Earle, Carville (1942–2003)

Carville Earle was a historical geographer whose primary goal was to answer vexing historical questions of the American past using the tools and methods of geography. Earle's research spanned from colonial Jamestown to the 21st-century United States. He often referred to himself as a geographical historian practicing geographical history. He was a pioneer in using geographic information systems in the cause of answering problems of the past with the Historical United States County Boundary Files, which allowed scholars to map and analyze historical data at the county level. Earle also served as editor of the Annals of the Association of American Geographers from 1994 to 1996.

Earle's major contributions to historical geography emerged from his insistence that historical geographers were social scientists with a focus on using a geographic or environmental approach to studying problems of the American past. Historical geography could provide new insights and answers to historical questions. Earle and Donald Meinig sparked debate among historical geographers on what direction and guidance historical geography needed. Earle critiqued what he called Meinig's continuous imperialistic expansionist interpretation of the American past. He believed that constant upheaval and change were caused by the ravenous appetite and cyclical nature of capitalism. He saw the American past as a process of economic stops and starts and of crisis and recovery that were manifested and interpreted on the settled landscape. His book The American Way highlighted the cyclical nature of the American past based on Kondratieff long waves and a 50-year cycle of government policies in response to the cyclical nature and expanding influence of the American state in response to crisis in capitalism. Methodologically, Earle's greatest influence will be his advocacy of spatial and empirical methods. Theoretically, he contributed to the understanding of alternating policy regimes of the American state and how they are manifested spatially on the landscape.

His major publications included The Evolution of a Tidewater Settlement System: All Hallow's Parish Maryland 1650–1783 and Geographical Inquiry and American Historical Problems, which included previously published seminal journal articles and new research. Geographical Inquiry and American Historical Problems included the influential pieces “Environment, Disease, and Mortality in Early Virginia,” “Staple Crops and Urban Development in the Eighteenth-Century South” with Ronald Hoffman, “A Staple Interpretation of Slavery and Free Labor” and “Socialism in America: A Geographical Interpretation of Its Failure” with Sari Bennett. His final work was [Page 810]The American Way: A Geographical History of Crisis and Recovery.