Welsh Journals

A History of Modern British Geography T.W.Freeman. Longman, London (1980). pp.-258. ISBN 0 582 30030 4. Price (hardback) £ 13.50. It is very appropriate that a new book on the history of British Geo- graphy should appear during the 150th anniversary year of the Royal Geographical Society, Britain's first geographical society, by the Secretary to the International Geographical Union's Commission on the History of Geographical Thought. The book claims to be no more than an introduction to British geography over the last hundred years and the author's chief aim is to show how modern geographical concepts have evolved, and how various themes have been constantly in the forefront of much geographical thinking. "Environment", its meaning and man's relationship with it and "Region" are two such themes. Increased information about the world and progress in other disciplines enabled geography to progress from an encyclop- aedic subject to an analytical scientific discipline but as the author points out, early 20th century geography was never "mere descript- ion". In 1880 there were no British geographers as such, though "in- trepid explorer" was often equated with "geographer". The move .away from exploration as the central theme for geography was soon to be established through Mackinder, appointed to be Oxford's first Reader in Geography in 1887, was to complain that he had to climb Mt. Kenya before his views on geography were taken seriously. Irrespective of the weakness of their presuppositions one cannot but be impressed with Mackinder's analysis of the world political situat- ion or Herbertson's concept of comparative natural regions. Herbert- son, who died in 1915, was the first to describe geography as the Science of distributions The author explains the development of the regional concept after the First World War and the problems created for geography as environmental determinism became increasingly untenable. The author sees the Second World War as of vital importance to the sub- ject. Not only were the new Honours degrees vindicated by the qual- ity of the Admiralty Handbooks, but also these and the work of the Land Utilisation Survey under Stamp's genius had shown how useful the expertise of the geographer could be in a variety of nationally significant fields but especially to Planning in Britain. From this increasing confidence was to emerge the new geography. The author is not convinced of all the more recent trends. He is unhappy about some aspects of quantification, about too much emphasis on models as opposed to the real world situation, on the systematics which tend to divide the subject rather than on regional studies which help to weld it together. He asserts the need for scholars to try to be objective. fhe book presents a fascinating insight into the earlier develop- ment of modern Geography in Britain. It is less satisfactory on the later years partly because the author is less in sympathy with some of the developments and partly because of the vast expansion of the geographical field. It is inevitable that important geographers should be ignored or summarily dismissed in a short book like this. Never-