1le
space is a concrete manifestation of space-it is a place or spatial structure
where phenomena are rooted. A relative view of space conceptualizes space
as "merely a relation between events or an aspect of events, and thus [it is]
bound to time and process" (Blau!, 1961).
Agnew has underlined three important aspects of place: locale, location,
and sense of place:
Locale refers to the structured "microsociological" content of place, the
settings of everyday, routine social interaction provided in a place. Location
refers to the representation in local social interaction of ideas and practices
derived from the relationship between places. In other words, location
represents the impact of the "macro order" in a place (uneven economic
development, the uneven effects of government policy, segregation of
social groups, etc.). Sense of place refers to the subjective orientation that
can be engendered by living in a place. Titis is the geosociological definition
of self or identity produced by a place (Agnew, 1987, pp. 5-6).
Thus, place is not just a locale the setting for activity and social inter
action-but also a location. It is also the place where the reproduction
and transformation of social relations take place. Thus as Pred (1984,
p. 279) wrote:
Place ... always involves an appropriation and transformation of space
and nature that is inseparable from the reproduction and trans
formation of society in time and space. As such, place is not only what
is fleetingly observed on the landscape, a locale, or setting for activity
and social interaction (Giddens, 1979, pp. 206-207; Giddens, 1981,
pp. 39 and 45).
254
PLACE, SPACE AND LOCALITY: THE CURRENT FOCUS IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 255
It is also what takes place ceaselessly, that contributes to history in a specific

context through the creation and utilization of a physical setting.
Everyday practices in particular places give rise to a sense of place or
a structure of feelings a "felt sense of the quality of life at a particular
place and time" (Pred, 1983, p. 58). Place, therefore, represents both a spatial
object (a segment of earth space) as well as a process of social and historical
transformation. Modem social theory now increasingly gives recognition
to the reality that time-space interactions are involved in all social existence.
Human practice is a time-space process, so that places over time become
the products of the social and political institutions which, in their own
tum, were shaped (at least in part) by place perspectives. Viewed thus,
rather than being epiphenomena! (that is, of secondary importance) to society,
place is central to social structuration.
Focus on place the traditional focus in the French tradition of regional
geography pioneered by Blache and the notion of sense of place was
promoted by humanistic geographers in the 1970s. During the 1980s, interest
in this concept grew outside humanistic geography, so that economic
geographers like Doreen Massey (1984) sought to highlight the role of
place specificity in social and economic processes across space. Agnew
(1987, 1989) has argued the case of place perspective as the central focus
in political geographical analysis. As Entrikin (1991) wrote, a place
perspective subsuming the totality of place and its contextuality, implies
occupying "a position that is between the objective pole of scientific
theorizing and the subjective pole of empathetic understanding".
Sack (1993) has underlined three ways in which place and space exert
basic effects on the deepest levels of human existence: "in or out of place"
"spatial interaction", and "surface and depth".
In or out of place refers to territorial control as constructive of social
relations or power. Spatial interaction refers to the role of space in natural
science causality and its application to human behaviour. Surface and
depth, or appearance and reality, refer to the role of space and place in
problematizing meaning. Each of the three is implicated in the others. So
not only is geography constructive of natural causes, social power, and
meaning, but also space and place draw together the respective realms
of the natural, the social and the intellectual, which is the concrete meaning
of the term mutually constitutive. Integrating these diverse realms is
another and combining effect of space and place one that helps explain
the capacious qualities of geography.
Referring to the complexity of the concept of space, Harvey (1973, pp. 13-14)
noted that the problem of conceptualizing space "is resolved through human
practice with respect to it", and he added:
In other words, there are no f'hilosophical answers to philosophical
questions that arise over the nature of space the answers lie in human
practice. The question "what is space?" is therefore replaced by the question
"How is it that different human practices create and make use of distinctive
conceptualization of space?"
This represents the relational view of space, according to which "space is

contained in objects in the sense that an object can be said to exist only
insofar as it contains and represents within itself relationships to other
objects" (Gregory, 1994). Thus distinction is sought to be drawn between
objective space and social space. Contemporary geographers maintain that
social construction of space and social implication of space (spatiality) should
be grounded not in objective space (or objects in space) but man-made
space (place or locale) within which social practice takes place. Analysis of
social space today is increasingly focused on relations of class, ethnicity
and gender "which are inscribed in (and in part constituted through), its
places, regions, and landscapes. In this sense, spatial analysis has indeed
become social analysis and vice versa" (Gregory, 1994a).
FOCUS ON LOCALITIES: THE RISE OF NEW REGIONAL

GEOGRAPHY
The term "locality" is fashionable in current human geography, but there
is no consensus regarding its technical meaning in the profession. In general
terms, the term connotes a scale of study at lower than the national level
it refers to a subnational level focus in study-and in that sense conveys
a meaning somewhat similar to the meaning of place or small region. The
locality debate in contemporary human geography is traced back to the
critiques of historical materialism and a modified perspective on the
constitution of society in the 1980s associated in particular, to the ideas of
Anthony Giddens (1981, 1984). Geographers extended the debate to the
explanation of spatial structures and the process of restructuring of
economies, so that Massey (1984) argued that an understanding of areal
,,ariations in social, economic and political change was important in any
scheme of restructuring regional economies in Britain.
Giddens (1984) underlined that locales (or localities) refer to the use
of space to provide the settings of interaction, such settings are essential to
the understanding of the contextuality of any interaction. He was emphatic
that it is an error to define locales in physical geographical and material
artefact terms alone: "A 'house' is grasped as such only if the observer
recognizes that it is a 'dwelling' with a range of other properties specified
by the modes of its utilization in human activity" (Giddens, 1984, p. 118).
Locales or localities, therefore, provide the functional contexts for life's
activities-social, economic and political. Giddens developed the concept
of str11cturation as a theoretical perspective to account for the ways in which
people learn about and transform social structures. Structuration is thus a
place- and time-specific process; and as a theoretical construct, structuration
is a contextual approach to social reality-an approach that underlines the
falseness of attempts at distinction between social relations and spatial
structures, since spatial structure, far from being a simple arena where
social relations unfold, is the medium through which such relations are
produced and reproduced. Thus human spatiality, or socio-spatial dialectic,
involves the combined process of social production of space and the spatial
construction of society.
Such a view of the structuration of social, economic and political life
lies behind the current focus on locality studies in the West. By saying this,
it is not implied that Giddens was necessarily the source of inspiration to
start with, since similar ideas were being put forward by some other scholars
around that time (e.g., Urry, 1981, also Urry, 1987). But the trend set by
Giddens' work in social science practice was certainly a seminal influence;
his locale became locality in geographical studies notwithstanding the
recognition of differences between the two conceptual constructs: Massey
(1991) viewed localities as "the intersections of sets of locales" though the
basic idea that locales are socially constructed places applies to localities as
well. At the time of significant transformations in social and economic
geography of Britain in the 1980s, geographers were being increasingly
drawn to the need for the study of localities in terms of spatial variations
in the structuration processes obtaining therein in the face of the wave of
socioeconomic transformation set in motion.
The government of the United Kingdom, through its Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC), translated this concern for the study of the
impact of the current restructuring on particular places and regions by
sponsoring a series of research programmes, which included: the "Changing
Urban and l{egional System" (CURS) programme, the "Social Change and
Economic Life" programme (SCEL), and the "Economic Restructuring, Social
Change and the Locality" (ERSCL) programme. A key concern in all these
programmes of study was "to collect detailed empirical evidence to assist
the identification of the nature, causes and consequences of spatial
differentiation in processes of change" (Painter, 1994). The pursuit of this
research raised a series of methodological issues including:
1. Delimitation of localities for research. Though many types of
statistically defined areas-such as labour market areas-,vere used for
study, the consensus opinion was that localities (in order to be socially
realistic) must be "defined in terms of the sets of social relations or processes
in question" (Massey, 1991).
2. The relationship between locality research and critical realism.
Realism is a philosophy of science which is based on the use of abstraction
to identify the necessary causal power and liabilities of particular structures
which are realized under specific (contingent) conditions. Thus realism in
practice involves (a) Identification of causal mechanisms, which relates to
seeking answers to the question: "How does something happen?"-typical
of intensive research; (b) Identification of empirical regularities involving the
answer to the question: "How widespread is the phenomenon under
investigation?" -a concern typical of extensive research.
The realist researcher makes a clear distinction between the two sets
of objectives in research, since the realist researcher believes that "what
causes something to happen has nothing to do with the number of times
it happens", as Sayer (1985) puts it. It is a distinction that the empiricist

and the positivist researchers fail to recognize so that realism is
described as anti-positivist. Realism in the context of locality studies
implies that: (a) Localities are contingent outcomes of the combined operation
of a number of causal processes: social, economic, cultural and political;
(b) Localities in their tum become causally powerful social objects that
influence other processes such as state policies and locational decisions;
(c) Locality studies are intensive research efforts which seek to unravel
these processes and identify relations which define social structures.
Locality study in geography in the current mode was pioneered in
Britain by Doreen Massey in her Spatial Division of Labour (1984) which
contained a number of case studies on this theme. She also played a major
role in the development of the Changing Urban and Regional System (CURS)
programme of the Economic and Social Research Council of Britain carried
through a series of seven case studies in different localities. The result was
reported in a volume introduced and edited by Cooke (1989). The
introduction to the volume stated that "The overall objectives of the
programme were to explore the impact of economic restructuring at national
and local levels, and to assess the role of central and local government
policies in establishing or constraining localities, through their various social
and political organizations, to deal with processes of restructuring". Cooke
underlined that through these studies it was also aimed "to establish the
conceptual status of the idea of 'locality'". Locality was described as "the
space within which the larger part of most citizens' daily working and
consuming lives is lived" and within which their citizenship rights are
contested and defined. In his summary of the inferences derived from the
seven case studies Cooke (1989, p. 296) stated:
Localities are not simply places or even communities: They are the sum
of social energy and agency resulting from the clustering of diverse
individuals, groups and social interests in space. They are not passive or
residual, but in varying ways and degrees, centres of collective
consciousness. They are bases for intervention in the internal workings
l1f not only individual and collective daily lives but also events on a
broader canvas affecting local interests.
In his comments on the CURS initiative in an article in the Antipode, Neil

Smith (1987) expressed doubt that the detailed focus on localities runs the
risk of empiricism (i.e., accordance of special priviledge to empirical
observations over theoretical statements) since they tend to stress on unique
characteristics of localities-an emphasis that subordinates theory and
generalization. As Painter (1994) wrote:
Smith's apparent equation of theory with generalization might itself be
read as an empiricist position, and would not necessarily be accepted
either by the locality researchers or within the tradition of Marxist
geography from which Smith was writing.
But the difficulty involved in combining the search for theory with detailed
PLACE, SPACE AND LOCALITY: THE CURRENT FOCUS 1N HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 259
focus on localities cannot be completely discounted: "Anyone trying to

mesh theory with empirical observation soon learns that the movement
among abstract concepts and empirical description [in regional geography]
is like performing ballet on a bed of quicksand" (Pudup, 1988). But it is a
challenge well worth taking.
The focus on locality studies in the social structuration perspective
has given rise to some kind of a reconstituted regional geography which
(according to Lee, 1985) increasingly gives recognition to the fact that:
1. Social processes operate in specific historical and geographical
contexts so that their proper understanding calls for sensitivity to spatial
variations in the operation of those processes.
2. Society is not a fixed phenomenon: It is being continuously recreated
by human actions; and since these actions take place in specific historical
and geographical contexts, the societal recreation is by implication historically
and geographically variable.
3. Such regional and local transformations do not occur in isolation;
they are (at least in part) the outcomes of wider social relationships.
4. Thus regions are not fixed divisions of territory. Rather, they represent
changing social constructions.
Since regions are territorial entities that are being constantly produced,
reproduced and transformed through social processes, and since they provide
the settings for social interaction-the theatre where people learn their
culture and contribute to its perpetuation- "a major goal of geography
should be to uncover the nature of those regions" Oohnston, 1991, p. 247).
The local-global dialectic in the study of localities and regions challenges
the view that modernity, i.e., emphasis on novelty, change and progress
through technology,
erases difference and replaces it with homogeneity-so many traditional
regional geographies were of lost worlds of pristine difference (cf. Entrikin,
1989)- but the complex ways of differentiation and integration that are
being recovered in these new accounts raise questions about: (i) other
modes of description, of what Jameson (1991) called models of "cognitive
mapping" capable of figuring ... the late twentieth century world of
hyperspace and the culture of post-modernism or ... of ways of representing
the new forms of dependence, hybridity and interconnection installed by
time-space compression and time-space distanciation (Appadurai, 1991); and
(ii) the ethnocentrism of contemp0rary theory and whether ... it is adequate
to the task of representing other voices and other cultures (Gregory, 1994b).
THE LOCALITY RESEARCH AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCE THEORY

Addressing the question: "What is locality?", Simon Duncan (1989) pointed
out that the main reason for the rise of interest in locality research in the
1980s lay in the current social science theory, that is, in questions how the
world should be explained rather than in real world changes themselves.
The re-emergence of interest in the spatial dimension in the analysis of

social behaviour and structure is traced in the growing distaste for
functionalist explanation of social behaviour-a form of explanation that
attempted to explain social phenomena by reference to the functions they
performed for the social system under the capitalist mode . Castells (1977,
1978), for example, viewed cities and towns as the site for the consumption
processes involved in the reproduction of labour power. This perspective
was enforced by a form of structuralist Marxism. The functionalist explanation
was criticized for its failure to explain how the people acted in particular
cities and towns. The functionalist explanation only depicted spatial variations
in the pattern of behaviour from city to city but failed to explain the reasons
for the observed differences in behaviour. These shortcomings of the
functionalist mode of explanation were taken up in detail by Anthony
Giddens (1979, 1981, 1984) in his works on social theory. Functionalism, it
was pointed out, failed to accord due importance to the role played by
human agency. The functionalist concept of society with its own coherence
and structure has now been replaced by greater emphasis on the "specificities
of different social structures and entities", so that, in the words of Duncan,
there is a move "away from theoreticism (where empirical research on specific
situations was disparaged) and a reaction against structural determinism
(in which human agency was dispelled from social explanation)" (Duncan,
1989, p. 224):
This theoretical change was reinforced by the social and political context
of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Understanding how capitalist society
worked at a general level seemed to have little connection with how people
acted; ignoring the abstract expose they voted in large numbers for the
right-wing governments both in Europe and North America. It would be
necessary to work on the level of people's immediate-usually local
concerns both in terms of political action and the research informing it.
Hence, .... questions of specificity and spatially uneven development were
very much back on the agenda .... Given these linked theoretical and
contextual changes, the emergent focus on locality as the substantive basis
of a new research programme becomes easier to understand (Duncan,
1989, p. 224).
However, Duncan warns of "the danger of the pendulum swinging too far
in the other direction"-that is, the danger that the emphasis on locality
study may become "a means for allowing spatial determinism to creep in
unnoticed" or to allow the theoretically untenable notion of "autonomy of
the spatial to re-emerge in a new form". In reality, localities are hardly ever
autonomous subnational social entities-they must continually interact with
other such units within and without their region. Indeed,
Spatial patterns are not autonomous from social organization, nor does
space determine social organization and activity. Similarly, it is incorrect
to talk as though there was interdependence between the different spatial
objects themselves. It is social objects which interact, not the spatial patterns
they form, and ... this stands as much for localities as for regions or for
centre and periphery (Duncan, op. cit., p. 228).
REFERENCES
Agnew, J. (1987), Place and Politics: The Geographical Mediation of State and
Society, Boston: Allen and Unwin.
_ _ _(1989), The devaluation of place in social science, in Agnew, J. and
Duncan, J.S. (Eds.), The Power of Place, London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 9 -29.
Appadurai, A. (1991), Global ethnospaces: Notes and queries for a trans
national anthropology, in Fox, R. (Ed.), Recapturing Anthropology:
Working in the Present, Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American
Research Press, pp. 191-210.
Blau!, J. (1961), Space and process, The Professional Geographer, vol. 13,
pp. 1-7.
Castells, M. (1977), The Urban Question, London: Edward Arnold.
_ _ _(1978), City, Class and Power, London: Macmillan.
Cooke, P.N. (Ed.) (1989), Localities: The Changing Face of Urban Britain, London:
Unwin Hyman.
Duncan, S.S. (1989), What is locality, in Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds.), New
Models in Geography, Vol. 2, pp. 221-252.
Entkrin, J.N. (1989), Place, region and modernity, in Agnew, J. and Duncan,
J.S. (Eds.), The Power of Place, London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 30-43.
_ _ _ (1991), The Betweenness of Place: Towards a Geography of Modernity,
Baltimore (MD.): Johns Hopkins University Press.
Giddens, A. (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory, London: Macmillan.
___ (1981), A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, London:
Macmillan.
_ _ _ (1984), The Constitution of Society, Cambridge: The Polity Press.
Gregory, D. (1994a), Space, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and Smith, D.M.
(Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., Oxford: Basil
___ (1994b), Regional geography, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and
Smith, D.M. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., Oxford:
Harvey, D. (1973), Social Justice and the City, London: Edward Arnold.
Jameson, F. (1991), Pas/modernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,
Durham (NC.): Duke University Press.
Johnston, R.J. (1991), Geography and Geographers, 4th ed., London: Edward
Arnold.
Lee, R. (1985), The future of the region: Regional geography as education
for transformation, in Kind, R. (Ed.), Geographical Futures, Sheffield:
The Geographical Associatio11.
Massey, D. (1984), Spatial Division of Labour, London: Macmillan.

___ (1991), The political place of locality studies, Environment and
Planning, vol. A23, pp. 267-281.
Painter, J. (1994), Locality, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and Smith, D.M.
Pred, A. (1983), Structuration and place: The becoming of sense of place
and structure of feeling, Journal of Theory of Social Behaviour, vol. 13,
pp. 15--68.
___ (1984), Place as historically contingent process: Destructuration
and the time geography of becoming places, Annals of the Association
Pudup, M.B. (1988), Arguments within regional geography, Progress in Human
Sack, R.D. (1993), The power of place and space, Geographical Review,
vol. 83, pp. 326-329.
Sayer, A. (1985), Realism in geography, in Johnston, R.J. (Ed.), The Future of
Geography, London: Methuen, pp. 159-173.
Smith, N. (1987), The danger of the empirical turn: The CURS initiative,
Antipode, vol. 19, pp. 59-68.
Urry, J. (1981), Localities, regions and social class, International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research, vol. 5, pp. 455-474.
___ (1987), Society, space and locality, Environment and Planning, D:
Society and Space, vol. 5, pp. 435 444.
13
The Geography of Gender
FEMINIST GEOGRAPHY
The term feminist geography subsumes perspectives on feminist politics
and the theories that explore gender relations in society, as applied to the
study of gender relations in geography. Interest in the study of feminism
dates back to the mid-1970s. It drew inspiration from the women's
movements in the West in the 1960s as part of the radicalization of societal
perspectives. Feminist geography is thus part of the radical-Marxist
orientation of human geography following the "relevance revolution" of
that decade. As the Women and Geography Study Group of Institute of
British Geographers (1984) put it, "In common with other approaches in
geography which are critical of mainstream work", feminist geography
tries to "analyse and understand why women remain in subordinate
position" in society and the professions. To the feminist geographers,
implications of gender in the study of geography are at least as important
as the implications of any other social or economic factor which transforms
society and space. They use the term gender to refer to socially created
distinctions between feminity and masculinity, while the term sex is used
to refer to biological differences between men and women. Thus the IBG
group defined feminist geography as "a geography which explicitly takes
into account the socially created gender structure of society; and in which
a commitment, both towards the alleviation of gender inequality in the
short term and towards its removal, through social change towards real
equality, in the long term, is expressed". A feature common to all feminist
argument is that the differences in social positions of men and women
systematically work to the advantage of men so that women and men in
fact have unequal power, opportunities, and social status. Feminist geography
aims at exploring the ways in which current practices in society might be
changed in order to release women from the state of subordination. Studies
aimed at examining differences in spatial behaviour patterns of men and
women are decried, since:
At its worst, this can simply lead to a proliferation of topics in ... the
discipline in which the spotlight is simply turned on to women: as in, for
example, "women and development", "women and transport geography",
"women and housing" .... At its best, such work may document and
263
demonstrate the social inequalities facing women, but it will not explain
why these have arisen (Women and Geography Study Group (WGSG),
1984, p. 25).
Distinction is sought to be drawn between radical feminism and
socialist feminism. Radical feminism considers the subordination of women
by men as the primary inequality in human society. It is argued that the
division of labour between men and women had preceded (and given birth
to) the division of labour between class and race. The radical feminists
insist that elimination of sexual oppression (subordination) should form
the cornerstone of attempts to eliminate other types of oppressions in society.
. The radicals insist that men and women form (at the present) the two
fundamental classes in society. Just as Marx urged the working classes to
seize control over the means of production so also the radical feminists
(like Firestone, 1971) insist that women must seize control over the means
of biological reproduction in order that they are freed from male domination.
However, in this entire process emphasis has to be given to gender roles
rather than sexual r�les. The root cause of the oppression of women in
society is traced to the system of patriarchy which is defined as a set of
social norms of relation between men and women which establishes a
pattern of interdependence and solidarity between them which functions
in favour of male domination over females. From such a perspective, men
and women appear to them to form two somewhat antagonistic classes
irrespective of divisions on either side on the basis of age, race and income
status. The adherents of radical feminism emphasize that male domination
of the man-woman relationship has resulted in restricting women largely
to the private sphere where they are made to carry out many personal services
for men-services which remain largely unreciprocated-apart from having
to carry the burden of child rearing. Patriarchy, therefore, works to ensure
that the vast majority of women remain legally and economically dependent
on their men. This process of subordination through patriarchy begins early
in life so that little girls are allowed far less freedom of movement than
boys of the same age, and the process becomes all the more visible at the
adolescent stage. Radical feminists appear united in viewing men as the
enemy in their struggle for women's liberation; they insist on examining
women's and men's behaviour in terms of interrelationships between the
two genders, setting aside other types of cleavages in society.
The social feminists, on the other hand, attempt to link gender relations
to the wider framework of social relations existing in society as a whole.
The social feminist viewpoint represents the human face of the left
movement. Social feminists differ from their radical colleagues in their
emphasis on patriarchy as the root cause of all other societal inequalities
in relation to women, and they reject the notion that "men are the enemy"
and favour unity between men and women in the struggle between classes,
though they continue to focus on female subordination and the ways and
means of alleviating it. Thus, social feminism represents the welfare stream
of radical feminism.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENDER 265
Attempts to bring about a rapproachement between the two

perspectives in feminist studies have focused around the theme of male
domination of women which forms the common focus of both the
approaches, and man-woman participation in the class struggle. On the
latter point, there is a basic difference between the feminist and the Marxist
theories. Whereas in the former, the family is accorded the central role in
the maintenance of patriarchal relations in society, in the Marxist theory
the family is viewed primarily in terms of its role in the reproduction of
labour force. In terms of the Marxist theory, the labour of workers is the
ultimate source of value (measured in terms of capitalist goods and
commodities).
Thus, for the process of production to continue, workers must be clothed,
fed, sheltered and rested while not at work, to enable them to be fit to
return to work each day, and some provision must also be made for the
longer-term needs of the capitalist as workers eventually grow too old to
work, and die. This last need is met at least in part, by the fact that
workers have children who grow up to become workers in their turn.
Reproduction of labour force therefore, involves all the activities of caring
for workers and the upbringing of potential workers (WGSG, 1984, p. 30).
Viewed in this light, the family (particularly the role of women as wives
and mothers) is a vital element in the process of reproduction of labour
force.
There are two areas in which Marxist approaches in geography are
found to be of most help in the study of feminism: First, the materialist
view of social organization and, second, the notion that the ways of living
are specific to contexts of time and place. Materialism is based on the notion
that society cannot either be understood or changed without analysing the
social and technical modes of organization involved in the process of
providing basic human needs, ,in ensuring biological reproduction of the
species, and in providing a generally accepted standard of living in society.
"However, capitalist-labour and male-female relationships are not the same
even within the same capitalist economy and may differ considerably from
one country to another ... child care facilities [are] provided on such a
generous scale in France, and not in Britain, when both are advanced
capitalist states" (WGSG, 1984, p. 33).
FEMINISM AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL AND HUMANISTIC

APPROACHES IN GEOGRAPHY
As the !BG monograph on Geography and Gender has underlined, the
phenomenological and humanistic approaches to geography have attracted
considerable interest in feminist geography. Both the approaches are
characteriz�d by dissatisfaction with the mainstream geography as spatial
analysis which, ,ccording to the adherents of these approaches, tended to
reduce the study of human behaviour to that of a subject (the researcher)
contemplating the object (human spatial behaviour). They are also critical

•
of the traditional rnode of data collection in social science which imposes

the observer's framework of thought upon the "objects" studied-rather
than trying to reveal what the objects of the study (the community or
group) really think themselves. Feminist study also adopts a similar
approach:
Like feminism, these phenomenological and humanistic approaches
emphasize the importance of caring and nurturing in relationships with
other people and with the environment, and also the crucial role of day
to-day feelings and experiences.... The kinds of approaches advocated
by phenomenologists and humanists such as in-depth interviewing and
consciousness-raising sessions, use of insights afforded by novels and
other literary sources, and an emphasis on "soft" or qualitative data
can, and have been, developed by feminist researchers (e.g., Roberts,
1981) (Geography and Gender, pp. 35-36).
As the !BG report points out, the methodologies of phenomenological
and humanistic studies in geography can be used to examine the way in
which carrying out of particular activities, and the associated use of particular
places and spaces, come to be regarded as feminine or masculine such as,
the notion that "women's space" is inside the home, while "men's space"
is at work. However,
... a major drawback with such approaches is that there is a tendency so
to glorify ordinary, everyday experience, that there is a failure to move
beyond the necessary stage of description, self-revelation and empathy
to an explanation and of the reasons for those experiences; this in tum
is related to a failure to consider how power relations and inequalities in
society are interlinked. In fact, it could be argued that phenomenologists
and humanists are basically modest reformers, looking for ways in which
the ordinary person may better their lot within the chinks and interstices
left between the great power relations in society, adjusting to the prevailing
patterns of dominance and subordination (Geography and Gender, p. 37).
Focus on phenomenological and humanistic perspectives was the
beginning of the place perspective in feminist geographies. Social feminist
geographers have been increasingly attentive to the ways in which gender
relations differ from place to place, and believe that such differences not
only reflect but partially determine local economic change. Such an orien
tation in study, and belief in factors for social transformation were influential
in tying feminist geography to the movement toward locality research.
Gender relations are sought to be explained in the context of locality research.
Although there are distinctive strands in women study groups, Geraldine
Pratt (1994) has identified the following concerns common to each:
1. Each adopts a critical discourse, critical not only of women's
oppression in society, but also of the various ways that this is reproduced
in geographical theory.
2. They all focus on sexism within geographical institutions (i.e.,
teaching of geography, and staffing of academic departments, and the
publication process).
3. Commitment to situating knowledge commitment to the view

that interpretations are context-bound, and they are therefore partial rather
than universal. For this reason, the feminist researchers emphasize the use
of the qualitative modes of analysis (McDowell, 1988).
4. Feminist geographers trace the interconnections between all aspects
of daily life, across the subdisciplinary boundaries of economic, social and
cultural geography, in order that inferences drawn are more wholesome
and realistic.
Pratt identifies three phases in the development of focus in feminist
geographies. Phase one is called the Geography of Women which was the
dominant perspective from the mid- to the late-1970s. It was characterized
by a topical focus on description of the effects of gender inequality; the
dominant theoretical influences in study were from the side of welfare
geography and liberal feminism; and the geographical focus in study
consisted of analysing the constraints of distance and spatial separation.
Phase two is termed as Socialist-Feminist Geography which was the
dominant view of the theme of study from the early to the late 1980s. This
phase was characterized by topical focus on explanation of gender inequality,
and relation between capitalism and patriarchy. Major theoretical influences
were derived from Marxism and socialist feminism. The geographical focus
in study consisted of spatial separation, place and localities. Phase three is
named as Postcolonial Feminist Geography. This phase is traced to the late
1980s and continues to the present. Topical focus in this phase consists of
the consideration of gender identities, differences among women, gender
and nature, and gender and nationalism. Theoretical perspectives in study
are derived from cultural, poststructural, postcolonial, and psychoanalytical
theories; writings of coloured women, lesbian women, gay men, and women
from developing countries. Geographical focus is on:
microgeographies of the body, distance, separation, place, imaginative
and symbolic spaces, colonialism, envil'onrnent. Although little has as
yet been published, feminist geographers are also expanding their
consideration of geography to include environmental concerns this area
is likely to receive much more attention in coming years (Pratt, 1994).
Directions for Future Work

Feminist study in geography is now maturing so that approaches to the
study are becoming progressively more and more theoretically oriented.
Thus, attempts are being made to reconceptualize key terms and ideas.
Side by side with this, greater attention is now being paid to the diversity
and variety in women's experience of societal discrimination against them,
and the crude dichotomy of polar opposites e.g., male-female, and public
private are increasingly challenged (McDowell, 1991). Bowlby, Lewis,
McDowell and Foard (1989) identify three areas of emerging focus in research,
namely, analyses of cultural representations, work on sexuality, subjectivity,
and social relations, and new developments in studies of the interrelationship
of race, class, and gender. Their argument is summarized below.
Images of nature and cultural representation. This is primarily concerned

with questions about the social construction of nature as female or feminine
as a means of perpetrating female subordination and oppression.
Notwithstanding the idea about nature as the provider of resources for
human survival, nature as mother, nature is almost invariably personified
as female, so that, to quote Smith (1984, pp. 13-14):
... the treatment of women in capitalist society parallels the treatment of
nature. As external nature, women are objects which mankind attempts
to dominate and possess, ravage and romanticize; they are objects of
conquest and penetration as well as idolatry and worship. The language
is exact. Women are put on pedestals, but only once their social domination
is secure; precisely as with nature, romanticization is then a form of
control. But women can never be wholly external since in them resides
fertility and the means of biological reproduction. In this sense they are
made elements of universal nature, mothers and nurturers, possessors of
a mysterious female institution and so on.
Such distinctions between male and female and between nature and
culture were particularly brought to the fore during industrial capitalism's
separation of the "public world of the waged labour and the private world
of the home". "A great deal of work remains to be done in exploring and
analysing the complex interconnections between changing material trends
and diverse cultural representations in the contemporary world" (Bowlby
et al, 1989, p. 170). Language and literature provide the raw material for
such analysis from a contextual perspective. Kolodny's (1975) work provides
an excellent example to follow. (Kolodny analysed this phenomenon through
representations in American literature in the context of the westward push
to conquer nature on the American frontier.)
Feminist geographers are now increasingly interacting with ecologists
both at the level of theory and practice:
Ecofeminism has begun to stress the associations between the oppression
of women and the exploitation of natural resources, based on the somewhat
uncritical acceptance of the nature/culture link and women's purported
closeness to nature through their nurturing role in reproduction (Caldecott
and Leland, I983):
The significance of subjectivity

Sexuality, subjectivity, and social relations.
in social relations based on sex identity is receiving increasing attention
from researchers in women studies. Subjects such as regulation of sexuality,
representation and organization of families and other household structures
are all areas in which spatial variations play a significant role and which
are becoming part of the refocusing of interest in social geography, as
widely defined, on locality-based research.
Race, class, and gender. Currently feminist scholars-feminist geographers

included-are engaged in debates about the interconnections between class,
race, and sexual identity, particularly so in the case of the United States
where the Black and W hite division in the population makes the whole
issue more complex. Black women writers in particular have argued that
ethnocentrism permeates the politics of the women movement so that many
of its demands on issues pertaining to family, sexuality, and wage work are
based on the desires and experiences only of white women, and that too
only of those belonging to the middle income group.
The conflicts and contradictions that arise from cross-cutting di\1isions in
society-on class, gender, and racia] lines-are now a key area for feminist
theory and research .... As yet, this feminist work has paid little attention
to the existence of differences between areas or the significance of locality ....
In the areas of economic and social geography there seems to be a rising
awareness that gender relations can no longer be.discounted or, if they
are, that explanation will be impoverished as a result (Bowlby, Lewis,
McDowell and Foord, 1989, p. 172).
REFERENCES
Bowlby, S., Lewis, J., McDowell, L. and Foord, J. (1989), The geography of
gender, in Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds.), New Models in Geography,
vol. 2, London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 157-175.
Caldecott, L. and Leland, S. (1983), Reclaim the Earth, London: Women's
Press.
Firestone, S. (1971), The Dilectic of Sex, New York: Bantam Books.
Kolodny, A. (1975), The Lay of the Land, Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.
McDowell, L. (1988), Coming in from the dark: Qualitative feminist research
in geography, in Eyles, J. and Smith, D.M. (Eds.), Research in Human
Geography, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 155-173.
_ _ _ (1991), The baby and the bath water: Diversity, deconstruction,
and feminist theory in geography, Geoforum, vol. 22, pp. 123-133.
Pratt, G. (1994), Feminist geographies, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and
Smith, D.M. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., Oxford:
Roberts, H. (1981), Doing Feminist Research, London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Smith, N. (1984), Uneven Development, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Women and Geography Study Group, !BG (1984), Geography and Gender,
London: Hutchinson.
14
Modern versus Post-Modern
Geographies
THE MEANING OF THE TWO TERMS

It is currently fashionable to talk of modernism and post-modernism in
social discourse though precise meanings of the two terms are not always
clear; so that one commentator described them as "the buzzwords of the
1980s". Important issues are, however, at stake so that the debate on post
modernism cannot be dismissed simply as "the product of disciplinary
politicking, in which ascendant academics are once again jostling for new
stalls in the intellectual marketplace", or as "little more than the cultural
logic of late capitalism, the designer label on the baggage of flexible
accumulation". But,
if these twin objections are superimposed, a different reading becomes
possible and post-modernism can be seen to mark an unprecedented
crisis of intellectual activity within the contemporary crisis of modernity.
The debate then has the liveliest of implications for the project of a critical
human geography (and critical theory more generally) because it raises
acute questions about the very possibility of critique itself (Gregory, 1989,
p. 348).
The two terms are closely interrelated so that it is not possible to
understand post-modernism without due reference to the history and nature
of modernity. Following the Dictionary of Human Geo graphy (1994), modernity
may be described as "A particular constellation of power, knowledge and
social practices which first emerged in Europe in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, and the forms and structures of which changed over
time and extended themselves over space until, by the middle of the
seventeenth century, they constituted the dominant social order on the
planet". Toward the end of the eighteenth century "the idea of being modem
came to be associated not only with novelty but, more particularly, with
looking forward rather than backward: with the so-called 'Enlightenment
project' of reason, rationality and progress towards truth, beauty and just
life". In the middle of the nineteenth century, Marx and Engels found an
essential connection between m?demity and the revolutionary dynamics
of capitalism under the impact of which "All fixed, fast-frozen relations,
with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices, are swept away, all
270
MODERN VERSUS POST-MODERN GEOGRAPHIES 271
new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is
solid melts into air", wrote Marx and Engels. The beginnings of the modern
world system are traced back to the sixteenth century, beginning in Europe,
and organized around market exchange at international scale. But the process
was greatly intensified through the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries
through global scale of economic operations, so that modernity became
identified as the system of market-based political-economic structure and
organizations. Thus, by the second half of the twentieth century, a profound
crisis of identity and representation had begun to be felt all around-in the
arts, humanities, and the social sciences-particularly in the Western
metropolises and the colonial capitals, owing to the accelerated pace of
time-space compression. By the end of the 1950s, the modern way of viewing
phenomena in ter11,s of Cartesian coordinates had begun to be questioned,
separation between place and space began to be drawn, and the idea of
bounded cultures through which one could journey out and analyse
other cultures appeared no longer relevant (Clifford, 1988, p. 2). All this
called for new approaches to explanation of social reality-approaches
focused on space specificity, that is, approaches beyond the modernist
tradition of universalism. This was the beginning of post-modernism in
social thought.
There are contrasting perspectives on the plus and minus sides of
modernity, as defined above. One set of commentators holds that:
... modernity was an unqualified human good which promised to banish
ignorance, misery and despotism; to free human beings from myth and
superstition, disease and hunger, oppression and arbitrary rule. In the
middle years of the twentieth century these assumptions culminated
in models of modernization, and development programmes of which
sought to remake the so-called traditional world in the image of the West
(Gregory, 1994a).
But as the critics have noted, these blessings were a mixed lot. Modernism
was closely intertwined with the processes and objectives of colonialism
and repressive imperialism, besides ethnocentrism rooted in European
cultural values and perspectives:
To other commentators, therefore, modernity has always had its
dark side, many of them argued (in different ways) that European
modernity installed new grids of power and surveillance which, in
Max Weber's well-known image, confined human agency, consciousness
and creativity within an "iron cage" of· bureaucracy and regulation
(Gregory, op. cit.)_
Giddens (1990) has drawn attention to four major institutional
dimensions of modemity: surveillance, industrialism, capitalism, and military
power. He has also proposed an equivalent nexus of political strategies
wherein the intertwining of the local and the global scales, and of life
politics and emancipatory politics are underlined. Figure 14.1 illustrates
the proposed relationships.
Surveillance
(control of information
and social supervision)
Capitalism Military power

(capitalism accumulation in (control of the means of
the context of competitive violence in the context of
labour and product markets) the industrialization of war)
Industrialism
(transformation of nature:
development of the
"created environment'')
(a) The institutionalized politics of modernity (Giddens, 1990)
Life politics
(politics of self-actualization)
Politicization of the local Politicization of the global
Emancipatory politics
(politics of inequality)
(b) The politics of modernity
Fig. 14.1 Politics and modernity (After Giddens, 1990).
Modernity, Modernization, and Modernism: The Social Science

Context
In a social, scientific context Berman (1982) refers to modernity as "a mode
of vital experience", a collective sharing of a particularized sense of "self
and others", and of "life's possibilities and perils". "Modernity is thus
comprised of both context and conjecture, the specificity of being alive in
the world at a particular time and place, a vital sense of what is contemporary.
As such, it becomes a useful general term to capture the specific and changing
meaning of the three most basic and formative dimensions of human
existence: space, time, and being; the spatial, temporal, and social orders of
human life" (Soja, 1989a, pp. 320-321). The concept of modernity is intimately
related to the multiple reconfigurations of social life that have punctuated
the historical geography of capitalism since the sixteenth century. In this
context, modernization refers to "the many different processes of structural
change associated with the ability of capitalism to develop and survive, to
reproduce successfully its fundamental social relations of production and
distinctive divisions of labour". As Soja (op. cit.) points out, "these
restructuring processes are continuous, but they become especially critical
and accelerated during periods of deep and systematic global crisis" like
the one we have entered since around late 1960s. Such periodically intensified
modernizing episodes of capitalism are, in the words of Berman (1982,
p. 16), shaped by:
... the industrialization of production, which transforms scientific
knowledge into technology, creates new environments and destroys old
ones, speeds up the whole tempo of life, generates new forms of corporate
power and class struggle; immense demographic upheaval, severing
millions of people from their ancestral habitats, hurtling them halfway
across the world into new lives; rapid and often cataclysmic urban growth;
systems of mass communications, dynamic in their development,
enveloping and binding together the most diverse people and societies;
increasingly powerful national states, bureaucratically structured and
operated, constantly striving to expand their powers; mass movements
of people and peoples challenging their political and economic rulers,
striving to gain control over their lives; finally, bearing and driving all
these people and institutions along, an ever expanding, drastically
fluctuating capitalist world market.
In broad terms, modernism "refers to the cultural, ideological, reflective
and ...theory-forming reactions to modernization and restructuring ....
Modernism is thus the explicitly evaluative, culture-shaping and situated
consciousness of modernity and is itself roughly able to be split into periods
in conjunction with the historical rhythms of intensified capitalist crisis,
restructuring and modernization" (Soja, 1989a, p. 322, also see Soja, 1989b).
The Rise of Modern Human Geography

The discipline of geography as practised over the past two centuries is
essentially an "European science" which, according to Stoddart (1986), dates
back to 1796, the year in which Captain James Cook first entered the Pacific.
Cook's was preeminently a scientific voyage carrying on board illustrators,
collectors and scientists whose work displayed, according to Stoddart, three
features of decisive significance for the transformation of geography into
an "objective science" focused on concern for realism in description;
systematic classification in collection of data; and the comparative method
of explanation. Stoddart maintains that it was the extension of the scientific
methods of observation, classification and comparison to the domain of
peoples and societies that made geography, as practised for the past two
hundred years, possible. (It may be recalled here that it was George Forster
a member of the scientific team that had accompanied Captain Cook-to
whom Humboldt owed his interest in the study of geography.)
Following Foucault (1979, 1980), Gregory (1989) has underlined that
this was far from a simple "extension" of scientific principles because these
scientific principles had the most radical consequences for the constitution
of the human sciences and their conception of the human subject. Besides
the logic of this extension to peoples and societies "was powered by more
than the ship of reason since these nominally scientific advances were at
the same time the spearheads of colonialism and conquest: of subjection",
so that "its trajectory cannot be separated from what Wolf (1982) once
called 'the people without history'. It follows that some of the most seminal
cross-fertilizations during this period were those between anthropology
and geography, loosely defi..'led, and what later became anthropogeography
has to be acknowledged as a tradition of basic importance to the modern
discipline". This thread of relationship is indelibly present in the writings
of Humboldt, Ritter, and of course, Ratzel and Sauer.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, a second thread of
relationship between sociology and geography had emerged: "the
interactions between the two disciplines", Gregory comments, "were, in
part, a way of clarifying their different destinations". W hile sociology,
according to Durkheim, was to subsume the study of the spatial structure
of society-morphology sociale-the Vidalian school insisted on the
independent course of human geography predicated, on the one hand, on
horizontal (spatial) relations and, on the other, on vertical relations between
society and nature (Berdoulay, 1978). Around the same time, Richard Park
at Chicago was airing similar views regarding sociology subsuming the
study of morphology sociale, and he described geography as a concrete science
wherein interest in spatial relations was restricted to the study of the
individual and the irregular (unique), that is, to the idiographic, and not
concerned with the elucidation of the general processes and universal
principles, as in the case of history. Against the "concrete science" nature of
geography, sociology and human ecology were described as abstract sciences
which, even though their foundations were laid on history and geography,
were essentially theory-seeking in their orientation. Thus the encounter
between the two disciplines had ended in geography and sociology ultimate
ly developing in isolation from each other (Further details on pp. 177-178).
By mid-twentieth century, geography had developed close links with

economics alongside the existing frontiers with anthropology and sociology.
Until the late 1940s, like the rest of human geography, the human geography
economics frontier was pursued in a resolutely empirical manner; but the
emergence of the "new" geography in the 1950s and the 1960s gave it a
pronouncedly theoretical orientation so that human geography now assumed
the characteristics of the abstract sciences, in the sense that like sociology
and economics, it also became a nomothetic science but (in general) it
continued to eschew the study of the social element. Thus, few of the
contributions in Chorley and Haggett's Models in Geography (1967) were
addressed to social and cultural questions in any manner, and "the geometric
order which they supposed to be immanent in the human landscape was
derived, for the most part, from the economy: from transcodings of an
abstract calculus of profit and loss into an equally abstract 'friction of
distance'" (Gregory, 1989), so that human geography was transformed into
spatial science.
This short resume of the historiography of geography, according to
Gregory, underlines three distinctive features of modern geography. These
are:
1. All the three strands were bound into a naturalism-quite naturally
so for a discipline that combines the study of both the human and the
physical, but the other branches of the social sciences did not escape the
impact of evolutionary biological thought either. "It is scarcely surprising,
in consequence, that identical links should have been forged in human
geography; from Vidal de la Blache's seemingly simple organicism to
Hagerstrand's vision of time-geography as a 'situational ecology'; from
essentially Newtonian models of spatial interaction to technically more
sophisticated models of dissipative structures within abstract landscapes".
2. All the three strands were woven into a conception of science as
totalization. Modem science holds that explanation resides in the disclosure
of a systematic order whose logic imposes coherence on the apparent chaos
observed by the investigator. In the study of man, this scientific tenet involved
identifying a centre around which social life revolves. The concepts of "social
system" or social structure, on the one hand, and the alternative perspective
around human subjectivity on the other, served this purpose. As Gregory
wrote, both these can be read in human geography, but the formalization
of geography as spatial science in the 1960s accorded central place to
geometry, i.e., to the search for abstract order in mathematical spaces: "Spatial
science was part of an economy of explanation which put a high premium
on the simplicity of its explanation", so that whatever be the subject of
investigation, the same explanatory mould was applied.
3. If the three strands in geography since the beginning of the
nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century are joined together, then human
geography as spatial science would appear as a natural growth, rather
than as representing any break from the past (as it was projected at the
time). Geography as spatial science was "a continuation and culmination of
modem geography", in the sense that it helped complete the search for
scientific identity of the discipline as a nomothetic science. (Figure 14.2
depicts the sequential construction of human geography as a modern
discipline.
POST MODERN GEOGRAPHY
�-
18th-19th centuries -Anthropology- - -1 G I-- Cuffural Sciences j The Deconstruction
of Meta Narratives
I E I
I o I
-- -- - _I G I
19th-20th centuries � Sociology R - - - · - - Socia/ Theory The Dissolution of
I A l the Social
I pl
I I
mid-20th century f" Economics . -- - -�-y-� - . Political Economy � The Disorganization
of Capitalism
MODERN GEOGRAPHY
Fig. 14.2 The making and unmaking of modern human geography

(Source: Gregory, 1989, p. 350).
THE CHANGEOVER TO POST-MODERN GEOGRAPHY

Post-modernism is a recent movement in philosophy, the arts and social
sciences. Its distinguishing characteristics (according to Ley, 1994) are:
Scepticism towards the grand claims and grand theory of the modem era,
and their claim to intellectual superiority. Post-modernism (as contrasted
to modernism) stresses openness to a range of opinions in social enquiry,
artistic experimentation and political empowerr11ent. Dear (1986) classified
modernism into three components: style, method, and epoch. Style is
intimately implicated in the constitution of meaning and identity of the
phenomenon being represented. Styles may, according to Hebd.ige (1979),
either be supportive of dominant ideologies, or they may offer a ritual
resistance to movements which are socially and politically opposed to the
dominant view. Ley' and Mills (1992) note that the same is true about the
socially constructed environment whose variations over the earth surface
are of special concern to human geography. The post-modern methodology
is based essentially on the strategy of deconstruction. Deconstruction is
defined as a mode of critical interpretation which seeks to demonstrate
how the multiple positioning of an observer (an author or a reader) in
terr11s of culture, class and gender etc. has influenced his observation (his
writing or reading) of the text (the thing being observed or read or written
about). Thus, "Deconstruction is essentially a destabilizing method, throwing
into doubt the authoritative claims of preceding traditions, and seeking to
prise loose alternative readings of texts" (Ley, 1994). Also, post-modernism
may be viewed as an epoch, that is, a historic era in which changes in
culture and philosophy are sought to be located in the very process of the
MODERN VERSUS POST-MODERN GEOGRAPHIES 2n
evolution of economy and politics at the global level. Thus some

commentators regard post-modernism as the culture of late capitalism
Uameson, 1984), an integral part of the new phase of post-Fordist flexible
accumulation (Harvey, 1989). This, also, according to Soja (1989), is part of
the attack on the predominance of historicism in modem system of thought,
which highlighted the importance of individual and collective biography
of diverse communities in the explanation of social relations but neglected
the role of spatiality, so that the role of geographical imagination was
marginalized. This subordination of space to time obscured the role of
geographical inter-pretation in the changeability of the social world. As a
consequence, geography failed to attain its rightful position in the
development of theory in the social sciences (see: pp. 176-179). Historical
materialistic interpretation assumed that society everywhere (irrespective
of its spatial context) was characterized by similar historical pulsations in
social change. Thus the social theories of historical materialism were deficient
and partial in that they ignored the basic fact that the spatial context of
history and culture makes a basic difference in how societies interpret
particular episodes in history, and develop ways and means of adjusting to
them. Consequently, the historical flow of social change was not the same
everywhere. Post-modernism represented a response to modernism as a
homogenizing force and to its totalizing theoreticism. Instead, post
modernism lays stress on discontinuities and disjunctures characteristic of
everyday life in the real world. The homogeneity in the built-up landscape
of the era of "organized capitalism"-or the Fordist era, as it is sometimes
called-is contrasted with the heterogeneity of economic, social and political
life in the current phase of "disorganized capitalism" (or of flexible
accumulation of the post-Fordist era) (Harvey and Scott, 1989).
The post-modernist emphasis on heterogeneity, particularity and
uniqueness of phenomena in differing contexts of time and space, would
appear to hark back to the regionalist tradition in geography of the Vidalian
era: Post-modern thought provides a theoretical context for the study of
spatial/ areal diversity in the life-world. Viewed thus, post-modernism in
geography is closely linked to the rise of a "new" regional geography
referred to previously (pp. 256-259). The difference between the old style
regional differentiation in geography of the Hettner-Hartshome era, and
the present-day post-modernist regional geography lies in that, while the
former was indifferent to everyday experience of societal relationships,
there is now a declared commitment to the understanding of the condition
of man in particular places, and the ways that spaces are socially constructed.
Post-modernism is also a pronouncedly anti-spatial science in te111,s of the
spatial scientist's search for pattern laws of behaviour. Post-modernism
does not aspire to generate any grand theory of universal application; its
essentially heterogeneous ethos runs counter to the emphasis on consensus
on theoretical perspectives (that characterized the discourse in the spatial
science era). Instead of universal theory, the emphasis now is on what Dear
(1988) called, the contemporaneity of social process over time and space, so
that geography, like history, is preeminently a contextual discipline, engaged

in the time-space reconstruction of social life.
The movement toward post-modernism in geography (i.e., unmaking
of modern human geography, Fig. 14.2) started in the 1970s with the
introduction of the political economy perspective in human geography
a perspective that reoriented human geography to the condition of man in
society and gave rise to the "radical" or "relevance" revolution. In the
words of Gregory, the cutting edge of the political economy perspective
was the logic of capital scrawling its signs on the surface of the landscape
-e-
as against the logic of space (i.e., geometry) that dominated spatial science
geography until the 1960s. Thus, the focus of post-modem geography became
a focus on uneven development in the spatial context. There was an inevitable
confusion in conceptual design in the beginning owing to the fact that
political economy derived its perspective from predominantly Marxist
thought, and Marx's writing, howsoever liberally interpreted, contained
little about space. The rise of the political economy perspective in geography
almost coincided with the emergence of what Harvey (1987) called
"disorganized capitalism". Commentators now began drawing attention to
the fact that the Marxist view of capitalism was deficient in that production
of space is focal to the development of capitalism in the twentieth century,
and the new regime of "flexible accumulation" depends upon the production
of "a tense and turbulent landscape" with disjointed space economies. Such
developments in space economy are fragments of a still larger mosaic:
.
. .. of Castell's "new relationship" between space and society, formed by
the hypermobility of capital and information cascading through a vast
world system, where "space is dissolved into flows", "cities becorne
shadows" and places are emptied of their local meanings; of Jameson's
"post-modem hyperspace", part of the cultural logic of late capitalism,
whose putative "abolition of distance" renders us all but incapable of
comprehending--of rnapping-the decentred communication networks
whose global webs enmesh our daily lives (Castells, 1983, p. 314; Jameson,
1984) (Gregory, 1989, p. 353).
Towards the end of the 1970s, working out the implications of historical
materialism thus moved beyond Marx's original thesis to fashion a post
Marxist theory of socio-spatial structuration which emphasizes that people
not only make history but also geography-which is to say that time-space
relations are intrinsic to the constitution of societies (Gregory, 1978). Such
a view cuts into the sociological concept of societies as totalities with clear
cut boundaries, and renders them extremely unstable, since under the new
concept, society becomes the product of the varying spans of time and
space.
This ends the earlier view of dualism between society and space,
between agency and structure. Such a (supposedly) Kantian view of division
between the social and the spatial was made all the more distinct in the
spatial science episode in human geography. This duality (born essentially
out of the urge to apply the methodology of the natural sciences to the
study of sociological phenomena) had long been attacked by scholars of

he11neneutics (the study and interpretation of meaning) from the time of F.
Schleiermarcher (1768-1834) and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833---1911) . Dilthey had
argued that the human sciences, owing to the peculiarity of their subject
matter, required a special methodology very different from the empirical
methodology of the natural sciences. This special methodology was
her1neneutics that tried to search for meaning in all kinds of activities and
objects, including tools and landscapes as well as individual biographies .
Hermeneutics went beyond mere physical appearances-physical and
physiological processes, and surface patterns-to seek deeper meanings
and causes by paying attention to the meaning and motivation behind
actions. But hermeneutics was not a barrier to objective knowledge_
He11neneutics was introduced in human geography in the mid-1970s through
the writings of Buttimer (1974) and Tuan (1974), and was in late 1970s
visible under two different titles: humanistic geography, and critical theory.
The latter was proposed by Gregory (1978) with a view to linking the
her11,eneutical approach to a critique of traditional historical and regional
geography. Thus by around 1980, the supposed dualism between space
and society was finally broken, since with such a linguistic/he111,eneutic
tum, the problem of geographical description became much r,1ore than a
mere matter of abstract logic: It became "a question of reading and decoding",
of "making sense of different places and different people". Thus, as in the
case of ethnography (Geertz, 1983), in geography also, the stress was now
once again on local knowledge, which "requires us to attend not only to
the theoretical categories which inform our accounts but also to the textual
strategies through which they are conveyed".
The linguistic. tum to the study of human geography through the
introduction of hermeneutics now made geography open to experinlentation
with different modes of representation, so that the discipline reopened its
doors to cultural studies through greater interaction across the frontier
with other branches of cultural studies. Thus was completed the post
modernist journey in human geography, beginning in the 1970s, through
politica\ economy of the disorganization of capital (and thereby highlighting
the relationship between history and geography, structure and agency),
followed by the dissolution of the barrier between the social and the spatial,
arrived at through revival of the frontier between geography and sociology
by giving greater attention to social theory. This was followed by opening
of the frontier with other disciplines focused on the study of cultures. The
post-modern journey thus followed a route in an order that represented the_
reversal of the route charted by modern geography (Fig. 14.2), but the reverse
journey was imposed by the tum of developments in the contemporary
capitalistic system-a consequence of history. It represents essentially a
process of evolution so that post-modernism must not be seen as a negation
of everything that earlier human geography represented, but as "a
commentary upon it" (Gregory, 1989). The crisis of "modem" geography
until the mid-1970s lay in that geography had cut itself loose from
mainstream philosophy, humanities and the social sciences so that the post
modernist response lay in a realignment with these other streams of
knowledge for intellectual leads, particularly with social theory, but asserting
at the same time that there is no scope for grand theory in human geography.
Indeed, post-modernism focuses on the creative tension between the different
theoretical formulations, so that post-modernism is essentially polyphonic:
It combines a number of individual but har11,onious melodies, i.e., points
of view or perspectives, with a view to arriving at more comprehensive
explanation of social reality.
Gregory (1989) has identified three distinguishing features of post
modernist thought in geography: First, space-time specificity in social
explanation. This implies that post-modernist thought in social science insists
on the understanding of "a world which is meaningful for the p�ple who
live within it". Reflexiveness (implying focus on the role of the human
agent's action upon himself or the identity between object and subject) is
intrinsic to post-modernist work in the social sciences but this does not
imply complete repudiation of the scientific principles of naturalism though
the search for universal theories is eschewed (see: Gregory, 1991). Secondly,
post-modernism insists on distancing itself from the totalization (i.e., the
concept of the society as a totality following a universal process of historical
change irrespective of space context). Post-modernist thought holds that:
"The ebb and flow of human history is not reduced to the marionette
movements of a single structural principle, whatever its location, and the
differences which make up human geographies are not explained by some
central generating mechanism". Thirdly, post-modem human geography
represents a critique of spatial science it is not a continuation of it-but at
the same time, it does not represent a break with the past. Post-modem geography
focuses on the essential spatiality of social life (rather than the geometry of
social behaviour).
REFERENCES
Berdoulay, V. (1978), The Vidal-Durkheim Debate, in Ley, D. and Samuels,
M. (Eds.), Humanistic Geography: Prospects and Problems, Chicago:
Maroufa Press.
Berrr,an, M. (1982), All That is Solid Melts into Air, New York: Simon &
Schuster.
Buttimer, A. (1974), Values in Geography, Commission on College Geography,
Resource Paper 24, Association of American Geographers, Washington,
D.C.
Castells, M. (1983), The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-cultural Theory of
Urban Social Movements, London: Edward Arnold.
Chorley, R.J. and Haggett, P. (Eds.) (1967), Models in Geography, London:
Methuen.
Clifford, J. (1988), The Predicament of Culture: Nineteenth Century Ethnography,

Literature and Art, Cambridge (MA.): Harvard University Press.
Dear, M. (1986), Postmodernism and Planning, Environment and Planning:
Society and Space, vol. 4, pp. 367-384.
_ _ (1988), The postmodern challenge: Reconstructuring human geo
_
graphy, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers, NS 13, pp. 262-274.
Foucault, M. (1979), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,
Hammondsworth: Penguin Books.
___ (1980), Power/Knowledge, Brighton: Harvester.
Geertz, C. (1983), Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretative Anthropology,
New York: Basic Books.
Giddens, A. (1990), The Consequences of Modernity, Stanford (CA): Stanford
University Press/Cambridge, Polity Press.
Gregory, D. (1978), Ideology, Science and Human Geography, London:
Hutchinson.
_ __ (1989), The crisis of modernity? Human geography and critical
social theory; in Peet R. and Thrift, N.J. (Eds.), New Models in Geography,
Vol. 2, London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 348-385.
___ (1991), Interventions in the historical geography of modernity:
Social theory, spatiality and the politics of representation, Geografiska
Anna/er, vol. 73B, pp. 17 44.
___ (1994a), Modernity, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and Smith, D.M.
Blackwell.
___ (1994b), Geographical Imaginations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Harvey, D. (1987), Three myths in search of a reality in urban studies,
Environment and Planning, D: Society and Space, vol. 5, pp. 367-376.
___ (1989), The Condition of Postmodernity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Harvey, D. and Scott, A.J. (1989), The practice of human geography: Theory
and empirical specificity in the transition from Fordism to flexible
accumulation, in Macmillan, W. (Ed.), Remodelling Geography, Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Hebdige, D. (1979), Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Methuen.
Jameson, F. (1984), Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism,
New Left Review, vol. 146, pp. 53-92.
Ley, D. (1994), Postmodernism, in Johnston, R.J., Gregory, D. and Smith,
D.M. (Eds.), The Dictionary of Human Geography, 3rd ed., Oxford: Basil
Ley, D. and Mills, C. (1992), Can there be a postmodernism of resistance in
urban landscape? in Knox, P. (Ed.), The Restless Urban Landscape,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Soja, E. (1989a), Modern geography, western Marxism, and the restructuring

of critical social theory, in Peet, R. and Thrift, N. (Eds.), New Models
in Geography, Vol. 2, London: Unwin Hyman, pp. 317-347.
___ (1989b), Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical
Theory, London: Verso.
Stoddart, D.R. (1986), Geography-A European science, in Stoddart, D.R.,
On Geography and its History, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, pp. 28-40.
Tuan, Yi-Fu (1974), Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes
and Values, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Wolf, E. (1982), Europe and the People without History, Berkeley: University
of California Press.
15
Progress Since World War II:
Continuity, Change, Rapprochement,
and Convergence
Progress in geography-as in any other branch of social science is far

from an autonomous, disembodied process with its own internal and
inexorable logic. Disciplinary progress represents a history in which we are
implicated both as members of a profession and also as aware citizens. It
is necessary, therefore, that we focus on the social'intellectual context of
progress since only through such an approach can we arrive at an
understanding of how changes in societal perspectives over time had led
to the new kinds of theoretical methodological debates leading to changes
in disciplinary perspectives on what was worth investigating and how. As
social scientists, geographers are concerned to discover not only the world
in which we are living, but also to discover how, as geographers, we inhabit,
reproduce and change that world (Kobayashi and Mackenzie, 1989, p. 1).
In this concluding chapter we present an overview of the changing contexts
of progress in geography since World War II, more particularly over the
past quarter century dating back to the beginning of the relevance debate.
But first, a brief commentary on the earlier period is in order.
Underlining the fact that its status as a fundamental science notwith
standing, geography has not been on the forward salients in science, nor
have we been closely associated with those who have, Ackerman (1963)
wrote that the reason for this was that in the teens and early twenties of
this century, our closest associations were with history and geology. This
association did not help to correct the predisposition of geography to the
deceptive simplicity of geographic determinism; and later when determinism
had started to fade, geography had opened up frontiers with the social
science disciplines so that determinism was repiaced by possibilism as the
guiding perspective in the study of man's relationship with the environment.
However, the underdeveloped state of the social sciences during that period
had offered few sources of inspiration and fresh insight. Only in the 1950s
did this association begin to yield fruitful results in the form of new methods
of study derived from mathematical statistics that were first applied in
biometrics, anthropometry and econometrics.
This was the beginning of the so-called quantitative "revolution" in
283
geography leading to, what Burton (1963) had termed as, "radical trans
formation of spirit and purpose" of geography through increased
mathematization of argument and the attendant emphasis on the construction
and testing of theoretical models, so that from then on, geography became
an open-ended field of inquiry. This was in sharp contrast to the position
obtaining in the prequantitative phase, when our preoccupation with the
search for professional identity had led to intellectual independence and
isolation from other fields of knowledge. Our only cross-disciplinary
associations were with cultural anthropology and geomorphology, both of
which suffered from similar problems of isolation.
The dominant view of geography as areal differentiation had "favoured
a goal of investigation independent of the goal of other sciences"; the same
was also true of the concept of areal organization (Platt, 1959). The real
tragedy of geography as a discipline lay in that we neglected the axiom
that "The course of science as a whole determines the progress of its parts,
in their greater or lesser degrees" (Ackerman, op. cit.). The great significance
of the quantitative revolution lay in that through its renewed focus on
space and spatial interaction (in place of the earlier exclusive focus on
place and areal differentiation, and areal organization), it had greatly
broadened the scope of geographical research by enshrining geography as
a spatial science so that now all kinds of spatial flows economic, social,
political and any other, became incorporated as its legitimate disciplinary
concerns. No more questions about what was in or out of the purview of
geography: Everything with a spatial component formed part of geographical
investigation. The logical positivist turn to geography had introduced new
standards of rigour in research through increased emphasis on analysis,
generalization and theory. This period of rejuvenation of geography as
spatial science was greatly aided by the fortunate arrival of the concept of
the General System Theory (see Boulding, 1956) and the invention of the
electronic computer which brought about great efficiency in multivariate
analysis. Thus the 1960s appeared to celebrate a new dawn for geography
as a living discipline.
The euphoria was relatively short-lived, however, since by the middle
of the 1960s it began to be felt that the new quantitative turn to geography
as a science of spatial analysis with its central focus on identification of
pattern laws of behaviour in space had contributed to shift attention away
from the real to the abstract spaces, and from the everyday processes that
generate behaviour to the surface impressions of behaviour. To meet this
objection, many called attention to the need for the study of behaviour in
the context of man's perception of reality in space and time. This gave to
geography a psychological turn leading to the introduction of new variables
such as cognition and mental structuring of the decision-makers as important
determinants in understanding man-environment interaction and the
resultant patterns of behaviour, but most actual research in behavioural
geography was firmly located in the spatial science tradition of the search
for pattern laws of behaviour in space. Irrespective of a psychological turn,
PROGRESS SINCE WORLD WAR II 285
the human agency was yet to move to centre-stage in human geography

research. Focused anthropocentrism in geography came only with the
humanistic perspective later in that decade. As against the law-seeking
nature of behavioural geography, humanistic geography was idiographic
in ethos, so that it was focused on the study of individuals and small
groups, and on the evolution of cultural landscapes in particular places as
the outcomes of intimate interaction between nature and culture. Humanistic
geography was focused on understanding, meaning and value, and was
indifferent to considerations of utility and theory. The latter considerations
became the watchwords in the new perspective in human geography
generally identified as the radical political economy (or historical materialist)
perspective. Both humanism and historical materialism were critical of the
spatial science tradition of value freedom, and the "thingification" of human
relations. Although both humanist and the political economy /historical
materialist perspectives focused on the role of the human agency in
geographical research, the two systems of thought were at that time generally
viewed as alternative (and mutually opposed) views of social reality. This
was a source of much confusion and confrontation in research practice
until the mid-1980s when attention began to be drawn to elements of
complementarity between them.
The social and economic context of the late 1960s and early 1970s in
which man-centred focus in human geography was revived, was marked
by a wide range of protests and problems across the industrialized world
in America and Europe. There were protests and problems that shattered
the already weakening idea of social equilibrium-a process that was
concretized into a variety of movements championing the cause of equity
and social justice, and calling to bring about social change in favour of the
underpriviledged. Naturally enough, the prevailing social convulsion had
led to a period of critical self-examination within the environmental
disciplines such as geography and planning, and in regional and urban
studies in general. This led to a renewed concern for social relevance in
geographical research, a concern that was focused on improvement of the
human condition. Such a focus inevitably called for a broad and all
encompassing vision in the analysis and resolution of the urgent problems
of society and environment. Such a vision led to the crumbling of the
existing boundaries of conceptual categories, so that there was a definite
trend in favour of interdisciplinary discourse.
The societal convulsions of the 1960s and early 1970s were part of an
ongoing process of social reconstruction generated by changes in social
and economic life, and by increased globalization of communication. These
changes were the source of a major paradox: Improvements in technology
were leading to more efficient exploitation of resources and production
of goods, but this also meant reduction in jobs and increase in unemploy
ment levels. Simultaneously, globalization was leading to increased
homogenization of economic and cultural structures. All this forced
retrospection on the existing perspectives in the study of relations between
peoples and their environments. In such a scenario it was natural that

while one section of geographers should seek to understand the constitution
of meaning and values involved in man-environment interaction, others
should focus on the importance of structural links which created and
conditioned the forms of environmental appropriation. The former
constituted the humanistic perspective and the latter the historical
materialistic perspective in human geography. This required both a new
concept of social totality and of social change:
Although change had been embedded in the earlier regional tradition, it
was an evolutionary concept of change, change which appeared to move
in slow, albeit graceful, sweep across a people and a (usually rural)
landscape, change which left distinct traces. We appeared to be living in
a revolutionary period, where change was rapid. Buildings fell, countries
divided, spaces for previously inarticulate and formless groups (women,
gays, blacks, international refugees, and victims of family violence and
psychiatric treatment) were created overnight. The rhythm which had
governed the regionalists' evolutionary change had given place to an
often discordant but exhilarating beat. Change was also present in spatial
science but it was a flat and personless change. One could assume there
were real people creating those patterns, flows and hierarchies, or at
least the phone calls or shipping the goods which generated movement,
but it was difficult to put faces on them. They acted but apparently
without feeling, emotion, or the consideration of alternatives (Kobayashi
and Mackenzie, 1989, pp. 4-5).
The revived focus on social relevance in the 1970s had brought to an
end the period of unexamined theoretical and institutional optimism. The
new generation of geographers busied themselves in ensuring their
profession a place in the new society which was emerging out of the shifting
protests and alliances being formed all around them. It was under such a
scenario that the new paradigms of humanism and historical materialism
had entered geographical work. The former focused on the importance of
the human agency in man's environmental relations, while the latter argued
that society constitutes a structural unity so that historical materialists were
explicitly concerned to understand and change existing structural relations
defining the nature of social production and reproduction.
Both the perspectives represented a concept of social totality which
allowed scope for social synthesis and the study of social change, although
to begin with, the two perspectives were treated as alternatives and radically
different from each other. Humanism was focused on people who were
supposed to be endowed with infinite creativity so that they built out from
themselves structures of meaning, value and significance in landscapes
and places that represented structures created and modified by human
experience. As against this, historical materialism believed in a connected
social totality exposing layers of relations, and the complexity of constraints
and conditions in which .man's life was embedded and through which
individuals were created as social beings and as members of particular
social groups or classes. Historical materialists were critical of lack of
structural rigour in humanistic geography and its asocial and transcendental

response to the question: "What constitutes social totality?" On their part,
the humanists were critical of historical materialism's apparent deter1ninism
of human agency by social structure, and its mechanistic and reductionistic
definition of the individual by external forces. However, the earlier impasse
between humanism and historical materialism has now been overcome in
face of the changed social reality which is raising new questions that call
for more wholesome methodological responses.
Although the 1960s and the 1970s may have been bewildering periods to
live through, in retrospect they are becoming more coherent, as are our
own responses. For, this was a period when social equilibrium was the
conventional wisdom, and where, as a consequence, the conventional
"solution" was social engineering. The answers had been found. Science
was carefully naturalizing, and where necessary rectifying, minor problems
in the adjustment of different groups, classes, genders, races. It was a
period where the shattering of the conventional wisdom was thrust upon
us by open and evident protest which articulated, if not elegantly, very
forcibly and occasionally violently, the existence, even the dominance, of
disequilibrium. It was a type of education in which confrontation was
accepted as the appropriate, perhaps the only, form of teaching (Kobayashi
and Mackenzie, 1989, pp. 7-8).
The changed contexts since the 1980s have moved us from the earlier position
of mutual misunderstanding toward one of rapprochement that has given
rise to a new phase of mutual respect for each other. This rapprochement
has set the stage for "Remaking Human Geography", as the Kobayashi
Mackenzie volume of essays is aptly named (Also see Cloke, Philo, and
Sadler, 1991). In this process of rapprochement, the historical materialists
have moved towards, a concept of history that is focused on human agency
so that "It is now widely believed that the study of human geography
raises theoretical questions as to the nature of, and relationship between,
the individual and society"-"the human agency and social structure"
(Harris, 1989, p. 79).
The difficulty with historical materialism lay in that it focused the
social agenda on political relations, and in that preoccupation it reduced
the human agent to structurally determined actors devoid of independent
initiative for social change. In the current phase of convergence, we are
moving forward towards a relational concept of social totality populated
by motivated human agents. The humanist perspectives also have undergone
a complementary transformation. In earlier work under this perspective in
geography (particularly that influenced by phenomenology), knowledge
was viewed as reflexion of the world rather than as engagement of reality,
with the result that humanist work had become cut off from the general
concerns of social science in developing understanding of social-political
relations and making attempts to resolve problems of equity and social
justice. Now, since the 1980s, the humanist concern for man-centredness of
social life, for reflexivity, and inseparability of fact and value, "have been
carried forward in a growing trend toward empirical work that is both

philosophically informed and firmly rooted in material existence" (Kobayashi
and Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 9).
Pointing to the need for rapprochement for, and convergence of,
the humanist and the historical materialist perspectives, Cosgrove (1989,
p. 205) maintained that, "The tension between the two ways, one of knowing
and one of explaining, can be a creative one, in research to be sure, but
above all in teaching our geography as a celebration of the diversity and
richness of the natural world and of the places that human societies created
in their attempts to make over that world into the homes of humankind."
Another scholar points to "the fusion of praxis to create congruence of
structure and the agency of individuals [in landscape study]", since,
"Historical processes ... may provide the basis for structuring of landscape
as a way of life" (Ley, 1980). In each case the landscape is "depassement
of ideology, a statement of the social relations of its production and the
ground for further development of geographical landscape studies"
(Kobayashi, 1989, pp. 180-181).
The three dominant paradigms in postwar human geography have
been: Logical positivism, humanism and historical materialism (or radical
political economy). As Ley has summarized it:
logical positivism arrived in geography in the 1960s, and offered valuable
standards of rigour and objective procedure of verifiability through
hypothesis testing. But positivism has always been more vulnerable in
explanation beyond observable phenomena: Humanists identified its
weakness in dealing with intangibles, the subjective and intersubjective
worlds, and in particular its incapacity to deal with questions of meaning.
Structuralists in turn criticized its empiricism, its confinement to
observation language which rendered it unable to account for hidden
and underlying causes (Ley, 1989, p. 233).
Ley draws attention to three different attempts at synthesizing these pers
pectives. The earliest was Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of
Reality (1966). The second was the attempt by the Frankfurt school, especially
by Habe111,as (see Berstein, 1985) "whose argument is both largely abstract
and, also, has not achieved a fo111,al integration of the three realms of dis
course". The third, and currently most popular in human geography, is the
"structuration" approach of Anthony Giddens (1984). But according to Ley,
Giddens' outline is perhaps, less a thesis than a framework, an inventory
of important issues, but issues which are aggregated rather than synthe
sized, so that, "In unsophisticated hands, it can become little more than a
checklist, proffering an advice that all things are dialectically related, but
without specifying lines of deteratination" (Ley, 1989, p. 234).
Addressing the question of the relationship between humanism and
historical materialism, Andrew Sayer has underlined that concrete research
invariably has to mobilize and integrate concepts from several theories, in
order to capture the many-sided nature of the subject under investigation.
In this regard,
Synthesis goes one step further, covering a host of such phenomena,

though, of course, even then one's interests are selective. While analysis
requires abstraction, synthesis in the sense of "thick descriptior," requires
the development of an ability to command a wide variety of abstractions,
theoretical constructs and schemata .... Just as a musician's ability is
enhanced by a facility in a large range of different rhythms, scales, chords,
etc., and a deep understanding of their structures and interrelationships,
so the "art" of synthesis requires a command ov�r a range of overlapping
theories and methods (Sayer, 1989, p. 223).
The emerging scenario in human geography through· rapprochement
between the two rival paradigms of human geography research since the
early 1970s presents (in Ley's view): "Tantalizing possibilities for a renewed
human geography, one which is more representational (or empirical) than
the recent past, more contextual in its regional, cultural and historical
specificity, which seeks to integrate facts and meanings, both the objective
and the subjective". Ley also sees implications "for synthesis as opposed
to analysis, for the place of theory which now lies much closer to the
ground in conceptual heuristics and lower order generalizations, and for
the style of discourse that reaches beyond the private lexicons of speech
communities" (Ley, 1989, p. 244).
The current theoretical debate in human geography regarding the
discipline's content and nature is, in many ways, fundamentally different
from the nature of the dialogue in the 1970s. According to Gregory (1989,
pp. v v- ii), the salient features of the current dialogue are: In the first place,
earlier there was a tacit assumption that solutions to most of the problems
that geographers deal with had to be found in the methodology of some
other priviledged field of study and then incorporated in our own
methodology, so that geography depended on the developments in other
disciplines. This situation has now changed, in that now there is an increasing
recognition of the importance of intrinsically geographical concepts of place,
space and landscape across the whole field of humanities and social sciences.
Thus within human geography
humanism can no longer be portrayed as a parochialism in which the
day-to-day lives of particular people in particular places is the tangible
focus of study, any more than historical -materialism can continue to be
criticized as a brute globalism in which the specificities of history and
geography are read off from the universal logic of the (capitalist) mode
of production.
Secondly, human geography today is "increasingly concerned with
making sense of the dynamics of concrete 'language-games', and not ... with
'discovering the Continent of Meaning and Mapping of its bodiless
landscape'". There is now a focused attempt to recast the relations between
Grand Theory and "local knowledge". Thirdly, the walls of old absolutisms
have fallen so that there is greater recognition about the plurality of traditions
both within humanisms and historical materialism, and this is accompanied
by emphasis on recognizing increasing cross currents between the two.
The result is that "both humanistic geography and historico-geographical

materialism have become more participatory projects" (Gregory, 1989).
REFERENCES
Ackerman, A.E. (1963), Where is a research frontier? Annals of the Association
Berger, P. and Luckmann, T. (1966), The Social Construction of Theory, Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Berstein, R.J. (1985), Habermas and Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Boulding, K. (1956), The general systems theory: A skeleton of science,
Management Science, vol. 2, pp. 197-208.
Burton, I. (1963), The quantitative revolution and theoretical geography,
Cloke, P., Philo, C. and Sadler, D. (1991), Approaching Human Geography: An
Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Debates, London: Paul Chapman.
Cosgrove, D. (1989), Historical considerations of humanism: Historical materia
lism and geography, in Kobayashi, A. and Mackenzie, S. (Eds.),
Remaking Human Geography, Boston: Unwin Hyman, pp. 189-205.
Giddens, A. (1984), The Constitution of Society, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gregory, D. (1989), Preface to Kobayashi, A. and Mackenzie, S. (Eds.),
Remaking Human Geography, Boston: Unwin Hyman.
Harris, R. (1989), Synthesis in human geography: A demonstration of
historical materialism, in Kobayashi, A. and Mackenzie, S. (Eds.),
Kobayashi, A. (1989), A critique of dialectical landscape, in Kobayashi, A.
and Mackenzie, S. (Eds.), Remaking Human Geography, Boston: Unwin
Hyman, pp. 164-183.
Kobayashi, A. and Mackenzie, S. (1989), Introduction: Humanism and
historical materialism in human geography, in Kobayashi, A. and
Mackenzie, S. (Eds.), Remaking Human Geography, Boston: Unwin
Hyman, pp. 1-14.
Ley, D. (1980), Geography Without Man: A Humanistic Critique, Research Paper
24, School of Geography, Oxford University.
- - (1989), Fragmentation, coherence, and limits to theory in human
geography, in Kobayashi, A. and Mackenzie, S. (Eds.), Remaking Human
Geography, Boston: Unwin Hyman, pp. 227-244.
Platt, R.S. (1957), A review of regional geography, Annals of the Association
of American Geograp/1ers, vol. 47, pp. 187-190.
Sayer, A. (1989), On the dialogue between humanism and historical
materialism in geography, in Kobayashi, A. and Mackenzie, S. (Eds.),
Index
A Behaviourism
nature and objective of, 135
Abler, R.F., 184, 209 the principle of, 129
Ackerman, E.A., 114, 115, 116, 122, 123, Being and becoming of places, 207
237, 283, 284 Berdouley, V., 15
Action space, 137 Berger, P., 288
Adams, J.S., 184, 209 Berman, M., 273
Age of exploration, contribution to the Berstein, R.J., 288
rise of geographical knowledge, Betjemann, John, 200
25-30 Billinge, M., 192
Agnew, J., 254, 255 Bird, J.H., 201, 202
Al-Idrisi, 23 Blache, Paul Vidal de la, 2, 10, 84--89,
Al-Maqdasi, 23 183, 184, 192, 197, 235, 244
Analytic vs synthetic statement, 129 Blaut, J.M., 211, 254
Anaximander, 18 Bloch, Mark, 215, 217
Anderso11, J., 220 Bobek, Hans, 71
Apian, Peter, 26 Bodin, Jean, 32
Appadurai, A., 259 Bonpland (Humboldt's co-traveller), 46
Appleton, J., 152 Boulding, K., 140, 284
Applied geography, and relevant Bowen, M., 40, 45, 47, 57, 130
research, 12-13 Bowman, I., 88
development of, 111-112 Braudel, Ferdinand, 214
movement toward, in USA, 107 Breitbart, M., 93, 96, 97, 98, 112
Arab geographers British geography,
contribution to the geographic distinguishing characteristics of, 92
tradition, 25 history and growth, 89-94
Arblaster, A., 96 mapping and field work in, 9 2 9- 3
Areal differentiation, critique of, 170 Brown, L.A., 209
Atomic approacl1, and the 18th century Brown, R.L., 135, 143, 214, 217
science, 41 Brown, Ralph H., 110
Brunhes, Jean, 82, 87-88
B Buache, Philippe, 34
Buat, Comte, 31
Baker, A.R.H., 212, 220, 221, 222, 224
Buchanan, J.Y., 90
Baker, J.N.L., 30
Buffon, Comte de, 32-34, 40, 41
Barnes, T.J., 169
Bunge, William, 121, 123, 127, 165, 193,
Barrows, H.H., contribution to geo
195, 197
graphy, 106--108, 234
Behain, Martin, 26 Bunge-Grigg debate, 200-202
Behavioural geography, nature and Burton, I., 120, 121, 123, 136,144,200,284
objective, 135-143 Busching, Anton Friedrich, 34, 95
Behaviouralism in geography evolution first scholar to use population statis
or-revolution?, 143-146 tics as a geographical factor, 34
291
292 INDEX
Butlin, R.A., 216, 217 Crusades, religious,

Buttimer, A. 123, 146, 151, 279 role in revival of interest in geography,
22
C Cultural geography,
historical explanation in, 208
Caldecott, L., 268 Culture,
Capital, the logic of, 278 and the postmodern perspective in
Carlstein, T., 122 geography, 172
Carpenter, Nathenaeal, 28 as a text, 172
Castells, M., 172, 278 role of the past in, 218-219
Causal laws,and chorological geography,
130 D
Causation, the principle of, 128
Central place theory, Da Gama, Vasco, 22, 26
impact on regional geography, 189 Da Vince,10
Chambers,R., 220 Darby, H.C., 82, 213, 214,220, 223, 224
Chisholm, M., 161, 163, 184--185,220 Dark age (of geographical scholarship),
Chorley,R.J., 124, 275 22
Chorography vs chorology, Darwin, Charles, 7, 10, 32, 48, 62, 63, 169,
Richthofen's view, 74 230-236, 241
Chorology vs chorography, 74 contribution to modern scientific
Christaller, W., 121 thought, 237
C'1ark,A.H., 215, 216 impact on geographical thought,
Classification, 232-236
as a new device to data interpretation, theory of evolution, 231, 232
7 Darwin, Irasmus,
association by similarity and by early pioneer of evolution theory, 42
contiguity, 193 Davis,W.M.,69,79,98,99-101, 233,239
Classification vs division, 193 his concept of geography compared
Clifford J., 271 with Ratzel's, 71
Cloke, P., 287 D'Holback, on world as a machine, 40
Cluverius, 28 De Bos, Abbe, 32
Cole, L., 238 De Jong, G., 193
Collingwood, R.J. De Mortonne, E., 51, 52, 87
his theory of historical knowing, De'Ally, Pierre, 25
218-219 Dear, M.,276, 277
Columbus, Christo/er, 22, 26 Descarte (and the materialist theory of
Compage, the concept of, 190 science), 40
Comparative method, 7 Determinism (Taylor's stop-and-go),246
Comte, Auguste, 126-130 Devall, W., 248
Comtian positivism, 39 Diachronic versus synchronic models of
Concept vs percept, 4-5 explanation, 206
Contextual approach, 14-15 Dialectical materialism, 168
Cook, Captain James, 6, 27, 32, 274 Dichotomous division, 193-194
Cooke, P.N., 258 Dickinson,R.E.,28,43, 47, 52,53,54,55,
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 10, 27 56, 67, 71, 75, 81, 189, 191
Copock, J.T., 161 Diderot (French humanist), 4
Cox, K.R., 139, 145, 148,163, 166 Differentiating characteristic,193
Critical realism, Diffusion, a space-time process, 209
and locality study, 257-258 Dikshit, R.D., 11, 251
Crocker, L.G., 41 Dilthev,
, W., 278
INDEX 293
Disinterested observation, the principle Feminism,

of, 129 natural and cultural representation of,
Division vs classification, 193 268
Division, logical vs dichotomous, 193-194 radical vs social, 264
Doctrine of facts, vis-a-vis phenomenology and
and the positivist model of science, humanism, 265-267
40-41 Feminist geography,
Donaldson, 0.F., 152 common concerns of all feminists,
Downs, R.M., 140, 144 266-267
Dualism, physical vs human, and direction for future work, 267-269
systematic vs regional, 57-58, 65-67 nature and objective, 263
Duncan, S.S., 259 place perspective in, 266
Durkheim, Emile, 244-245, 274 three phases in the development of,
Dwelling place, the concept of, 152 267
Feminist theories,
E compared to Marxian theories, 265
Fenneman, N.M., 183
Earth surface, defined, 1 Field (as the geographer's laboratory)
East, W.G., 186, 202, 214 Barrows' view, 107-108
Ecofeminism, 266 Fieldwork (participatory), 152
Ecosystem and ecology, Fien, )., 140, 152
as geographical principles, 237-240 Fleure, H.J., 235
Economic man (the concept of) Flietche, J.G., 44
and spatial science geography, 134 Folke, S., 166
Economic rationality Forster, George, 32, 274
and spatial science geography, 133 influence on Humboldt, 43-44
Emel, )., 250 Forster, J.R., 6, 7, 32, 42
Enlightenment (the age of) Fosberg, F.R., 238
dominant ideas and beliefs, 41-43 Foucault, M., 274
Entrikin, J.N., 148, 150, 155 Fox, W., 248
Environmental determinism Functional organization of space, 107
and imperialism, 119-170 Functionalism, the principle of, 129
Environmentalism,
and geography, 241-251 G
the current perspective on, 247-248
Erastosthenes, 20 Gaia tradition, 250
Evolution, the theory of, Galileo, 27, 40
aspects of special significance to Gallois, Lucien, 89
geography, 63 Galois, B., 95, 98, 100, 102
impact on geographical thought, Gallon, Francis, 89-90
232-236 Gandhi, Mahatma, 249
role of randomness and chance in, 63 Gatterer, Christoph, 34
the antecedants of, 230 Geddes, Patrick, 92-93
the Darwinian view, 231-233 Geertz, C., 279
Exceptionalism, 118, 206 Gender, defined, 263
Existentialism, 151 the geography of, 263-269
Eyeles, )., 161 vs race and class, 268
Gender roles compared with sexual roles,
F 264
General geography, 189-190
Febvre, Lucien (French historian) on compared to special geography,
possibilism, 244 28-30
294 INDEX
Genre de vie, the concept of, 85-86, critical Marxist vs hwnanist view in,13
192-193, 245 essential characteristics of geogra
Genus, 193 phical research, 5-6
Geognosia, 44, 5 0 etymological meaning of, 1, 20
Geographer, the focused on the study of the particular,
as a professional, 11 4
as delver and dovetailer, 163 integrated science of man-environ
as diagnostician, prophet and ment relationship a Greek legacy,2,
architect, 160 7, 60-67
Geography integration through landscape
anamalogus status as a discipline, analysis, 79---82
1-3, 64-65 integration through the study of areal
and environmental education, 251-252 variation (chorology), 70-77
and environmentalism, 168-170, its place i n the classification of
242-251 knowledge, 3-5, 35-36, 73-74
and imperialism, 169-170 late starter as a university discipline,
and social justice, 172-176 1
and sociology, 179-180 philosophical concerns in, 173
and the feminist movement, 263-270 post modernist view of, 270
and the rise of the scientific revolution, post-Ritterian developments in,60-61
8-9 rise of dualism in,
as a branch of learning, 1 physical vs human, 10
as a naive science, 130 regional vs systematic, 28-30
as any thing that can be put on maps, rapproachement between the two, 283
63 search for relevance in research, 159
as chorology, the American focus on, the developing nature of, 8-13
108-110 three primary questions 1n geo-
as European science, 6-8 graphical work, 4--6
as landscape analysis, the American Gerland, George, 67
focus on, 121 Gevonese, E.D., 225
as spatial science, the sources of Giddens, Anthony, 254, 256, 257, 288
dissatisfaction with, 134-135 Gilbert, E.W., 224
as the study of spatial interaction, 121 Gillimare, F.H.H., 90
as the study of the geometries of Ginsburg, Norton, 109
space, 121 Glacken, C.J., 2, 19, 32, 224
Blache's view on the distinctive nature Gold, J.R., 135, 136, 140, 143, 145
of geographical work, 85 , Goldenberg, L.A., 216
impact of discoveries in the Golledge, R.G., 135, 139, 143
development of, 30-34 Gould, P.R., 140, 160, 209
in ancient Greece, 9, 17-21 Grand theory and geography, 175
in the Age of Exploration, 25-30 Greek contribution to geography, 17-21
in the Arab lands, 23-25 Gregory, D., 8, 120, 129, 149, 153, 154,
in the Middle Ages, 22 189,210,216,218,220,222,245,256,
both regional as well as systematic in 259, 270, 275, 278-280, 290
perspective, 4 Gregory, S., 124
change of focus from pattern to Grigg, D., 192, 201
process, 207 Grigg-Bunge debate, 200-202
contextual approach to the history of, Guelke, L., 117, 121, 131, 149, 150, 197,
14-15 214, 215, 219, 225
crisis of identity in the 19th century, Guts-Muths, J.C.F., 53
10-11, 61--62 Guyot, Arnold, 59, 60, 101
INDEX 295
H Holt-Jensen, A., 29, 35

Homer, 17
Habermas, on modernity, 288 Hudson, B., 169, 243
Hagerstrand, T., 123, 180 Hughes, D., 248
Haggett, P., 5, 124, 275 Human exploration, the society of, 165
Hall, R.B., 192 Humanistic geography, 146-157
Harris, R.C., 149, 211, 212, 222, 223, 287 Humboldt, Alexander von, 7, 10, 32, 110,
Harrison-Church, R.J., 88 173
Harvey, D., 127, 131, 166, 170, 171, 174, intellectual climate of his time, 39--42
179, 212, 255, 277 represented a beginning and an end
Hazard perception studies, 134-140 in geography, 37
framework for, 139 the last great figure to claim universal
Hartshorne, Richard, 1, 21, 37, 53, 55, 57, scholarship, 62
66, 67, 69, 73, 75, 78, 79, 80, 82, 109, Huntington, Elsworth, 104, 235
170, 176, 185, 188, 195, 197, 201, contribution to geography, 104
205-208, 211 Hutton, James, 230, 233
Hartshorne-Schaefer debate, 118-121 Huxley, T.H., 233
Hecataeus, 18
Hegel's concept of 'wholeness' and I
regional geography, 184-185
Herbertson, A.J., 183, 190-192, 235 Ibn Batuta, 24
Herodotus, 18 Ibn Hakul, 23
Heitner, Alfred, 36, 110; 116, 185, 188, Ibn Khaldun, 24
194, 197, 201, 205 Idealistic approach, 149
contribution to geography as chorology, Innovation diffusion,
74-79 historical explanation in, 208
views on geography in the classifi
cation of knowledge, 75-76 J
Historical geography
a new resurgence, 223 Jakie, J.A., 212, 216
and humanism, 221 James, P.E., 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 21, 30, 32, 33,
and Marxist history, 220-222 34, 48, 56, 60, 81, 82, 88, 90, 94, 105,
and theory and generalization, 111, 116, 185, 186, 192
221-222 Jameson, F., 259, 277, 278
approaches to, 212-217 Jefferson, Mark,
development as an autonomous contribution to geography, 103-104
branch of geography, 223-225 Jefferson, Thomas, 49
developments in the United States, Joerg, W.L.G., 84
107-180 Johnston, R.J., 126, 143, 146, 147, 151, 152,
nature and development, 210-212 172, 251, 259
status as a specialized branch of study, Jones, C.F., 114, 185
216-217 Jones, E., 245
three realms of, 217°218 Jones, H.L., 21
Hipparchus, 20
Historical knowing, K
the Collingwood theory of, 218-219
Historical method, Kalidas, 17
and the belief in progress through Kant, Edgar, 123
knowledge, 40-41 Kant, Immanuel, 3-4, 35-36, 38, 54, 60,
History vs Geography, 151 128, 144
Hochberg, L., 225 Karan, P.P., 249
296 INDEX
Kellner, L., 48 Logical empiricism, 128

Kelly, Petra, 247 Logical positivism, 128
Kellie, John Scott, 90 Losch, A., 120
Kepler, 27 Lovoiser, Antonie,
Kem, S., 176 role in the revival of positivist
Kimble, G.H.T., 24, 186, 191, 197 materialism, 41
Kirk, W., 133 Lovelock, James, 248
contribution to cognitive studies in Lowenthal, D., 142, 143, 250
geography, 142-143 Lowie, R.H., 72
Knox, P.L., 162 Luckerman, F., 245
Kobayashi, A., 283, 286, 287, 288 Luckman, T., 288
Kolondy, A., 268 Lucretius, Roman philosopher, 40
Kosmos, 49-53 Lyell, C., 232, 233
Kropotkin, P., 8, 170, 173, 177, 243
contribution to geography, 96-100 M
Kuhn, T.S., 166
Macarty, H., 120
L Mackay, D.V., 82
Mackenzie, S., 283, 286, 287, 288
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste, Mackinder, H.J., 90-92, 94, 213
early pioneer of evolution, 31, 42, 63 Man, the beginning of the scientific study
La Mattrie, on world as machine, 40-41 of, 31-32
Lander (defined), 64 Man-Nature relationship, 242-246
Landscape science (view of geography three-fold perspective in Western
as), 77�0 thought, 242-243
Lange, Gottfried, 29 Maine, Henry, 234
Langton, J., 212 Major regions, 191-192
Lautensauch (German geographer), 70 Malle-Brun, Conrad, 34-35
Lavoisier, 45 Malthus, Robert, 23-24
Laws, G., 176 Marco Polo, 22
Lebensraum (Ratzel's concept of), 70 Marsh, George Perkin, 101, 250
Lee, R., 259 Marxian thought, variations on, 168-169
Lefebvre, H., 177, 181 Marxism, Western, 176-179
Leibnitz, on the world as organism, Marxist geography, 166-168
41-42 and historical geography, 220-222
Leland, S., 268 Martin, G.J., 104, 245
Lewis, G.M., 160 Massam, B.H., 163
Ley, D., 147, 148, 151, 276, 288 Massey, Dorin, 255-258
Limonosov, M.V., 95 Materialism, in the 18th century science,
Linnaeus, Carlos, 7, 31, 41-42 40
Linton, D.L., 192 Maury, M.F., 99
Livingston, D.N., 8, 30 May, J.R., 36
Locale, 254-256 McPherson, A.M., 45
Locality study, Mental maps, 140-141
and critical realism, 257 and the conventional paradigm of
the new regional geography, 256-259 man-environment relationship, 141
Location, 254-256 Mercator, Gerhard, 26
relative vs absolute, 4, 5 Mertz, J.T., 236
Logic of capital, 278 Metanarratives, 175
Logic of space, 278 Method, the comparative, 7
Logical division vs classification, 193 Methodology, inversion of, 160
INDEX 297
Meyer, J.T., 144 p

Michotte, (Belgian geographer),
on Peschel's contribution to geo- Pahl, R.E., 172
graphy, 66 Painter, J., 257, 258
Miekesell, M.W., 208, 250 Pallas, Simon, 31
Mill, H.R., 79, 92 Park, R., 234, 274
Mills, C., 276 Parry, J.H., 8
Minshull, R., 183, 186, 190 Parsons, Talcott, 147
Modern Geography, Participatory fieldwork, 152
and Western Marxism, 176-179 Paterson, J.H., 200, 204
Modem human geography, Patriarchy,
the rise of, 273-276 as the root cause of women's dis-
Modernism, 273 advantages, 264
vis-a-vis postmodern.ism, 270-272 Pattern vs process, 211
Modernity, Pays, 86
distinguished from modernism and Peet, R., 162, 165-167, 169, 171
modernization, 273 Penniman, T.K., 72
Modernization, 273 Percept vs concept, 4-5
Montesquieu, Charles Louis, 32 Peschel, Oscar, 43, 65-67
Moore, E.G., 209 Phenomenal approach, 150
Morphology sociale, 274 Philbrick, A.K., 189, 197, 204
Morrill, R.L., 121, 209 Philo, C., 225, 287
Munster, Sebastian, Physique du monde, 45
the German Strabo, 28 Place,
being and becoming of, 206
N in and out of, 255
meaning of, 255-256
sense of, 254-256
Naturalism, the doctrine of, 129 surface and depth of, 255
Naturalization of social science, 148
Place utility,
Nature,
the concept of, 137
as nurture, 246-247 Planck, Max, 148
as usufruct, 242-243 Plato, the Greek philosopher, 18
personified as woman, 268 Platt, R.S. 117, 183, 215, 284
role of the past in, 218-219 Plewe, Ernest, 71
Newton, Isaac, 30 Political economy,
Nomothetic perspective, 130-131 and human geography, 168-172
Norton, W., 209, 214, 216, 218 fundamental premise of, 171-172
nature of, 166
0 Porritt, J., 247
Positivism, logical, 128-129
O'Riordian, T., 246-248 Positivist explanation, 127-129
Objectivism, in the 18th century science, Possibilism,
40 and American geography, 107
Odysseus, 17 nature of, 245-246
Ogilvie, P.G., 215 the Vidalian concept, 85
Optimizing model (of economic Postmodern geography, 270-280
rationality), 137 represented reversal of the route
Organismic theory (Ratzel's), 70 followed in the development of
Overton, M., 225 modem geography, 276-279
298 INDEX
Postmodernisrn, kinds of regions, 188-192

as the culture of late capitalism, 277 natural region, 190-193
compared with modernism, 272-274 the earth surface as the primary region
Postmodernist thought (in geography) of geographical study, 186
the distinguishing features of, 280 Whittlesey Committee's view of, 185
Pratt, G., 266 Regional analysis, 6
Pred, A., 123, 135, 209, 212, 254, 255 Regional concept, 183
Prince, H.C., 160, 161, 206, 212, 217, 218 Regional fra mework of Richthofen,
Probabilism, 245-246 184
Process Regional geography,
as viewed in landscape geography, 80 as the core of geography, 186
vs pattern, 211 compared to regional science, 199-200
Ptolemy, 20-21, 23, 25, 28 impact of industrialization on, 186-187
Public choice thoery, 168-169 its degeneration into "trash can"
Pudup, M.B., 259, 262 approach, 186
nature and practice of, 197-198
Q no longer the end purpose of geo
graphy, 187
Quantitative geography, originaly designed as a teaching
and the radical movement, 170-172 strategy, 186
primarily inductive in orientation, 130 purpose of the study of, 186
Quantitative methodology, 174 sources of dissatisfaction with,
Quantitative revolution, 124-127 116-117
Quetelet, Lambert, 131 the teleological view of, 184
Regionalization,
R analytical vs synthetic, 192
as a form of classification, 193
Radical feminism, 262 principles of, 195-197
Radical geography, as the geography of Regional science, 199-200
crises, 161 Regional vs systematic geography
Radical libertarian right, 168-169 Richthofen's view, 73-74
Radical movement, and quantitative Relative location
geography, 170-171 as the distinctive concern of geo
Radical revolution, 160 graphy, 189
Rational choice theory, 169 Relevance movement,
Raveneau, Louis (French geographer) liberal stream, 162-165
on Ratzel's contribution to geography, radical stream, 165-167
71 rise of, 159-162
Ratzel, F., 2, 7, 10, 63, 68-72, 105 Religious wars (1096-1270 AD),
Ratzelian geography, its role in revival of geography, 22
replaced not upstaged by Hettner, 79 Relph, E., 150, 157
Realism, the principle of, 129 Renne], Major James, 33
Reclus, Elisee, 5 8 -59, 173 Reynolds, R.B., 193
Region Ricardo, David, 168
an intellectual concept, 185 Richards, P., 3
as an areal class, 194-195 Richthofen, Ferdinand von, 2, 10, 72-74,
as concrete unit, 187-188 197
as just "another receptacle", 186 regional framework of, 184
as omnium gatherum, 186 Ritter, Carl, 10, 40, 54--59
formal vs functional regions, 188-189 Roberts, H., 266
generic vs specific region, 186 Robinson, A.H., 122
INDEX 299
s Sensationalist approach, in 18th century

science, 40-43
Saarinen, T.F., 144 Sequent occupance, Whittlesey's concept,
Sack, R.D., 255 111
Sadler, D., 287 Sessons, G.,248
Salisbury, R.P, 101 Sexual roles vs gender roles, 263
Samuels, M.S., 22 Sexuality, direction for future work in,
Satisficing model of economic rationality, 268
137, 138 Siddal, W.L., 235
Sauer,Carl 0., 80, 106-110,126,136,208, Simon, H.A., 136, 137, 139
213, 234 Simpson, G.G., 193-194
contribution to geography, 108-112 Smith, Adam, 168
contribution to historical geography, founded the first civil science, 41
110-111 pioneer in the use of the historical
on geography as chorology, 108-110 method, 40
on geography as landscape Smith, C.T., 207, 211, 212, 213, 215
morphology, 109 Smith, D.M., 148, 160-163, 165, 167, 173,
on leaving "ge" out of geography, 174
110 Smith, N., 258, 268
on physical versus cultural factors in Social Darwinism, 41, 62, 243
landscape study, 108 Social engineering, 129
on the nature of generalization in Social feminism, 264
geography, 108 Social geography, a pronouncedly
on the need for historical perspective politicised subject in the 1970s,
in landscape analysis, 109 172-173
on the purpose of geography, 108 Social indicators, 164
Say er, Andrew, 258, 289 Social relevance movement, 60
Schaefer, F.K., 170, 197, 206 social justice, and human geography,
Schaefer-Hartshorne debate,115-118,126, 172-176
131 Society-land relationship, 5
Schelling, F.W.J., 44 Soja, E., 176, 178, 179, 273, 277
Schiller, J.C.F. von, 44 Somerville, Mary, 89, 101
Schleirmarcher, F., 278 Space, functional organization of, 107
Schluter, Otto, logic of space, 278
critical appraisal of his work, 82 objective and social, 256
his approach distinguished from women's vs men's space, 266
Davis's Darwinist view, 80 Spate, O.H.K., 126, 245
on geography as landscape science, Spatial analysis,geography as the science
79--82 of, 121-124
on Hettnerian view of geography as Spatial interaction, 255
chorology, 81 Spatiality, 256-257
Schmidt, 54 Special geography, 189-190
Scientific classification, Spencer, Herbert, 41
role in shaping modem geographical versus general geography, 28, 30
thought, 31 Stamp, L.D., 94, 160
Scientific materialism, 39-40 Stea, D., 140
Scientific positivism, Steward, J.Q., 122
Schaefer's emphasis on, 117 on geography as social physics,
Scoon, R., 232 121-123
Scott, A.J., 277 Stoddart, D.R., 67,102,232,234,236,239,
Semple, E.C., 79, 104-106, 138 240, 243, 250, 251, 273
300 INDEX
Stop-and-go determinism, 246 Vernhagen, 49

Stow, Unstead's concept of, 192 Vi delienne, la tradition, 87-89
Strabo, Greek Geographer, 21 Von Neuman, J., 126
Strachey, John, 31
Structuration, the concept of, 256 w
Sun dial, invention of, 20
Sussmilch, J.P., 31 Wagner P.L., 208
Sustainable development, 249-250 Wagner, M. (German ethnographer), 69
Synchronic vs diachronic models, 206 Waibel, Leo Heinrich, 82
Synthetic statement (vs analytical), 130 Ward, D., 216
Systematic geography, 6 Watson, J.W., 121
Weaver, J.C., 120
T Weber, Alfred, 8
Weiner, N., 125
Tansley, A.G., 238 Werner, A.G., 31, 44, 46
Taylor, Griffith, 235-236, 246 Western Marxism, 17&-179
Taylor, E.B., 234 Whimpson, Edward, 46
Teleology Whiston, William, 31
and the regional concept, 184-185 White, Gibert, 139, 140, 143
and the theory of evolution, 31 Whittlesey,D.S.,111,186,188,190,194,214
Thales (of Miletus), 18 Wholeness, the Hegelian concept of,
Theoretical mode of explanation 184-185
a moral decision, 175 the fundamental thought behind the
Theory (vs reality), 5 concept of region, 185
role in geographical work, 126 Williams, M., 224
Thompson, J.H., 160, 162 Williamson, F., 135-143
Thrift, N., 169, 171, 209 Wisner, B., 162
Trme and genesis in geography, 205-208 W ithers, C.W.J., 225
lime, Wi ttfogel, B., 169, 170, 244
role in the evolution of landforms, 31 Wolpert, J., 136, 140-144
three varieties of, 209 Wooldridge, S.W., 186
Tobias, M., 248 Wright, Edward, 27, 219
Topographic predilection, 200 Wright, J.K., 133, 150, 186
Topohilia, 150-151 Wrigley, E.A., 86, 186, 212
Tuan, Yi-Fu, 146, 150, 220, 279
y
u
Young, K., 183
Uniformitarianism, the doctrine of, 42
Unstead, J.F., 191-194, 235 z
Urry, J., 257
Zelinski, W., 49, 160-162, 216
V Zipf, G.K., 126
Zusammenhang,
Vance, J.E., 222 Hettner's view, 77
Varenius, Bernad, 2S-30, 52 Humboldt's view, 51
Vasco da Gama, 22, 26 Ritter's view, 54-55

Geographical Thought R D Dikshit Sir

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Geographical Thought R D Dikshit Sir

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

https://t.

GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT: A Contextual History of Ideas

Tenth Printing ••• • •• April, 2011

Published by Asoke K. Ghosh, PHI Learning Private Limited, M-97, Connaught

1. The First Foundations: Developments upto the Eighteenth

2. Geography in the Nineteenth Century: The Age of

3. Geography after Humboldt and Ritter: Developments in

Re-establishment of Geography as an Integrated Science:

4. Geography after Humboldt and Ritter: Developments

5. Developments in Geography Since World War II:

6. Behavioural Persua,ion in Geography and the Rise of

7. The Call for Social Relevance in Research: Reorientation

8. The Regional Concept and Regional Geography 183-204

9. The Historical Explanation in Geography 205-229

10. Impact of Evolutionary Biology on Geographical Thought

11. Geography and Environmentalism 242-253

12. Place, Space and Locality: The Current Focus in Human

13. The Geography of Gender 263-269

14. Modern versus Post-Modern Geographies 270-282

15. Progress Since World War II: Continuity, Change,

This book is the outgrowth of over twentyfive years of teaching and

grasp. Every aspect of the development of geographical thought has been

Geography, as a branch of learning, is focused on understanding the

ANOMALOUS STATUS OF GEOGRAPHY AS A DISCIPLINE

2 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

PLACE OF GEOGRAPHY IN CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES

4 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

nor is it a substance or an accident, or a relation, but it is subjective and

THREE ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF GEOGRAPHICAL WORK

6 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

GEOGRAPHY, A EUROPEAN SCIENCE

8 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

laws were enacted in France and Germany. Institutions of higher learning

GEOGRAPHY AND THE RISE OF THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

was not always so (Livingstone, 1992). History of science reveals that

THE DEVELOPING NATURE OF GEOGRAPHY

10 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

of geographical knowledge without the use of which this large empire

12 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

laid on the understanding of meaning, value and human significance of

ORGANIZATION OF THE PRESENT VOLUME

14 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

THE CONTEXTUAL APPROACH TO HISTORY OF IDEAS

comprehend the world around him (Berdoulay, 1981). Such a disciplinary

16 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

In its wider connotation as a branch of knowledge concerned with the

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE GREEKS AND THE ROMANS

18 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

However, Thales of Miletus-a town located near the mouth of the

THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS: DEVELOPMENTS UPTO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 19

had degenerated. By way of illustration he referred to the case of Attica

20 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS: DEVELOPMENTS UPTO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 21

latitudes and longitudes are found to be wrong since these calculations

22 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

GEOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS: DEVELOPMENTS UPTO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 23

GEOGRAPHY IN THE ARAB LANDS

24 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS: DEVELOPMENTS UPTO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 25

THE AGE OF EXPLORATION

26 GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT-A CONTEXTUAL HISTORY OF IDEAS

geographical knowledge and created a favourable climate for the launching

THE FIRST FOUNDATIONS: DEVELOPMENTS UPTO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 27

Through the eighteenth century, with the increased growth of indus