The Dictionary of Human Geography

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theoryandsocial theory, were less con-

vinced by the claims made by spatial science.

Some of the original advocates of a quantita-

tive approach also shifted their position and

ultimately rejected the philosophical assump-

tions derived frompositivismthat underwrote

spatial science. From their perspective, statis-

tical explanation lacked the capacity for ethical

or political critique and failed to acknowledge

human agency, intentionality and emotion

(Harris, 1971; Gregory, 1981). Traditional

forms of historical geography could scarcely

claim a better track record, of course, so the

solution was not to defend existing methods

but, rather, to create a critical, theoretically

informed historical geography within a new,

historically sensitive human geography.

For some, this demanded a more direct en-

gagement withhistorical materialismand a

sustained analysis of the deeper economic, so-

cial and political forces determining geograph-

ical change, an approach that was strongly

influenced by developments in social and eco-

nomic history in general and the work of E.P.

Thompson in particular (e.g. Gregory, 1982).

The same concerns can be detected in other

work on urbanization and the industrial

revolutionin Britain (Langton, 1979, 1984;

Gregory, 1982; Dennis, 1984) and in more

synoptic works such as Harvey’s extended

(1985) essay on nineteenth-century Paris (see

also Harvey, 2003a). Since the mid-1980s,

new historical geographies ofspace,power

and the social order have extended this style

of historical research, inspired by other devel-

opments in social theory more critical ofhis-

torical materialism, notablystructuration

theory, and a series of formulations that are

conventionally identified aspost-structural-

ism, notably the work of Michel Foucault

(Driver, 1993; Ogborn, 1998; Hannah, 2000;

Philo, 2004). Perhaps the most ambitious at-

tempt to connect these diverse post-positivist

thematics into an agenda for historical geog-

raphy was Harris’ programmatic essay onmod-

ernity(Harris, 1991).

A somewhat different style of historical

investigation arose from a second attack on

spatial science. This sought to reconnect geog-

raphy with a wider range of disciplines in the

arts andhumanities, based in part onher-

meneutics. While sympathetic to historical

forms of geographical enquiry, the leading ad-

vocates of a broadlyhumanistic geography

refused to privilege the past as arena of inves-

tigation and therefore tended to define their

work as (new) cultural geography allied to

(comparative) literature, cultural studies and

the visual arts rather than history. Thecul-

tural landscape has been the central pre-

occupation of this form of historical enquiry,

which has generated a rich geographical litera-

ture, including several theoretically ambitious

attempts to uncover the origins and develop-

ment of landscape as social and political con-

struction and as a way of envisioning and

representing space, a project far removed

from the way in which landscape was appre-

hended in traditional historical geography

(Cosgrove, 1993; Cosgrove and Daniels,

1988; Duncan, 1990; Daniels, 1999). Investi-

gations into the relationship between land-

scape, heritage and tourism generate

continuing interest (Graham, Ashworth and

Tunbridge, 2000), as does the relationship

between landscape and memory (Johnson,

2003b), while research on twentieth-century

debates about landscape,identityand social

practice has been especially influential

(Matless, 1998). There have also been import-

ant historical studies of cultures of travel and

travel writingthat pay close attention to the

texts and the images that accompanied them

(Schwartz and Ryan, 2003) and, moving his-

torical geography still further from the seem-

ingly obdurate physicality of landscapes,

studies of ways in which the very technologies

of writing were caught up in the transmission

of power (Ogborn, 2007).

These distinct forms of historical research in

geography, always closely related, have effect-

ively merged in the past two decades (Graham

and Nash, 1999; Withers and Ogborn, 2004).

The single,hybrid term ‘cultural–historical

geography’, originating in North America

and in some measure a legacy of the Berkeley

School, is now widely deployed to describe a

different style of research in which three

closely related themes have animated recent

discussions. The study ofimperialism and

colonialismhas grown steadily more impor-

tant. This has shifted the focus of historical

research in geography away from the global

north, although the constellations of Euro-

Americanempire,hegemonyand power con-

tinue to cast long shadows over many of these

studies, in both their theoretical form and his-

torical substance. This work has revealed how

landscapes, identities and values in the core

regions and in the colonized territories of

africa, theamericasandasiawere fashioned

by a process of imperial interaction andtrans-

culturation involving the circulation of

people and practices, objects and ideas on a

global scale (Harris, 1997; Driver and Gilbert,

1999a; Clayton, 2000; Lester, 2001; Lambert,

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_H Final Proof page 334 1.4.2009 3:18pm

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY