1 - On the relations of geography and history

Summary

Intentions

Richard Evans, in his powerful ‘defence’ of history against its attack by postmodernism, claims that the 1960s saw ‘the invasion of the social sciences into history in Britain’ and that in the post-war years in France the Annales historians aimed to make history far more objective and scientific than ever before by ‘incorporating the methods of economics, sociology and especially geography into their approach to the past’ (Evans 1997: 38–9). The writing of regional histories and of histories which addressed geographical concerns became such a distinctive characteristic of the Annales school that some observers claimed that its historians had ‘annexed’ geography (Harsgor 1978; Huppert 1978). A geographer, Etienne Juillard (1956), had written earlier of the ‘frontiers’ between history and geography. Use of these military and territorial metaphors (in all cases, the italics are mine) is indicative of the tensions which have long existed between historians and geographers, tensions which cannot be made to disappear simply by counter-citing pleas made for greater collaboration between the two ‘rival’ camps. We need to engage with the relations of geography and history in a more sustained fashion. How can that objective be achieved?

Let me initially approach the question negatively. It is not my aim to provide a history of historical geography, although I will employ a historiographical approach to the problem of the relations of geography and history. I have provided a brief history of historical geography elsewhere (Baker 1996a; see also Butlin 1993: 1–72).