Historical Geography

Historical geography is the subfield of the discipline that examines geographies of the past, including their relations with those of the present. In his treatise on historical geography, Andrew Hill Clark argues that the past is at least implied, if not explicit, in all geographic analyses. Clark claims that the concepts and methods of historical geography are applicable to all branches of geography, and therefore, historical geography should not be thought of as a distinct field of geography but more as a methodology, as a way of seeing geographically by focusing on space and time. This entry discusses the development of historical geography from the 1890s to the present, including the emergence of a new critical historical geography, beginning in the 1970s. It then examines ...