GEOGRAPHERS Biobibliographical Studies VOLUME 27 Edited by Hayden Lorimer and Charles W. J. Withers on behalf of the Co...
114 downloads
1421 Views
3MB Size
Report
This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form
GEOGRAPHERS Biobibliographical Studies VOLUME 27 Edited by Hayden Lorimer and Charles W. J. Withers on behalf of the Commission on the History of Geographical Thought of the International Geographical Union and the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science
continuum
Continuum UK
Continuum US
The Tower Building 11 York Road London SE1 7NX
80 Maiden Lane Suite 704 New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
International Geographical Union 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. First published 2008 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 9781847061561
Typeset by BookEns Ltd, Royston, Hertfordshire Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Kings Lynn, Norfolk
Contents
The Contributors
vi
Introduction
Hayden Lorimer and Charles W. J. Withers
Tycho Brahe (Tyge Ottesen Brahe) (1546-1601)
Michael Jones
William Camden (1551-1623)
Robert J. Mayhew
28
William Desborough Cooley (1795-1883)
Roy Bridges
43
Kate Marsden (1859-1931)
Elizabeth Baigent
63
Max Sorre (1880-1962)
Hugh Clout
93
James Morris Blaut (1927-2000)
Kent Mathewson
107
Howard F. Gregor (1920-2000)
Stephen C. Jett and George Daugavietis
131
Jiro Yonekura (1909-2002)
Toshihiro Okada
143
Index
vii 1
153
The Contributors
Elizabeth Baigent is Reader in the History of Geography at the University of Oxford and a former editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Roy Bridges is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Aberdeen and President of the Hakluyt Society. Hugh Clout is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography at University College London and a Fellow of the British Academy. George Daugavietis is Instructor in Mathematics and in Geography, Solan Community College. Stephen Jett is Professor Emeritus of Geography, as well as of Textiles and Clothing, at the University of California, Davis, and editor of Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts. Michael Jones is Professor of Geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Kent Mathewson is Professor of Geography at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Robert J. Mayhew is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Bristol. Toshihiro Okada is Professor of Geography at Kochi University, Japan.
Introduction
This volume of Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies includes essays on an early modern Dane, an Irishman notable for his work on Africa, two Britons (the man an Elizabethan and Jacobean humanist, the woman a late Victorian traveller and medical geographer), a French human ecologist in the Vidalian tradition, a Japanese cultural and historical geographer, and two Americans, one a leading voice in agricultural geography, the other a radical polymath. Each in their different ways illustrates not national traditions or localized venues of and for geographical enquiry, but particular forms of that internationalism — transnationalism even — and cooperative intellectual engagement on which geography has always depended. Tyge Ottesen Brahe, known usually as Tycho Brahe (the Latinized form of his name), was a leading European thinker and researcher before the ideas of Europe and the modern conventions of research methodology had been invented. Brahe is best known to us now as an astronomer but he also undertook major work in geodesy and in map making. His was an age when the intellectual sub-divisions of geodesy, cartography and astronomy were largely meaningless: he worked, in Classical terms, with geography as cosmography, and in the emphasis upon surveybased regional mapping and topographic description, with geography as chorography. Brahe was a pioneer in his use of systematic triangulation, effectively the employment of mathematical geography for useful ends. Brahe was also part of a courtly and Latinate intellectual world, being dependent in his remarkable observatory at Hven and in later studies elsewhere upon the patronage of royalty and leading churchmen to undertake his work. Like Brahe, William Camden's scholarly and political world was one shaped by the conventions of classical scholarship, humanism, the emerging European Republic of Letters, and by local courtly influences and the politics of religion. Where Brahe's intellectual concerns were, largely, cosmographical and cartographical, Camden's were chorographical and textual. Camden's key work, his Britannia (1586) built upon and further developed traditions of chorographical scholarship, and, with others, helped establish new senses of national identity and new, synthesizing, practices of geographical scholarship that depended less upon acceptance of ancients' claims and more than hitherto upon critical examination of different sources for one's self. Alike as European intellectuals, if unlike in their respective attention to the languages of mathematical precision and textual exegesis, Brahe and Camden helped shape a world in which geographical knowledge in these and other forms was central to that moment and movement we now term 'the Scientific Revolution'. William Desborough Cooley's life and works were, in broad terms, bound up with the intellectual ferment associated with the rise of modern science as a
viii
Introduction
professionalized and discipline-based pursuit and, in more specific and geographical terms, with that deep fascination with Africa so characteristic of nineteenthcentury British geography. If read in terms of 'proper' geography taking place only through field-based observational empiricism, Cooley's work has been misunderstood, his significance overlooked and reputation lessened by comparison with that of African explorers and travellers, notably the 'heroic', even saintly, David Livingstone. Taken in the context of his time, however, and understood as a textual scholar and linguistic critic as well as one of geography's 'public intellectuals' in the nineteenth century, Cooley was a leading writer and thinker on African geography. There can be little doubt, however, that his often intemperate tone masked the worth of his contributions. Kate Marsden was one of the first women to be elected fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). (She is, incidentally, only the eighth woman to be the subject of an essay in Geographers', for that reason alone, we are delighted to have here this engaging summary of an eventful life and thus to act, in a small way, to correct the lamentable under-representation of women geographers). As with Cooley, Marsden's geographical work and personal reputation needs to be seen through contemporary lenses and, particularly, in terms of the social conventions of the time. Kate Marsden was an intrepid traveller and committed activist to the cause of medical improvement. In a life dogged by scandal of one sort or another and which ended in poverty and recrimination, her fellowship of the RGS — this single 'fact' of intellectual accreditation — lent her public credibility and social standing at a time when the regulatory codes attending individuals' private lives mattered more than now. The French geographer Maximilien Sorre — known always, then and since, simply as 'Max' — rose from humble origins as the son of a railway worker to be honoured by his nation for his service in World War I and for his several contributions to geography and education. Author of numerous books and essentially a synthesiser, someone who saw geography not as central to other discipline's concerns (for that might accord it an ontological priority it did not merit) but as integral to collective interests in human-nature interdependence, Sorre's work has been fulsomely evaluated in French geography, albeit better so after death than during his lifetime where, to a degree, his geographical writings were overshadowed by other geographers in the Vidalian tradition and by his own energetic accomplishments in re-fashioning French educational systems. Much more than Cooley or Marsden ever were or could ever hope to be, Sorre was a man of the geographical and political establishment. The term 'Establishment Man' certainly does not fit the life and work of James ('Jim') Blaut. But the simple epithet 'Geographer' does him little justice either. In contrast to those other geographers discussed here — and in contrast to most of those discussed in Geographers for whom autobiographical reflection is relatively rare and so all the more valuable when it does appear — Blaut left a self-defining view of himself as someone who had made 'breakthroughs' in several areas of geography and, indeed, as someone who succeeded in incorporating geographical thinking into the concerns of fields such as developmental psychology, sociology and development studies. More than this and more than many others', Blaut's life was one of commitment to the potential of geography to make a difference to people's lives. He long evinced an enduring belief in the importance of using geography for human betterment: theoretically, but not in terms of ideological commitment to some dry-as-dust political-cum-philosophical position, rather in terms of the difference space makes to the human condition, and practically in his work on Puerto Rica and most notably in political ecology. In his attention to agricultural
Introduction
ix
systems, and in empathy for his students, Blaut might be said to have shared common ground with Howard Gregor, the American agricultural geographer, but they probably shared little else, we suspect, at least in terms of career trajectory and underlying political commitment. For Howard Gregor, employment as an analyst in the United States' Central Intelligence Agency — a job that Gregor seems to have been ambivalent about at best but honest enough to appreciate its value — illustrates something of the different career trajectories followed by American geographers in periods when jobs in the discipline were relatively few and positions which allowed research and did not just demand undergraduate teaching were scarcer still. Gregor lived in an age, too, in which in many parts of the United States, highly capitalized large-scale agriculture was replacing the family farm. Gregor's view of agricultural geography (and not just in the United States) is shown here to be strongly historical in that he was committed to understanding changes over time as well as over space, and to documenting the social consequences in the agricultural sector of such phenomena as hired migrant labour, large-scale water engineering and technologically-driven changes in average landholding size. Where Howard Gregor, the one-time bombardier, was stimulated by aerial views of agricultural landscapes, the Japanese cultural and historical geographer, Jiro Yonekura, participated in on-the-ground study of agricultural change in northern Manchuria in the 1940s as an advisor to Japan's military authorities. The greater part of Yonekura's work centred, however, upon the historical interpretation of traditional grid pattern land allotment systems, initially in Japan, then throughout Monsoon Asia, and, in comparative terms, with parts of India and the Near East. Studies of settlement types thus allowed him to offer insight into patterns of cultural innovation and dispersal from Orientalist perspectives that, even if they are themselves now the subject of further scrutiny, offered then interesting 'correctives' to Western-dominated views of such questions.
This page intentionally left blank
Tycho Brahe (Tyge Ottesen Brahe) 1546-1601
Michael Jones -Tyge Brdhe.-
Portrait of Tycho Brahe by Erik Pauelsen (1749 1790} after J. de Gheyn'a copperplate engraving in Tycho Brahe's Astronomy instaurata mechanica (1598). The portrait belongs to the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, Trondheim. Photograph courtesy of the University Library, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
Tyge Ottesen Brahe is generally referred to by the Latinised form of his name, Tycho Brahe. From 1576 to 1597 he lived and worked on the island of Hven (Ven), in the Sound (0resund) between Denmark and what is now Sweden, where he built up his observatories. With the help of new and improved instruments, but without the aid of the telescope, Tycho Brahe achieved astronomical observations of unique accuracy for his times, and contributed to debates on the nature of the Universe. Although best known as an astronomer, Tycho Brahe also made important contributions to geodesy and was a pioneer in cartography. His instruments made possible more accurate determinations of latitude and longitude. His maps of Hven were the first in Scandinavia to be based on systematic triangulation. While summarising Tycho Brahe's astronomical work, this essay focuses principally on the significance of his work for new geographical knowledge in his lifetime and in the following century.
Education, Life and Work Tycho Brahe was born on 14 December 1546 at Knudstrup (today Knutstorp) in Skane (a part of Denmark until its cession to Sweden in 1658; also named Scania in English). Born into the Danish nobility, he was the son of Otte Brahe (1518—1571), a member of Denmark's State Council, and Beate Bille (1526—1605), although he was brought up by his uncle, Jorgen Brahe (1515—1565), at Tosterup. He received a general education from the age of seven at a Latin school. In 1559, at the age of twelve, he began three years study in the humanities and natural sciences at the University of Copenhagen. His observation of a partial eclipse of the Sun in
2
Tycho Brake
Copenhagen in 1560 turned his interest to observational astronomy, which he developed though self-study. Between 1562 and 1565, he studied at the University of Leipzig in Germany, accompanied by the four-year-older Anders Sorensen Vedel (1542—1616) as personal tutor. To Vedel's despair, Tycho Brahe showed more interest in astronomy and mathematics than for his prescribed studies in law. Tycho's observation of the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in August 1563 was later regarded by him as the turning point of his career. He noted the discrepancy between the observed conjunction and that predicted in the Alphonsine Tables (a discrepancy of about a month) and in the Prutenic Tables (a few days). This led him to devote his life to improving the accuracy of astronomical observation. In 1564 he began making observations with an improved radius or cross-staff. After a year back in Denmark, Tycho Brahe spent five months in 1566 studying mathematics, astronomy and medicine at the University of Wittenberg. From here he went to the University of Rostock, where besides mathematics and astronomy he studied alchemy and astrology. Here he observed a lunar eclipse in 1566 and a partial solar eclipse in 1567. While in Rostock, he lost part of his nose in a duel and wore a prosthesis for the rest of his life. In 1568 he moved to the University of Basel (Basle) and tried his hand at instrument construction. The following year he travelled to Augsburg, where between 1569 and 1570, besides making astronomical observations and experimenting with alchemy, he constructed a giant wooden quadrant and designed a portable sextant, co-operating with two brothers, Paul and Johann Baptist Hainzel, prominent citizens of the city. On the death of his father in 1571, Tycho Brahe inherited a share of the family estate at Knudstorp, but lived during the following years at Heridsvad kloster (Herrevadskloster) in Skane with his maternal uncle, Steen Bille (1527—1586). Here he set up a chemical laboratory. He also learnt paper manufacturing from his uncle, who had established Denmark's first paper mill. From about 1573 he lived in a common-law marriage with Kirstine (Kirsten) Barbara Jorgensen (died 1604), with whom he had eight children. The marriage was morganatic, which meant that neither the wife nor the children could claim the rights of nobility. In 1572 Tycho Brahe discovered a new star, of a type later termed a supernova, which he described in his first book, De nova stella, in 1573, and continued observing until it ceased to be visible in 1574. His observations challenged the Aristotelian thesis that no changes could occur in the Universe beyond the Moon. From 1574 to 1575 he lectured in astronomy at the University of Copenhagen, before embarking on a new journey to Germany, Switzerland and Venice in 1575 to visit leading scientists of the day. His first stop was Kassel, where he spent a week with Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hessen (Hesse), who had set up his own observatory. As a result of this encounter, Tycho Brahe began a life-long correspondence with the Landgrave and later with the latter's astronomer, Christopher (Christoph) Rothmann (1550—1608). From Kassel he visited the book fair at Frankfurt am Main, then continued to Basel, from there to Venice, and then back to Germany. He stopped at Augsburg, then Regensburg — where he witnessed the coronation of Rudolph II (1552—1612), who became Holy Roman Emperor the following year — and finally via Saalfeld to Wittenberg before returning to Denmark. Tycho Brahe contemplated moving to Basel to conduct his astronomical work. Instead, to encourage him to stay in Denmark, Frederik II (1534—1588, King of Denmark and Norway from 1559) feued him the island of Hven in 1576 and financed the building of an observatory there. The patronage of the king was decisive for providing Tycho Brahe with the necessary income for constructing his buildings and astronomical instruments on Hven. Here Tycho Brahe settled and
Tycho Brake
3
worked until 1597. His observatory and mansion, named Uraniborg after Urania, the muse of astronomy, was the first building in Scandinavia in Gothic Renaissance style. The need for more space for his new and improved instruments led him in 1584 to build a new observatory, which he named Stjerneborg (Danish stjerne = star). This was built underground, providing a stable fundament protected from wind and weather. By 1592, he had determined the positions of 777 fixed stars, and by 1597 his catalogue had reached 1,000 stars. The positions of the stars and constellations were plotted on a large celestial globe that he had ordered and brought from Augsburg. Tycho Brahe did not travel abroad during his years on Hven, but corresponded with leading European scholars. His vast correspondence maintained the personal contacts he had made during his earlier travels in Europe, and was a means of disseminating his work and exchanging records of observations. He sent his assistants on research journeys to cities in Europe. Researchers and students from abroad, principally the Netherlands and Germany, visited Hven to study the building of astronomical instruments, techniques of astronomical observation, mathematical calculation and geodesy. During the twenty years that Tycho Brahe was on Hven, Uraniborg functioned as an international research centre. Tycho Brahe taught astronomy, mathematical sciences, and medicine. Around 100 persons served as assistants, up to twelve at any one time, and 295 visits were recorded in his journal. Tycho was an innovator in a number of fields. Uraniborg and Stjerneborg were the world's first purpose-built observatories and contained one of the first chemical laboratories. Tycho Brahe was not only at the forefront of astronomy but also in the mathematical sciences generally, including architecture and landscape architecture. Many of Tycho Brahe's innovations can be seen on his maps of Hven. The observatories are prominently depicted. His Renaissance garden was the first of its type in Norden. The mansion showed the influences of Italian and Dutch Renaissance architecture, and included such innovations as running water. His theoretically-founded and mathematically-grounded architecture, based on principles of symmetry, was a major innovation in Norden, as was the landscape garden with its axes and diagonals encapsulating a whole cosmology. The symmetry of the house and garden symbolized the natural harmony of the cosmic order. The maps show his printing shop and his mill, used for making paper and leather for books. The mill, dams and ponds, which also served as fishponds, were completed in 1592. The system of dams provided water power for the mill, behind which the largest dam was built, 9 m high and 33 m long. The paper mill was among the earliest in Norden, and Tycho Brahe was the first in Scandinavia to realize the advantages of combining paper-making and book-printing. Publication was necessary for the dissemination of his work (including his map of 1596). Tycho Brahe introduced to Hven the institution of villeinage, common elsewhere in Denmark. The forty farming families inhabiting the island — who had previously regarded themselves as freeholders, paying crown taxes only — were obliged to supply labour to Brahe when the island became his fief. The new burdens led some of the villagers to leave the island. In 1578, after Tycho Brahe had complained to the king, they were forbidden to leave without Tycho Brahe's permission. The royal letter granting Hven to Tycho Brahe had stipulated that the law was to be respected and the farmers were not to be burdened with new dues or other uncustomary impositions. The labour required for the construction work was clearly regarded as such an imposition. When the villagers complained to the king in 1580, a commission of investigation was set up. One of its two members was Axel Gyldenstjerne (c. 1542—1603), a friend and relative of Tycho Brahe. The
4
Tycho Brake
commission drafted a village charter, issued over the royal seal in 1581, providing rules and regulations for labour dues (each farm was obliged to provide two work days per week), the upkeep offences and dykes, the use of trees and thickets, and foraging on the commons. It was determined that the village assembly was to meet twice monthly. Previously the villagers had held their land by customary tenure, without documentation. They had administered their affairs and decided on the use of the commons and open fields through their village assembly according to time-honoured custom. Tycho Brahe transformed them into feudal tenants, subject to by-laws that were now formalized by a written village charter. Another consequence of the commission's work was that Hven was transferred at the request of the villagers from the jurisdiction of Sjaslland (Zealand) county assizes to that of Skane, and as a result the island was ceded to Sweden in 1660 in the wake of the Treaty of Roskilde of 1658. The patronage of the king was decisive for providing Tycho Brahe with the necessary income for constructing his buildings and astronomical instruments on Hven. In 1576, the king granted finance for building as well as payment of an annuity. During the following years, Tycho Brahe was granted further fiefs: in 1577 Kullengarden in Skane, with the obligation of maintaining the Kullen lighthouse; in 1578 eleven other farms in Skane; in 1578 Nordfjord in Norway; in 1579 the canonry of the Chapel of the Three Holy Kings at Roskilde Cathedral, with the obligation of carrying out necessary repairs; and in 1586 he was granted an annuity from the 0resund toll. This meant he received the taxes otherwise due to the crown as payment for services rendered, in this case his scientific services. The remainder of his income came from his inherited estates. This income allowed Tycho Brahe to develop on Hven a centre of learning of a new type: a state-supported, autonomous research centre with an extensive staff, large-scale equipment, and its own projects and goals. In return, Tycho Brahe's scientific activities brought prestige to Frederik II and the Kingdom of Denmark. It has been estimated that his activities cost the Crown between one and two percent of its annual income over a considerable number of years. Tycho Brahe in return presented the king with an almanac each year, provided horoscopes for the three princes, and issued medical prescriptions and remedies. Tycho Brahe neglected the obligations that accompanied his fiefs, however, leading to a number of disputes. Nonetheless, Tycho Brahe remained in favour during the reign of Frederik II and, after Frederik's death in 1588, retained the support of the regency that followed during the minority of Frederik's successor, Christian IV (1577— 1648). After Christian IV took power following his coronation in 1596, disputes came to a head and, along with Tycho Brahe's arrogance, gave the necessary excuse to deprive him of his income. Because of the various conflicts over his manner of administering his different fiefs, and his neglect of the duties involved, Tycho Brahe lost royal patronage. Christian IV wished to centralize the administration of his realm and reduce the power of self-willed feudal lords such as Tycho Brahe. As a result, Tycho Brahe left Hven and Denmark for good in 1597. After first spending nearly a year in Rostock, he moved at the invitation of Henrik Rantzau (Heinrich Ranzovius) (1526—1598), Viceregent of Schleswig-Holstein (SlesvigHolsten), to the latter's castle of Wandesburg at Wandsbek (Wandsbeck), in Holstein near Hamburg. In 1598 he left Wandsbek, going first to Dresden, then to Wittenburg and finally in 1599 to Prague, where he became Imperial Mathematician to Emperor Rudolph II. He set up residence first at the castle of Benatky, northeast of Prague, but moved into the city in 1600. Tycho Brahe died in Prague on 24 October 1601 and is buried in the Tyn (Teyn) church.
Tycho Brake
5
Scientific Ideas and Geographical Thought Tycho Brahe brought the techniques of astronomical observation to a much higher level of accuracy than earlier. This accuracy was dependent on the new and improved instruments that he brought to or built on Hven, especially quadrants, sextants and armillary spheres, as well as the development of more accurate sights on the instruments. His most famous instrument was the mural quadrant from 1582, which allowed precise measurement of the height of celestial bodies above the horizon and timing of their meridian passage. Tycho Brahe began regular observations of the stars, the Sun, the Moon and the planets on 3 January 1577 and these observations continued unbroken until he left Hven on 15 March 1597. The observations were recorded meticulously in his journals. Error was minimized by repeated observations, by the huge size of the instruments and by the graduations on them. Tycho Brahe compared results from different instruments and made necessary corrections. Through mathematical correlation he calculated systematic errors in the measurements. He also developed better methods of measuring parallax, a precondition for determining distances to the different celestial bodies. He achieved a degree of accuracy unsurpassed previously and not improved on until the telescope of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) in 1609. Tycho Brahe made detailed observations of comets visible to the naked eye in November 1577 to January 1578, October to December 1580, May 1582, October and November 1585, and July 1596. The comet of 1585 was reported the following year in the first book published on the island, Diarum astrologicum et metheorologicum, by Elias Olsen Morsing (c. 1550—1590), Tycho Brahe's assistant on Hven during the years 1583—1590. In 1588, Tycho Brahe published a treatise on comets, including a detailed description of the comet of 1577—1578, in De mundi tetherei recentioribus phtenomenis. He demonstrated that the comet moved far beyond the sphere of the Moon, thus again refuting Aristotle's view of the Universe. This work included a description of a geoheliocentric system of the Universe. In this Tychonian planetary system, the Sun and Moon rotated around the Earth, which was at the centre of the Universe, and the other five known planets rotated round the Sun. This was a compromise between the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473— 1543) that the planets orbited round the Sun and the Biblical dogma of the Earth as the centre of the Universe (on Copernicus, see Geographers Vol. 6). The Tychonic system took account of Tycho Brahe's accurate observations, including the movement of the comets, without bringing him into conflict with theologians. In 1588, too, Tycho Brahe began printing his major work, Astronomies instauratis progymnasmata, providing an account of newly-observed celestial phenomena. It was first printed in 1602, but after his death it was published in full in three volumes, presenting his new theory of the movement of the Sun and Moon, his revised star catalogue, and a full discussion of his discovery of the 'new star'. In this work he recorded twenty-one lunar and nine solar eclipses. Tycho believed that accurate astronomical observations provided a means of making more reliable astrological predictions. He considered that astrology required accurate knowledge both of the stars and the signs of worldly elements. The role of the weather was dealt with in En Elementarisch oc Jordisch Astrologia, published in 1591 by Peder Jacobsen Flemlose (Flemlos) (c. 1554—1598), Tycho Brahe's leading assistant on Hven during the years 1577—1588. This provided rules for weather forecasting based on the appearance of the sky, Sun, Moon and stars, and animal behaviour. A daily weather record was kept on Hven from 1 October 1582 to 22 April 1597. It also included a record of the arrivals to and departures
6
Tycho Brake
from Hven of Tycho Brahe, his visitors, assistants and students. The meteorological journal further included notes on daily life on the island as well as birdlife. Besides astronomy and astrology, Tycho Brahe experimented with alchemy. He established his chemical laboratory, including 16 furnaces for conducting chemical experiments, in the basement of Uraniborg. A further five furnaces were placed on the ground floor. His main concern was the manufacture of medicines. Medicinal herbs were grown alongside ornamental plants in the Renaissance garden. Tycho Brahe was familiar with the scientific work of the Dutch mathematician, astronomer and physician, Reiner Gemma Frisius (1508—1555), who had published the first comprehensive description of the application of the principles of triangulation to mapping in 1533. This included the measurement of a base line and setting the scale of a map, although there is no evidence that Gemma Frisius used it himself to make maps. In 1545 he had published a book on the radius astronomicus, a version of the cross-staff that had a movable cross-bar on which the sights were attached, allowing the reading of the angle of separation between two stars or two points on the Earth's surface. Gemma's nephews, the Arscenius brothers, were renowned makers of astronomical and surveying instruments. Tycho owned a cross-staff (radius) made by one of them, Gualterus (Walter) Arscenius, while his first cross-staff had been constructed in 1564 in accordance with the directions of Gemma Frisius. While a student in Leipzig in 1562—1565, Tycho Brahe received instruction from Bartholomaeus Scultetus (Barthel Scholz) (1540—1614) in technical astronomy, the mathematical disciplines of geography and cartography, and the practical skills of navigation, surveying and instrument-making. From Scultetus, Tycho Brahe learnt how to improve the precision of observations made with the cross-staff by means of transversal points etched on the radius. Tycho Brahe's concern with precision was already becoming his hallmark. Later, in the 1580s, his correspondence with Scultetus included matters related to trigonometry. At about the same time, Scultetus was engaged in surveying and making a map of his home province of Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia), published in 1593 and apparently based on triangulation. Tycho Brahe visited one of the first cartographers in Germany to apply the principles of trigonometry and triangulation to making maps. Triangulation had been used by the German mathematician, astronomer and cartographer, Philipp Apian (1531—1589), to map Bavaria between 1554 and 1561, the first survey of an entire country by this method; a printed version was published in 1568. Tycho Brahe visited Apian at Ingolstadt during his travels in Germany in 1570. Among Tycho Brahe's papers are lists of angles from a triangulation undertaken in 1578 or 1579 between the main landmarks of Hven and the surrounding mainland on both sides of 0resund, determining the position of Uraniborg and St Ibb's church on the island in relation to the spires and towers of Copenhagen, Helsingor (including Kronborg castle), Helsingborg (Halsingborg), Landskrona, Lund and Malmo (Malmo). When Tycho Brahe's angles are measured using modern methods, discrepancies are found. Inaccuracies may have been caused by errors in calculation, discrepancies in making sightings, varying competence among observers, and lack of accuracy of instruments. It is not known whether all the observations were made by the same observer or with the same instrument. Observations may have been made partly by Tycho Brahe himself and partly by various assistants. It can be noted that some sets of observations are written entirely in Latin, while others are in a mixture of Latin and Danish, which suggests that they may have been recorded by different observers. For some of the observation points it was clearly stated that a radius astronomicus was used. Whether it was used
Tycho Brake
1
Figure 1. Tycho Brahe's first map of Hven, hand-drawn between c. 1584 and 1586, and oriented with west at the top. The map is archived among Tycho Brahe's papers in the Austrian National Library, Vienna (archive ref. 10 6882). Photo by permission of the Austrian National Library. for all of them is uncertain. Tycho Brahe wrote in another connection that the radius astronomicus was not sufficiently accurate and therefore he developed sextants that gave greater accuracy; a portable sextant may have been used for some of the measurements. Tycho Brahe's base line on Hven was too short and hence reduced the accuracy of his triangulation. He paid much attention to the astronomical part of his triangulation, the orientation of his network and the determination of the geographical co-ordinates of Uraniborg, for which he had determined latitude and longitude. The triangulation was, however, never computed completely. It is possible that Tycho Brahe was unable to fix the mutual positions of the main points in the network with an accuracy that he could accept as satisfactory. Nonetheless, the newest methods of triangulation were being applied in cartography by Brahe and his disciples for the first time outside the Netherlands and Germany. The oldest map of Hven (Figure 1) is hand-drawn and now held in the Manuscript Department of the Austrian National Library (the former Library of the Imperial Court). This manuscript map has no date on it but can be dated from its content to 1584—1586, although since details were clearly added at different times it may possibly have been begun earlier. There may be some connection between the disputes with the villagers of 1580—1581 and this first map of Hven drafted by Tycho Brahe. The island of 7.5 km had not previously been mapped. The map depicted Tycho Brahe's fief on Hven, and its representation perhaps served as visual confirmation that the island was his and not the farmers'. The map measures 42 by 32 cm and is oriented with west at the top. The scale is not
8
Tycho Brake
indicated, nor are latitude and longitude marked. The symbols on the map are pictograms, showing houses and trees. The map provides a plan of fields and paths, while buildings are shown in elevation. Dominating the map is Tycho Brahe's Renaissance mansion, Uraniborg, built on the common grazings in the middle of the island. The buildings of the demesne farm are also shown prominently. Between the farm buildings and Uraniborg the new observatory of Stjerneborg is depicted. The map shows St Ibb's church on the western shore, and the village of Tuna to the north, surrounded by trees and with a windmill, although there are no placenames. The principal buildings are correctly positioned in relation to one another. The position of the coastline, however, appears to have been drawn by freehand. The cultivated land consists of open fields with their strips contained within three enclosures; one appears to be the demesne land of the main farm, while the other two indicate a two-field system belonging to the village. In the fields are finelydrawn figures of people and animals carrying out agricultural operations such as ploughing, harrowing and sowing. People are also shown walking along the paths. Animals are grazing on the commons. Between the village and Uraniborg is a square of stones. The map is drawn in fine pen strokes and beautifully coloured. Drawn in much more crudely is a water mill and a system of millponds, evidently a later addition to the map and perhaps a rough sketch of their planned construction. On the reverse of the map is a list of geodetic measurements in Tycho Brahe's handwriting. First come measurements to the surrounding towns and to Kullen lighthouse. Then there is a series of observations, specifically stated as made with a radius astronomicus from one of the towers of Kronborg castle at Helsingor, measuring the angular distances between different points on the island, as well as between points on the island and landmarks on the mainland, in particular Landskrona. Several revised versions of this map were published, the first dated 1586. It was printed and published in Cologne in 1588 by the German cartographers, Georg Braun (1541 — 1622) and Frans Hogenberg (d. 1590), in the fourth volume of Civitatates orbis terrarium, a six-volume atlas depicting 530, mainly European, towns and cities. Considered as one of the most prominent publications of the time, its inclusion of the map of Hven was untypical, as this was one of the few in the atlas that did not depict a town. The illustration of what was essentially a country estate made Hven very conspicuous. The Danish maps had been sent to Braun and Hogenberg by Tycho Brahe's friend, Henrik Rantzau. This second map of Hven (Figure 2) is again oriented with west at the top. Again the scale is not indicated, nor are latitude and longitude marked. As on the Vienna draft (Figure 1), the principal buildings are shown in elevation and accurately placed in relation to one another. The coastline is somewhat modified. The map description states that the circumference of the island had been measured by pacing. The fields and commons, human figures, farm animals, village houses, windmill and church are depicted largely as on the Vienna draft. Two of Tycho Brahe's instruments, a sextant and an armillary sphere, surmount the legend at the bottom right. The legend explains the main features of the map. St Ibb's church, Uraniborg, the demesne farm and the village are identified. The new observatory, Stjerneborg, is described but has not yet been named. An enclosure on the common, shown with nets, is use for catching small birds; on another part of the common is a falcon snare. The square of stones, surrounded on three sides by bushes, on the common between Uraniborg and the village, is identified as the forum iudiciale or village court, that is the outdoor meeting-place of the village assembly. Its depiction without explanation on the manuscript map in Vienna was the first time that such a village meeting-place was shown on a map in Norden. On
Tycho Brake
9
Figure 2. The second map of Hven, dated 1586 and published in 1588 in Braun & Hogenberg's atlas Civitates orbis terrarium, volume 4, plate 27. The map is oriented with west at the top. Photo by permission of the Royal Library, Copenhagen.
the upper left side of the map is an inset showing the facade and plan of Uraniborg. On the upper right is a drawing of the house surrounded by the square Renaissance garden, divided into four symmetrical parts and oriented with its corners, and entrances, in the four main directions of the compass. The whole illustration measures 48 by 32 cm. On the reverse of the map is a geographical description of Hven in Latin. Uraniborg, built in the middle of the island on its highest point (45 m above sea level), was greatly exaggerated in size on both the Vienna map and the Braun & Hogenberg map. Brahe's new landscape had appropriated the village common, both in fact and symbolically; his manor overshadowed the meeting-place of the village assembly, thus subordinating the villagers' customary rights to the needs of the feudal lord. It became a part of the natural order of things that Brahe could appropriate the labour of the villagers in pursuit of his noble objective of scientific endeavour. The map allowed Brahe to see at a glance his estate on Hven, over which the newly enacted village charter confirmed his legal control. In 1596 Tycho Brahe presented an improved map of Hven (Figure 3) in the book of his correspondence, Epistolarum astronomicarum libri, and again in 1598 in his Astronomis instauratis mechanica, which presented drawings of his instruments. This map had a more accurate coastline than the previous maps. The map shows the paper mill and system of ponds completed in 1592. Once again the map is oriented with west at the top. New features include an elaborate compass rose and rhumb lines, as on contemporary sea charts, and degrees of latitude and longitude in the margins, but there is no scale bar. In contrast to the copperplate engraving in Braun & Hogenberg, however, this map is printed from a woodcut, with less fine
10
Tycho Brake
Figure 3. The third map of Hven, first published in 1596 in Tycho Brahe's Epistolarum astronomicrum hbn. The map is oriented with west at the top. Photo by permission of the Royal Library, Copenhagen. line work. It is difficult to distinguish between paths, streams and field boundaries. Although the symbols are still pictograms, they are rougher in execution. The field strips are not depicted, nor are there people and animals. Uraniborg is also much less exaggerated than on the previous maps. Features of the map are explained below it in the 1596 version and in the accompanying map description in the 1598 version. Most of the features mentioned on the Braun & Hogenberg map are listed. The publication of Astronomic instauratte mechanica in 1598 was part of Tycho Brahe's determined efforts to find a new location for his instruments and work, and to find new patronage, after his departure from Hven; the book was dedicated to the Emperor Rudolph II, the main target of Tycho Brahe's (ultimately successful) exertions. Determining the precise latitude of Uraniborg was a project Tycho Brahe worked on for a number of years. Astronomical observations were the precondition for making more accurate calculations of the latitudes and longitudes of places on the Earth's surface. Precise determinations of the positions of the places of observation were in turn necessary for describing accurately the relative positions of celestial bodies. Tycho Brahe calculated Uraniborg's position in relation to the Pole through repeated measurements of the North Star. In 1584 he finally settled on a latitude of 55° 54' 30" N (which can be compared with the present official latitude of 55° 54' 26" N). Uraniborg's longitude was determined at 36° 45' E (with a prime meridian west of Africa). The coordinates in minutes and seconds were marked in the frame around the 1596 map. Through triangulation, coordinates for the other landmarks around the 0resund could be derived, although they were less accurate.
Tycho Brake
11
Tycho Brahe's improved methods of observation facilitated more accurate calculations of latitude. In 1584, he sent Elias Olsen Morsing to check the latitude of Frombork (Frauenburg), where Copernicus had lived in Poland and which had been determined earlier by him, and to measure the latitude of Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad). The determination of the latitudes of towns in Denmark was a precondition for a planned map of the realm. Tycho Brahe had contact with his former tutor, Anders Sorensen Vedel, who had become the royal Danish historiographer in 1584. Vedel presented plans to write a history of Denmark, which was to be introduced with a chorographical survey. This required a new map of Denmark, as the text was to describe localities and events that were associated with particular places. Tycho Brahe began to collect the best available maps. In 1585 Frederik II ordered the royal map collection in Copenhagen castle to be put at Tycho Brahe's disposal. In 1589, Tycho Brahe advocated the use of triangulation in a letter to Vedel. However, he probably realised that triangulation would be too demanding for a map showing the whole realm and he sent Vedel tables with longitudes and latitudes and instructions on how they could be used to make a simpler but still scientifically respectable map. The map was never completed, either by Vedel or by Brahe. Morsing travelled in 1589 with Vedel in order to determine the latitudes of a series of places in Denmark with the help of Tycho Brahe's portable azimuthquadrant and other instruments. Morsing had been trained by Brahe and Flemlose. In 1589, Morsing undertook astronomical observations to determine the latitudes of towns in Jylland (Jutland), Sjaslland and Skane. Morsing's observations were included in Brahe's table of latitudes and longitudes in Europe. At Lund a radius astronomicus was used to measure the angular distances between several church towers in the vicinity, and at Malmo the angle between Landskrona and Copenhagen was measured, despite poor visibility. During their travels in 1589, Morsing and Vedel undertook preparatory work for a map of the Scanian provinces using a combination of astronomical positioning and detailed local reconnaissance. Morsing was responsible for the astronomical observations and determinations of latitude, while longitudes were estimated rather less accurately. Vedel had main responsibility for the topographical work. From towers and other high viewing points, compass directions of surrounding churches and towns were recorded. Distances were not measured directly but estimated through the help of informants with good local knowledge. Vedel enlisted the help of local churchmen. The Dean (later Bishop) of Lund, Mogens Madsen (1527—1611), sent him a chorographical description of Skane. The priest in Malmo, Niels Jorgensen, provided detailed measurements of the town and distances to surrounding localities. Another parish priest, Niels Pedersen Kiempe, provided topographical information on watercourses, lakes, high points, forests and bridges in Halland and Skane and sent them to Tycho Brahe. The papers left by Morsing, Vedel and Kiempe reveal the methods, and limitations, of topographical survey in the later 16th century, but there is no evidence that an actual map was produced. In 1589, 1590 and 1592, Flemlose undertook observations in the south of Norway, determining the latitudes of Konghelle (near the present Kungalv), Marstrand, Oslo, Hamar, Tonsberg, Skien, Lista, Stavanger and Bergen. These are the first such measurements made in Norway. Flemlose was, from 1589 to 1592, personal physician to Axel Gyldenstjerne, who from 1588 to 1601 was Viceregent of Norway. Many of Flemlose's observations appear to have been made when accompanying the viceregent on his journeys. Both Morsing and Flemlose achieved a remarkable degree of accuracy in their measurements.
12
Tycho Brake
While latitude can be determined in the Northern Hemisphere by measuring the angle of the North Star above the horizon, the longitudinal difference between places is determined by observing the time difference between the observations of a fixed star over their respective meridians. In the sixteenth century, longitude was commonly calculated by converting estimates from dead reckoning at sea into angular distances. Longitudinal differences could be derived more accurately, however, if the same astronomical event could be observed at the same time in two or more places. Tycho Brahe used lunar eclipses, which he observed systematically; by mid-1600 he had records of 30 observations, all carefully timed (although Tycho Brahe was never satisfied with the accuracy of his clocks). He compiled a table of longitudes and latitudes using information on eclipses observed in different parts of Europe by his correspondents, along with information on longitudes derived from itineraries and maps, together with the more readily available measurements of latitudes. On 24 February 1598, for example, despite the sky being partly overcast, he observed an eclipse of the moon from Wandesburg castle in Wandsbek. At the same time the Dutch cartographer Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571—1638) observed the eclipse in Alkmaar in the Netherlands. They exchanged information in order to determine the difference in longitude. Tycho Brahe commended Blaeu's precision. The eclipse was also observed by Christian Hansen Riber (1567—1642) in Hobro in Denmark; by David Pedersen, his bailiff on Hven, using Brahe's equatorial armillary, which was still on the island; by Christian Sorensen Longomontanus (Langberg, Lomberg) (1562—1647) in Rostock; and by Melchior Jostelius (1559— 1611) in Wittenburg. All sent their results to Tycho Brahe, who entered them in his journal.
Influence and Spread of Ideas The influence of Tycho Brahe's methods and ideas spread during his lifetime through his correspondents, students, and visitors to Hven and Prague. Many of those who stayed with him became leading scholars in several European countries, carrying Tycho Brahe's scientific legacy with them. In Prague, the astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler (1571 — 1630) became Tycho Brahe's assistant and took over the latter's collected papers after his death. Kepler had come to Prague in 1600, the year after Tycho Brahe's arrival there. After Tycho Brahe's death in 1601, Kepler succeeded him as Imperial Mathematician to Emperor Rudolph II. Kepler continued Tycho Brahe's series of astronomical observations until 1627 and with their help presented a new theory on the movement of the planets. Combining mathematical theory and the unique precision of Tycho Brahe's observations, Kepler derived the laws of the planets' elliptical orbits. Kepler's laws of planetary motion were published in his Astronomia nova of 1609, his seven-volume work Epitome astronomiae Copernicanae 1615—1621, and the fifth volume of Harmonises mundi libri in 1619. In 1627, Kepler published the Rudolphine Tables (Tabula Rudolphin/e), dedicated to Rudolph II. The tables were based on the calculations made by Tycho Brahe and completed after his death. A version of the 1596 map of Hven was reproduced by Kepler on the frontispiece. The tables were an important aid in determining geographical longitude. In addition to planetary, solar and lunar tables, the publication included Tycho Brahe's catalogue of 1,000 fixed stars. The tables allowed the calculation of the positions of the planets on any date past or future and gave planetary positions far more accurately than earlier methods. The publication included a list of latitudes and
Tycho Brake
13
Figure 4. Map of Hven drawn by Willem Janszoon Blaeu c. 1595-1596, published in 1662 in Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior, volume 1, plate 53, with a tribute to Tycho Brahe. The map is oriented with north at the top. Photo by permission of the Royal Library, Copenhagen. longitudes of places in Europe, Africa and Asia, using as prime meridian the longitude of Tycho Brahe's observatory on Hven (also the meridian of Rome). This was similarly the prime meridian on the German cartographer Philipp Eckebrecht's world map of 1630, based on the Rudolphine Tables. Christian Sorensen Longomontanus, Tycho Brahe's assistant on Hven 1589— 1597 and again in Prague 1600—1601, became the first professor of astronomy at the University of Copenhagen. He was professor of mathematics in Copenhagen from 1607 and of astronomy from 1621 until his death. He published his main work, Astronomia Danica, in 1622, and was responsible for the building of the university observatory, completed in 1642, in the Round Tower in Copenhagen. In 1600, aged 20, the Dutch mathematician Willebrordus Snellius (Willebrord Snel van Royen) (1580—1626), met Brahe and Kepler in Prague, where he learnt the use of Tycho Brahe's instruments and methods of geodesy. Using instruments patterned on those of Tycho Brahe and made by Willem Janszoon Blaeu, Snellius developed a method of computing an extended base line and went on to employ triangulation to measure an arc of a meridian in the Netherlands in 1615-1616 (published in 1617) in an attempt to calculate the circumference of the Earth. When the Leiden Observatory was set up in the Netherlands in 1632, the first instrument was the Tychonic quadrant constructed for Snellius by Blaeu. A fourth map of Hven (Figure 4) was signed by the famous Dutch cartographer Willem Janszoon Blaeu, but published 24 years after his death by his son, and
14
Tycho Brake
equally famous cartographer, Joan Blaeu (1596—1673), in his Atlas Maior of 1662, along with copies of Tycho Brahe's woodcuts of his mansion and observatories, gardens and instruments. The chorographical information on Hven and Denmark in the Atlas Maior was taken from the writings of Johannes Isaksen Pontanus (Joannes Hellespontius) (1571—1639), who had spent the years 1593—1595 on Hven and who, in 1618, was appointed Danish Royal Historiographer. The map states that it was drawn by Willem Blaeu when he worked on astronomy under Tycho Brahe. Blaeu spent the winter of 1595-1596 on Hven as a student under Brahe, and probably drew it then, perhaps copying Tycho Brahe's map published in 1596 (Figure 3), which it strongly resembles. Unlike the previous maps of Hven, Blaeu's map is oriented with north at the top. Some authorities have attributed the map of Hven published by Tycho Brahe in 1596 to Willem Blaeu. It is more likely that Blaeu did not survey and map the island himself, but based his map on an older draft made by Brahe or his assistants before Blaeu came to Hven. Blaeu was then a young man at the beginning of his career. Blaeu came to Hven to study Brahe's methods of astronomical and geodetic observation, land surveying and instrument building. When Blaeu's map was published in 1662, it showed a former situation; Uraniborg and Stjerneborg were destroyed soon after Tycho Brahe left Denmark in 1597. The map of Hven was probably Willem Blaeu's very first map. The significance of this fact cannot be underestimated. The cartographic publishing house of Willem Blaeu and his sons would become one of the most important mapmaking establishments in the world in the seventeenth century. Tycho Brahe was also visited on Hven by other European cartographers. Willem Blaeu was not the first Dutchman to go there. He was preceded by Arnold Floris van Langren (born 1571) in 1590 and his brother Hendrik in 1593 who, together with their father Jacob, were engravers of celestial and terrestrial globes in Amsterdam; the brothers went on to engrave atlas maps in the 1590s, while Arnold's son Michael became royal mathematician to the Spanish king in 1628 and published maps and topographies of Brabant in Belgium, as well as contributing to the Blaeu atlases. Another visitor to Hven, in 1594, was Adriaan Metius (1571— 1635), who in 1600 became professor of mathematics and surveying at the University of Franeker in the Netherlands and carried out triangulation surveys, possibly in consultation with Willem Blaeu. First in Wandesburg in 1598 and then in Prague in 1601, Tycho Brahe was visited by his correspondent, the astronomer and instrument-maker, David Fabricius (1564—1617), who had made maps of his home territory of East Frisia for its count in 1589 and 1592, and of Oldenburg for its count in 1591; in 1600 and 1614 he made maps to assist the resolution of territorial disputes in East Frisia (on Fabricius, see Geographers Vol. 5). A number of maps made by bishops in Tycho Brahe's circle deserve particular attention. Among the Tycho Brahe papers in Vienna, in the same portfolio as the first manuscript map of Hven, are two maps from Norway. One is a draft sketch map of the coast of West Norway (Vestlandet) from about 1590. The other is a finished hand-drawn map of Nordfjord, in West Norway, bearing the date 1594. Although anonymous, the two Norwegian maps have been shown on the basis of comparative handwriting analysis to have been drawn by the Danish Bishop of Bergen, Anders Foss (1543—1607), who apparently gave them to Tycho Brahe as a gift. Anders Foss visited Tycho Brahe on Hven in 1591, several times in 1595 and again in 1596. The map of West Norway by far surpassed contemporary Dutch sea charts in its accuracy of the west coast of Norway, which were otherwise considered to be the best of their time. In the 1588 edition of his atlas of sea charts, De Spieghel der ^eevaerdt, the Dutch cartographer Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer (c. 1535—1606) had
Tycho Brake
15
included a chart showing the coast between Stavanger and Bergen, while in his second atlas, Thresoor der ^eevaert, published in 1592, the whole coast of Norway was depicted, but the fjords were shown in highly generalized and simplified form. The map of Nordfjord shows even greater accuracy than the map of West Norway and is remarkable for its period. The draft map of West Norway shows the 600-km long stretch of coast from Lindesnes in the south to the mouth of Trondheimsfjorden in the north. On the back, in Tycho Brahe's handwriting, are the words 'Descriptiones littorum Noruagiae & quedem alia'. The draft is clearly the product of much work and islands and fjords are particularly well detailed for the parts of the coast within the diocese of Bergen. Some 700 place-names, including more than 120 churches, are marked, indicating that the author had intimate knowledge of the coast. The names are aligned in opposite directions on opposite sides of the fjords, suggesting that they were written during systematic voyages following first one side, then the other side of each fjord. There is little direct evidence of how the map was constructed, except for a scale showing degrees of latitude, sub-divided in intervals often minutes, marked along the western margin of the map as far north as 63° N. It is probable that the map was made soon after 1590, when Peder Jacobsen Flemlose visited Anders Foss in Bergen. Flemlose calculated Bergen's latitude at 60° 27' (which can be compared with today's official determination of 60° 24'). He spent some time in Bergen during the viceregent's visit there in 1590, and could have taught Anders Foss to make accurate calculations of latitude. Flemlose visited Tycho Brahe on Hven, together with Foss, in 1595. There is no direct record that Anders Foss made instrumental determinations of latitude, but comparison of the latitudes of places on the map of West Norway with modern determinations shows a fair degree of correspondence. The bishop had evidently collected detailed topographical information during visitations and the map of West Norway would have provided him an overview of his diocese. The dating of the map to around 1590 coincides with the culmination of a conflict between Anders Foss and Peder Thott (died 1607), Governor of Bergenhus from 1589 to 1596, over the respective spheres of jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical and secular authorities. The conflict arose out of a series of serious disagreements. First, in 1590, was the burning as a witch of Anne Pedersdatter, widow of the historian Absalon Pedersen Beyer (1528—1575), which Thott had supported, while the church considered her innocent. A second issue concerned whether Foss had gone beyond his authority in promoting new ordinances at the diocesan synods of 1584 and 1589. There was further disagreement as to whether the ecclesiastical or the secular authorities had responsibility for the upkeep of churches and church accessories. These disagreements brought Viceregent Axel Gyldenstjerne to Bergen to mediate in 1590. The conflict became personal when Thott pursued in the same year accusations of witchcraft against Anders Foss's wife, Marine Rubbertsdatter, who was not exonerated until 1592. Other matters of disagreement arose in the following years. While no direct link between these events and the map of West Norway can be proven, a map of his diocese would have given the bishop visual confirmation of his area of jurisdiction. The Nordfjord map is not a draft like the map of West Norway, but a finished work of remarkable accuracy. On the back, in Tycho Brahe's handwriting, is the name 'Nordttfiordtt'. At the top of the map is a Latin title, which can be translated as: 'Description of the situation of the Province of Nordfjord, which lies to the north of Bergen, 1594.' The map shows parish boundaries, churches and parsonages, and more than 540 place-names. Although the map does not indicate latitude and longitude, it appears to be a revised version of part of the map of West Norway.
16
Tycho Brake
While Anders Foss had an obvious interest in a map of his diocese, Tycho Brahe would have appreciated the map of Nordfjord, his Norwegian fief, even though he never visited Norway. Tycho Brahe was feudal lord of Nordfjord, having been granted the region as a fief by Frederick II in 1578 in return for his scientific services. The farmers of the region paid taxes and feu duties in the form of dried fish, hides and skins, tar, butter, cheese, oxen and some money. The income was collected on Tycho Brahe's behalf by successive bailiffs, whose efficiency can be inferred from the frequent complaints made against them by the farmers. The income from Nordfjord amounted to 1000 daler a year, accounting for up to onethird of Tycho Brahe's income, thus making a substantial contribution to financing the building of Uraniborg, Stjerneborg, and his astronomical instruments. Yet Tycho Brahe did not hold this fief without controversy. He was initially granted Nordfjord until the canonry of the Chapel of the Three Holy Kings at Roskilde Cathedral became vacant, which had been promised him in 1578. When he received the canonry in 1579, he was allowed to retain Nordfjord to cover his large expenses for instruments. Apart from short periods in 1579 and 1580, he kept Nordfjord until 1586, when it was returned to the governor of Bergenhus as part of an administrative reorganization. As compensation he was granted 300 daler a year, soon increased to 400 daler, from the 0resund toll. Nordfjord was restored to him in 1589, while he kept the income from the 0resund toll until 1592. Tycho Brahe's bailiff in Nordfjord from 1578 to 1586 was Christopher Pepler, who was an efficient administrator and taxman. He was instrumental in re-establishing farming on several deserted farms, but he collected taxes in a self-willed manner. Complaints from the peasantry led to government investigations and eventually to a court case and imprisonment. New complaints followed his successor, Lauritz Sciotte (or Schytte), who was bailiff from 1591 to 1596. After Christian IV's coronation in 1596, Tycho Brahe lost Nordfjord again. The following year Tycho Brahe received a letter from the chancellor that the king was no longer willing to support Brahe's work, and that the income from Nordfjord was indispensable for the administration of Bergenhus. Tycho Brahe had been granted Nordfjord at the height of his power. Although the content of the Nordfjord map — like that of the map of West Norway — reflected Bishop Anders Foss' ecclesiastical interests, the Nordfjord map at the same time gave visual form to, and thus confirmed, Tycho Brahe's fiefdom, which was not always held without conflict. In this way, Tycho Brahe could 'see' his fief that he never visited. Anders Foss had before 1600 tackled the challenge of mapping Norway's west coast, yet his maps did not in the long term receive the attention they deserved. The coasts of the Sognefjorden and Nordfjord areas paradoxically remained for a long time one of the weakest points on maps of Norway. Detailed triangulation of the Norwegian west coast was not undertaken for another 200 years. The Nordfjord map and the draft map of West Norway, along with the first draft map of Hven, became forgotten among Tycho Brahe's papers in the Imperial Library in Vienna and were not noticed until after the mid-nineteenth century. The fate of the Nordfjord map and the draft map of West Norway show that the upheaval of dismantling and moving a site of science, which Tycho Brahe did when he left Hven first for Wandesburg and then for Prague, could also lead to the loss of knowledge, at least for a considerable time. Tycho Brahe had only received these maps from Anders Foss a year or two before his departure from Denmark. If these maps had been printed and disseminated at this time, instead of disappearing to be only rediscovered in the Vienna archive nearly 300 years later, they would have led to much more accurate maps of the northern part of the coast of West Norway 200 years earlier than was actually the case. Instead, the less accurate Dutch sea atlases
Tycho Brake
17
remained the main source for the dissemination of cartographical knowledge of the coast of Norway. Yet the legacy of these maps can be traced in certain maps of the early seventeenth century. In 1618, Laurentius Scavenius (Laurids Clausen Schavbo) (1562-1626), the Danish Bishop of Stavanger from 1605 to 1626, followed the example of Anders Foss and had a map made of his diocese. The adjoining parts of the Bergen diocese as far north as Sognefjorden on this map clearly appear to be derived from Anders Foss' map of West Norway. The Stavanger bishop was the son of Glaus Lauridsen Scavenius (Skavbo) (died 1590), professor of mathematics at the University of Copenhagen, who had lectured on astronomy when Tycho Brahe was a student there from 1559 to 1561. While Scavenius' original map has been lost, the Danish historian Stephanus Johannis Stephanius (Staphen Hansen) (1599-1650) wrote in 1645 that it had been made 27 years earlier. Although there is no direct record that Scavenius made instrumental determinations, the map has latitude and longitude marked along the margins. All known copies of Scavenius' map were published in the Netherlands, first — without acknowledging the source — by Joannes Janssonius (Jan Janszoon Brouwer) (1588—1664) in an 1836 edition of his atlas. Scavenius was acknowledged as the source when the map was published in 1640 by Joan and Cornelius Blaeu in their atlas and again in Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior in 1662. Scavenius' map also appears to have been used as a source for the southern and south-western parts of Norway by the Swedish cartographer Anders Bure (Andreas Bureus) (1571—1646) on his map of the Nordic countries, Orbis Arctoi Novas et Accurata Delineatio, published in 1626. To depict Sweden's neighbouring countries on this map, he made use of the best available foreign maps and sea charts. Copies of Bure's map began to appear in the Netherlands from 1628, and reworked versions of his map were published in the Blaeu atlases from 1634 onwards and byjodocus Hondius (Josse de Hondt) (1563—1612) and Janssonius in their atlases from about 1635. Derivations of Bure's map remained the standard map of the Nordic countries until the end of the 18th century. Others with an interest in cartography who had contacts with Tycho Brahe in the 1580s included scholars in Iceland. Among them is thought to have been Gudbrandur I>orlaksson (1542-1627), Bishop ofHolarfrom 1570 to 1627, a leading mathematician and geographer, and regarded as Iceland's first cartographer. Gudbrandur had studied theology, mathematics and astronomy in Copenhagen 1559—1564, at the same time as Tycho Brahe was a student there. Gudbrandur is known to have constructed a celestial globe and began making a terrestrial globe. He provided the first scientifically determined latitude of any place in Iceland, measuring the latitude of Holar with a high degree of accuracy at 66° 44' N, which position was included in Tycho Brahe's geographical tables. The bishop is thought to have provided measurements and probably a draft for a map of Iceland, which Anders Sorensen Vedel delivered, along with a description of Iceland, to Abraham Ortelius (1527—1598) for the 1590 supplement to his atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The map was engraved by Ortelius in 1585 and included a dedication by Andreas Velleius, the Latinized form of Vedel's name, to Frederik II. No mention is made of Bishop Gudbrandur on the map. On the reverse is a description of Iceland, apparently in part based on information from Vedel, but with errors and fantastic information that suggest it did not come from the bishop. The map was ascribed to Gudbrandur by his contemporary, the Danish historian Glaus Christoffersen Lyschander (1558—1624). Gudbrandur may have sent an original, now lost, to Vedel at the time when Vedel and Tycho Brahe were making plans for preparing a new map of the Danish realm. The map of Iceland in Ortelius' atlas shows the island's two sees, churches and other ecclesiastical establishments. As in the case of
18
Tycho Brake
West Norway, Iceland was mapped from the coast. The peninsulas and fjord are prominently shown, while less accessible stretches of the coast and interior are less detailed. There are about 250 place-names in all, clearly based on local knowledge. Written on the map are short legendary tales, which were probably not of local origin but inserted later. Fanciful fish and sea mammals populate the sea. Although latitudes and longitudes are marked in the margins of the map, Iceland is located too far north (stretching from 64° to 68° N instead of 63° to 66° 33' in reality), and extends from west to east through an excessive 24 degrees of longitude (instead of 11 degrees in reality). Bishop Gudbrandur appears to have determined the correct latitude of Holar after he made his map; the same applies to a lunar eclipse he used to calculate Holar's longitude. In 1595, five years after the publication of Ortelius' map, a map of Iceland showing a strong resemblance to it was published in the Atlas of Gerard Mercator (1512—1594). This map was more compact than Ortelius' map: the island's longitudinal extent was reduced to 19°. The sea monsters were omitted except for one, and the legendary tales largely excluded. The number of place names increased to about 290. This map must have had the same origin as Ortelius' map, but the differences suggest it was not a direct copy of this. Mercator may have obtained a copy of Gudbrandur's map through Henrik Rantzau, who corresponded with Vedel and supplied Mercator with maps of the Nordic countries. Despite the inaccuracies, Gudbrandur's map remained the basis for maps of Iceland for the next 200 years. In 1606, Gudbrandur I>orlaksson made a sketch map of the North Atlantic, showing the position of Iceland in relation to Greenland, Scandinavia and the British Isles. The latitudes marked in the margins of this map are much closer to reality than on the earlier map of Iceland. This map was drawn at the time that Christian IV was sending expeditions to Greenland in search of the lost Norse colonies, and depicted the old navigation route from Iceland to Greenland. Another Icelandic bishop, Gudbrandur's younger colleague, Oddur Einarson (Otto Islandus) (1559—1630), spent a brief period on Hven around 1585 before returning to Iceland, where he became rector of Holar Cathedral School. Oddur Einarson became Bishop of Skalholt in 1588, and visited Tycho Brahe again in 1589. He compiled extensive topographical notes during travels in Iceland. He determined the latitude and longitude of Skalholt and sent the results to Tycho Brahe. The Danish Governor-General of Iceland, Johan Bockholt, observed a lunar eclipse in 1580 and similarly sent his observations to Uraniborg. Another member of Tycho Brahe's circle, Christian Hansen Riber (1567—1641), who stayed on Hven from 1586 to 1590, became Bishop of Vendelbo diocese (Aalborg) from 1610 until his death in 1641. He prepared tables of latitudes for Aalborg, and some time before 1625 made a map of his diocese, which is no longer extant. Jurisdictional maps, showing territorial limits, especially in relation to ecclesiastical and governmental affairs, became more common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bishops were well placed to obtain information for maps of their dioceses through their visitation journeys. Bishops such as Anders Foss and Laurentius Scavenius in Norway were also engaged in making land registers, another source of Jurisdictional information. Foss may have felt the need to mark his jurisdiction against the encroachments of the monarchical state subsequent to the Reformation. Significantly, disputes over jurisdiction seem to coincide with the making of all three maps among Tycho Brahe's papers in Vienna. The influence of Tycho Brahe on cartography can be seen later in the seventeenth century. The Danish cartographer, Johannes Mejer (1606—1674),
Tycho Brake
19
acknowledged the inspiration of Tycho Brahe's writings. He was a Germanspeaking subject of the Danish king, born at Husum in what today is the German part of Schleswig. He studied in Copenhagen under Tycho Brahe's former assistant, Christian Sorensen Longomontanus. Mejer's mapmaking activities can be seen partly in the context of Christian IV's project for the mapping of Denmark, and partly in the context of conflicts between the Danish king and the dukes of Gottorp over their respective spheres of jurisdiction in Schleswig-Holstein. Johannes Mejer's first maps, starting in 1635, depicted areas on the west coast of Schleswig. Working initially for Friedrich III (1597—1659), Duke of Gottorp from 1616, he made in 1638—1641 sixty-three detailed maps of Abenra county, the first systematic village mapping in the Danish realm showing farms, fields, meadows, lakes, and heaths, combined with a land register for the county. In 1641, he made forty-three maps of the herring traps in the Schlei (Slien) fjord, in the vicinity of the town of Slesvig, relating to a conflict over ownership between the Duke of Gottorp and adjoining estate owners. Between 1642 and 1645, he mapped Jutland's west coast at the request of Christian IV. Between 1645 and 1648, he mapped Schleswig-Holstein for the king. A collection of nearly a hundred of his maps and town plans was published in 1652, along with a long description of the duchies by the physician Caspar Danckwerth (1605—1672), to which Mejer was critical and which aroused the displeasure of Christian IV's successor, Frederik III (1609—1670, King of Denmark—Norway from 1648) because of what was considered its political nature. Many of these maps were re-published by Joan Blaeu in the Atlas Maior in 1662. In 1647, Mejer was appointed Royal Mathematician and over the next twelve years produced a large number of maps of the Danish islands, Jutland, and the Scanian provinces, including Hven. Mejer's inspiration from Tycho Brahe did not include triangulation. Partly using available earlier maps as a basis, his method was to draw up a network of latitudes and longitudes, and then to plot in the position of settlements using Tycho Brahe's tables of coordinates, as well as making his own determinations of latitudes and using lunar eclipses to adjust longitudes. For the detailed topographical mapping, his methods were the same as those used by Vedel seventy years earlier. He compiled a map of Denmark in 1650 and left almost 300 draft maps for a planned seven-volume atlas of the Nordic countries, based largely on older maps, including the 1635 edition of Bure's map. The role of atlases in the dissemination of cartographical knowledge was crucial in the last three decades of the sixteenth century and throughout most of the seventeeth century. This is illustrated in the contrast between the fates of Gudbrandur I>orlaksson's maps and those of Anders Foss. The former's map of Iceland became the main cartographical image of that country for the next 200 years through publication in the world's first modern atlas, that of Ortelius, in 1570, and in the first atlas of that name, Mercator's, in 1595. Foss's maps by contrast vanished from sight, except for those portions reproduced on the maps of Scavenius and Bure, whose wide dissemination was secured by their publication in the Dutch atlases. Similarly, Christian Hansen Riber's map of his diocese in Denmark was lost and left no mark, while the cartographic endeavours of Johannes Mejer became best known through those of his maps that were published in atlases. The publication of the map of Hven in Braun and Hogenberg's atlas in 1588 was undoubtedly important for familiarizing scholars throughout Europe with the island's existence, and the memory was kept alive by the publication of Blaeu's map of the island in the Atlas Maior in 1662. In 1671, the French astronomer and geodesist Jean Picard (1620—1682) visited Hven. In 1645, Picard had provided assistance to Pierre Gassendi (1592—1655) in observing a solar eclipse. Gassendi would publish a biography of Tycho Brahe in
0
tychob
1654. Picard was a founding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, established in 1666. An important task of the Academy was to supervise the work of surveying and mapping France, in which Picard played a leading role. In 1667, Picard fitted telescopic lenses to quadrants and other instruments, allowing the measurement of angles with much greater precision than previously, thus contributing to great advances in the determination of geographical coordinates and hence cartography. Between 1668 and 1670, he directed the measurement of an arc of meridian, employing triangulation and much longer baselines than used by Snellius, and determined the terrestrial length of a geographical degree. In 1669 Picard proposed to the Academy an expedition to Hven to re-determine the geographical coordinates of Uraniborg. As astronomical tables at that time were derived from Tycho Brahe's observations based on the Uraniborg meridian, the aim was to verify the accuracy of Tycho Brahe's determinations in order to make comparisons with observations based on the meridian of the Royal Observatory in Paris. An early objective of the government-financed Royal Observatory, founded in 1667, was to make more accurate determinations of longitude. Picard was appointed to lead the expedition, and travelled with an assistant, Estienne Villiard. Picard's report of the expedition was published in 1680. After visiting Joan Blaeu in Amsterdam on the way, Picard met the mathematician Rasmus Bartholin (1625—1698) in Copenhagen, who showed him the original manuscript of Tycho Brahe's measurements. Bartholin accompanied Picard to Hven, together with the young Danish astronomer and mathematician, Ole Romer (1644—1710). Romer had been assisting Bartholin in editing Tycho Brahe's register of observations and Picard borrowed this to take back to Paris for publication (although he was unable to realize his intention). With the help of Tycho Brahe's map of Hven in Mechanica, Picard found the sites of Stjerneborg and Uraniborg. In his report, he expressed his indignation at finding the site of the famous observatory used as a rubbish tip and filled with animal carcasses. Picard set up an observation point at Uraniborg and re-measured the azimuths to the surrounding towns on each side of Oresund, comparing his measurements with those of Tycho Brahe. With his improved instruments, Picard was able to achieve much better precision than Tycho Brahe, and in explaining the discrepancies concluded that the observations made by Tycho Brahe and his assistants had been solely for his map of the island, and did not show his ordinary exactitude regarding the triangulations to the surrounding towns. Picard and Bartholin were joined on Hven by Anders Spole (1630—1699), then professor of mathematics at Lund, and together they measured a long baseline, with the help of which they determined the distances to Landskrona, Halsingborg and Helsingor. Picard also measured the azimuths to the towns of Oresund from the observatory in Copenhagen. His report includes maps of Hven, Uraniborg and his triangulation of Oresund. He determined the latitude of Uraniborg as 55° 54' 15" (half a minute less than Tycho Brahe's measurement), 7° 4' 5" north of the latitude of the Paris observatory. The expedition further aimed to determine the difference in longitude between Uraniborg and the Paris observatory. Romer and Villiard returned to Hven the following winter and made observations of eclipses of the moons of Jupiter. Romer travelled to Paris, where he spent ten years until 1681 as an astronomer at the Royal Observatory and proved in 1676 from observations of eclipses of Jupiter's moons that light has a finite speed. Accurate timekeeping allowed comparisons to be made between the observations on Hven and parallel observations of the eclipses made by the astronomer Jean Dominique (Giovanni Domenico) Cassini (1625— 1712) at the Paris observatory, and the difference in longitude was determined at 10° 32' 30".
Tycho Brake
21
Picard's work demonstrated the feasibility of accurate topographical surveys over wide areas. In 1681, he advocated a topographical survey of France, which became the great undertaking of four generations of the Cassini family. A complete triangulation of France was undertaken between 1733 and 1744, and the topographical mapping of France was largely completed by 1789. A triangulation across the English Channel in 1784—1787 linked the meridians of Paris and Greenwich. In Denmark, the French model of scientific cartographical survey was eventually adopted in 1757 by the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, founded in 1742. A comprehensive topographical survey of the whole country was undertaken, employing astronomical positioning and triangulation, which was completed in 1821. A base line was measured in 1764 to the west of Copenhagen, and positioned in relation to the Round Tower observatory, for which Picard had determined the coordinates, thus allowing the Danish triangulation to be coordinated with the French.
Conclusion In cartography, Tycho Brahe's outstanding achievement was the pioneering use of triangulation in Scandinavia to map Hven. In the sixteenth century, the application of triangulation was a new technique dependent on precision instruments for measuring angles. Nonetheless, insufficient accuracy may have been one of the reasons why Tycho Brahe's triangulation did not result in a map of 0resund or why the planned map of Denmark was not realized. The alternative method of topographical survey was by means of itinerary maps, measuring distances and plotting positions along routes in order to build up maps of wider areas. The problem with this was that cumulative errors tended to produce distortion. The accuracy of itinerary maps could be checked by astronomical observation, but determining longitude remained problematic. Hence the itinerary method adopted by Vedel, Morsing and Kiempe in the Scanian provinces, although a pioneering feat in Scandinavian topographical survey, again did not produce a map. Improved triangulation had to await Snellius' computation of the long base-line in the second decade of the eighteenth century, but only after Picard fitted telescopic lenses to angle-measuring instruments in the 1660s did triangulation achieve sufficient accuracy to make a real breakthrough. More precise observations of horizontal angles allowed distances to be determined between different points more accurately by indirect measurement, rather than pacing the ground. As the work gained speed and precision, these technical advances allowed much more accurate mapping of provinces and whole countries, as shown by the example of France from the second half of the seventeeth century. Thus, although triangulation took a long time to come into general use, it eventually became indispensable for accurate large-scale mapping. Tycho Brahe's importance for cartography should not be exaggerated. He was a contemporary of such cartographical giants as Mercator, Ortelius and Waghenaer, and his cartographical interests must be placed in this context. Nevertheless, Tycho Brahe and his circle also influenced this context. His introduction to Scandinavia of triangulation in mapmaking was ahead of its time and its immediate impact on the development of Nordic cartography was small. Yet a line can be traced, first from Gemma Frisius and Philipp Apian to Tycho Brahe, and then from Brahe through Willem Blaeu and Snellius to Jean Picard, whose influence through the French
22
Tycho Brake
school of topographical survey eventually contributed to the serious application of triangulation to mapping in Norden from the eighteenth century. When triangulation initially proved too demanding, the simpler itinerary methods of survey employed in 1589 by Morsing and Vedel, in association with Tycho Brahe, were significant in pioneering in Scandinavia what was to remain the standard method of topographical mapping during the following century. It required improved techniques and the investment of governments in the national mapping of their territories before systematic triangulation became universally adopted. The number of maps made by Tycho Brahe and his immediate circle in his lifetime was only a handful, and some of them disappeared, either permanently or for several centuries. Those that appeared in the Dutch and German atlases of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, proved highly influential for the cartographical image of Norden. No small part in this was due to Tycho Brahe's disciple, Willem Blaeu, who established one of the leading atlas publishing houses of the day. Maps became essential tools of economic and political power, and atlases were standard features of royal libraries. Tycho Brahe's search for the highest possible accuracy in astronomical observations was reflected in the long search for increasingly improved precision in latitude and longitude measurements, which were also applied for cartographical purposes. For twenty years, royal patronage and Tycho Brahe's own commitment meant that his observatory on Hven functioned as a centre of research excellence, not only in astronomy but also in geodesy. The results were disseminated in scientific treatises and atlases, the international publications of the day. During the last quarter of the sixteenth century, Tycho Brahe was a central node in a European scientific network, which through astronomy and its application to cartography, contributed to a new way of viewing the geography of the world, its regions and its local landscapes.
Acknowledgements For their assistance with the images here reproduced as the portrait of Brahe and Figures 1-4, I am grateful to the University Library, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim (for the portrait figure), to the Austrian National Library (Figure 1), and the Royal Library, Copenhagen (Figures 2-4).
Bibliography and Sources 1. ARCHIVAL SOURCES Tycho Brahe's original journals and papers are found partly in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, and partly in the Austrian National Library (former Library of the Imperial Court), Vienna.
2. SELECTED BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS ON TYCHO BRAHE Christianson, J.R. (2000), On Tycho's Island: Tycho Brahe and His Assistants 1570— 1601. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tycho Brake
23
Dreyer, J. L. E. (1963) [1890], Tycho Brake: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Dover Publications. Erlandson, J. (ed.). (1996), Tycho Brake: Stjdrnornas herre. Landskrona: Landskrona kommun. Fergusen, K. (2002), Tycho and Kepler: The Strange Partnership that Revolutionised Astronomy. London: Review. Friis, F. R. (1871), Tyge Brake: En historisk fremstilling efter trykte og utrykte kilder. Kjobenhavn: Den Gyldendalske Boghandel. Gassendi, P. (1654), Tychonis Brake, Equitis Dani, Astronomorum Coryphisi, Vita. Parisiis: M. Dupuis. Hakansson, H. (ed.). (2006), Alt Idta sjdlenflyga mellan himlens tinnar: Tycho Brake och hans tid. Stockholm: Bokfbrlaget Atlantis. Hartmann, G. (1989), Urania: Om mennesket Tycho Brake. Kobenhavn: Gyldendal. Hellman, C. D. (1970), Brahe, Tycho. Dictionary of Scientific Bibliography II. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 401—416. Jonsson, Ake (2004), Tycho Brahe: Vdrldsmedborgaren frdn Ven. Lund: Historiska Media. Moesgaard, K. P. (1979), Brahe, Tyge. Dansk Biografisk Leksikon, 3. udgave, 11. Kobenhavn: Gyldendal, pp. 515-520. Norlind, W. (ed.). (1951), Tycho Brahe: Mannen och verket. Efter Gassendi oversatt med kommentar. Lund: G. W. K. Gleerup. Norlind, W. (1963), Tycho Brahe. Stockholm: Natur och kultur. —
(1970), Tycho Brahe: En levnadsteckning med nya bidrag belysande hans liv och verk. Lund: G. W. K. Gleerup.
Thoren, V. E. (1990), The Lord of Uraniborg: A Biography of Tycho Brahe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wittendorf, A. (1994), Tyge Brahe. Kobenhavn: G. E. C. Gad. 3. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS BY TYCHO BRAHE Brahe, T. (1573), De nova et nullius tevi memoria prius visa stella. Hafn. —
(1588), De mundi atherei recentioribusphienomenis. Uraniburgi.
—
(1596), Epistolarum astronomicarum libri. Uraniburgi.
—
(1598), Astronomite instauratte mechanica. Wandesburgi.
—
(1602), Astronomite instauratte progymnasmata. Pragas Bohemias.
Dreyer, I. L. E. (ed.) (1913-1928), Tychonis Brahe Dani Opera Omnia I-XIV. Haunias: Libraria Gyldendaliana. Friis, F. R. (ed.) (1876—1886), Tychonis Brahei et ad eum doctorum virorum Epistolts. Havnias. Norlind, W. (ed.) (1926), Ur Tycho Brakes brevvdxling,frdn latinet. Lund: Gleerup.
24
Tycho Brake
Rasder, H., Stromgren, E. and Stromgren, B. (eds.) (1946), Tycho Brake's Description of his Instruments and Scientific Work as Given in Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica (Wandesburgi 1598). K0benhavn: Del Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab/ Ejnar Munsgaard.
4. SELECTED WORKS ON TYCHO BRAHE'S CARTOGRAPHICAL LEGACY Bj0rnbo, A. A. and Petersen, C. S. (1908), Anecdota Cartographica Septentrionalia. K0benhavn: Andr. Fred. H0st & Son. Bramsen, B. (1997) [1952], Gamle Danmarkskort. En historisk oversigt med bibliografiske noter for perioden 1570-1770. K0benhavn: Politikens Anti-Kvariat. Friis, F. R. (1889), Elias Olsen Morsing og hans observationer. Kj0benhavn: Martius Truelsens Forlag. —
(1904), Peder Jakobsen Fleml0s, Tyge Brakes f0rste Medhjislper, og hans Observationer i Morge. Kj0benhavn: G. E. C. Gads Universitetsboghandel.
Haasbroek, N. D. (1968), Gemma Frisius, Tycho Brake and Snellius and their Triangulations. Delft: Rijkscommissie voor Geodesic. Hermannsson, H. (1926), Two Cartographers: Gudbrandur Thorldksson and Thdrdur Thorldksson. Islandica XVII. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Library. Humberd, C. D. (1937), 'Tycho Brahe's Island', Popular Astronomy 45, 118-125. Jones, M. (2003), 'Tycho Brahe og kartografien pa slutten av 1500-tallet', Mordenskiold-samfundets tidskrift 62, 51—78. —
(2004a), 'Tycho Brahe, Cartography and Landscape in 16th Century Scandinavia' in H. Palang, H. Soovali, M. Antrop & G. Setten (eds.), European Rural Landscapes: Persistence and Change in a Globalising Environment. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 209—266.
—
(2004b), 'Tycho Brahe, kartografi og landskap: En betraktning med utgangspunkt i Nordfjordkartet fra 1594', Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien: Arsbok 2004, 101-120.
Lauridsen, P. (1888), 'Kartografen Johannes Mejer. Et bidrag til asldre dansk Karthistorie', Historisk Tidsskrift 6. Reekke 1, 239-402. Nissen, K. (196la), 'Det eldste Vestlandskart: Foredrag i Selskapet til vitenskapenes fremme 14. oktober I960'. Bergens Historiske Forening: Skrifter, 63:1960. Bergen: J.D. Beyer A.S, 91-113. —
(1961b), 'Det eldste kart over det gamle Stavanger stift: Foredrag i Rogaland Akademi 19. oktober I960'. Stavanger Museum Arbok 1960. Stavanger: Dreyer, 79-96.
Norlund, N. E. (1942), Johannes Mejers kort over det danske rige 1-3. Geodastisk Instituts Publikationer I-III. Kobenhavn: Ejnar Munksgaard. —
(1943) [1942], Danmarks kortlisgning: En historisk fremstilling, bd. 1, Tiden til afslutningen af Videnskabernes Selskabs Opmaaling, 2. udgave. Geodastisk Instituts Publikationer IV. Kobenhavn: Ejnar Munksgaard.
—
(1944), Islands kortlisgning: En historisk fremstilling. Geodastisk Instituts Publikationer VII. Kobenhavn: Ejnar Munksgaard.
Tycho Brake
25
Picard, [Jean]. (1702) [1680], 'Voyage d'Uranibourg, ou observations astronomiques faites en Dannemarck', Histoire de I'Academic royale des sciences . . . avec les memoires de mathematique et de physique VII, 61—101. Richter, H. (1925), 'Willem Jansz. Blaeu - en Tycho Brahes larjunge: Ett blad ur kartografiens historia omkring ar 1600'. Arsbok 1925: Sydsvenska Geografiska Sdllskapet. Lund: Gleerupska Universitetsbokhandelm, 49—66. —
(1929), Shanes karta frdn mitten av 1500-talet till omkring 1700: Bidrag till en historisk-kartografisk undersokning. Meddelanden fran Lunds Universitets Geografiska Institution, Avhandlinger. Lund: Gleerupska Univ. Bokhandeln.
—
(1930), 'Cartographia Scanensis: De aldsta kanda fb'rarbetena till en kartlaggning av de skanska provinserna 1589', Svensk Geogrqfisk Arsbok 1930, 7-51.
—
(1939), 'Willem Jansz. Blaeu with Tycho Brahe on Hven and his Map of the Island: Some New Facts', Imago Mundi 3, 53—60.
Schroeter, I. F. (1905), 'De addste breddebestemmelser i Norge', .Naturen 29, 234242. Sigurdsson, H. (1978), Kortsaga Islands frd lokum 16. aldar til 1848. Reykjavik: Bokautgafa Menningarsjods og I>j66vinafelagsins.
Chronology 1546
Born 14 December at Knudstrup (now Knutstorp), Skane (Scania)
1548
Moved to live at Tosterup in Skane with his uncle Jorgen Brahe
1559—62
Studied at the University of Copenhagen
1560
Observed a partial eclipse of the Sun in Copenhagen (21 August)
1562—65
Studied at the University of Leipzig, Germany, accompanied by his tutor, Anders Sorensen Wedel
1563
Observed conjunction between Jupiter and Saturn (August)
1566
Studied for five months at the University of Wittenberg
1566-68
Studied at the University of Rostock
1568-69
Studied at the University of Basel
1569—70
Stayed in Augsburg, where he constructed his great quadrant and other instruments
1571
Inherited his share of the family estate at Knudstorp upon the death of his father
1571—74
Lived at Heridsvad kloster (now Herresvadskloster). Conducted chemical experiments
1572
Discovered a 'new star' (supernova) on 11 November
1573
Publication of De nova stella
26
Tycho Brake
c.1573
Married Kirstine (Kristine, Kirsten) Barbara J0rgensen
1574—75
Lectured at the University of Copenhagen
1575—76
Travelled to Kassel, Frankfurt, Basel, Venice, Augsburg, Regensburg, Saalfeld and Wittenberg visiting prominent astronomers
1576
Granted island of Hven (Ven) in feu by Frederik II of Denmark
1576—80
Construction of Uraniborg mansion and observatory on Hven
1577
Granted Kullegard in feu First observation of a comet 12 November
1578
Publication on the comet Granted feus of Nordfjord in Norway and eleven estates in Helsingborg, Skane
1578 or 79 Geodetic measurements for triangulation of 0resund 1579
Granted prebend of Chapel of the Three Kings in Roskilde
1584
Construction of Stjerneborg observatory and a printing works on Hven
c.l584
Manuscript map of Hven completed
1588
First printed map of Hven, dated 1586, published in Braun & Hogenberg's Civitatates orbis terrarium, vol. 4 Publication of De mundi tethrei recentioribus phtenomenis on the comet of 1577—1578 and the Tychonian geoheliocentric planetary system Began publication of Astronomic instauratte progymnasmata with an account of newly-observed celestial phenomena. Published in full in three volumes in 1602
1592
Catalogue of 777 fixed stars completed Completion of paper mill and fish dams on Hven
1595
Completed catalogue of 1,000 fixed stars
1596
Published Epistolarum astronomicarum libri, including second printed, revised map of Hven Published Epistilte astronomic® containing correspondence with Wilhelm IV of Hessen (Hesse) and his court astronomer Christopher Rothmann
1597
Loss of royal patronage after coronation of Christian IV the previous year Moved from Hven to Copenhagen Departed from Denmark for Rostock
1597-99
Stayed at Wandsbek in Holstein
1598
Published Astronomic instaurata mechanica with his autobiography, drawings of his astronomical instruments and a reproduction of the second printed map of Hven
1599
Stayed six months at Wittenberg
Tycho Brake
27
Moved to Prague and became Imperial Mathematician to Emperor Rudolph II 1600
Johannes Kepler became Tycho Brahe's assistant
1601
Died in Prague on 24 October
William Camden 1551-1623
Robert J. Mayhew
Together with Richard Hakluyt, William Camden was probably the most influential geographical scholar in Renaissance England, his impact being acknowledged both throughout the European Republic of Letters and by generations of chorographers and geographers in Britain, whose county and national scale geographies recorded their indebtedness to him. Furthermore, Camden's key work of chorographical scholarship, Britannia (1586), has been seen as both indicative of and contributory to a new sense of national identity emergent in Elizabethan England. Camden also forged new ways of doing geographical scholarship, being innovative in his use of archaeological fieldwork as an aid to the writing of geography. In Camden's life and works, we find an exemplification of the networks of scholarship by which geographical writings were drawn together in Renaissance Europe. We also find the extent to which geography, in Camden and the culture from which he emerged, was inseparable from humanist concerns with history and politics.
Life and Times William Camden was born on 2 May 1551 in London, the son of Sampson Camden, a painter-stainer, and of Elizabeth Curwen. Camden's life was to be spent in London, albeit that he had family connections in Cumberland and Northumberland and travelled to these and other areas on fieldwork excursions regularly in his mature life. Camden was schooled first at Christ's Hospital in London and then transferred after 1563 to St Paul's School, where he first encountered a humanist programme of education, that which the cleric and pioneering English humanist, John Colet, had laid down for the school in endowing its reestablishment in 1509. It is alleged that Camden acquired his interest in antiquities at this time; he certainly encountered those who would be key to his scholarly and political networks in later life.
William Camden
29
Camden went up to Oxford in 1566. He entered Magdalen College as a chorister, a route which led to a boy from a less than affluent background being accorded financial help by the college. Camden was embroiled in the intense religio-political debates raging in Oxford at this time, his allegiances lying with the opponents of the radical puritans then dominating the university. It has been alleged that this prevented Camden securing a fellowship at Magdalen, the result being his migration to Broadgates Hall, where he was in the household of Dr Thornton. Camden then moved on to Christ Church. It was at Christ Church and in Thornton's household that Camden met and developed some of the most important scholarly connections for his later life, notably Philip Sidney and Richard Carew. Camden petitioned for the award of his BA in 1570, but was refused — most likely again due to political factionalism — at which point he left the university. Camden did, however, gain his BA in 1574. There are no substantiated records of Camden's activities in the years between his departure from Oxford in 1570 and his appointment as second Master at Westminster school in 1575. This gap has often been alleged to have been when Camden started doing the fieldwork which would result in Britannia, but there is no evidence to support this contention. Westminster School became Camden's home for the rest of his life, in that he was second master and then headmaster from 1575 to 1597; after that time he retained his lodgings in the school and continued to partake of the academic conviviality which it afforded. Westminster was the great centre of humanist education in Camden's age, something due in no small part to Camden's own talents as a teacher, which inspired many of the great minds of the next generation, including Ben Jonson. The school had a unique curriculum combining classical Greek and Latin education with material from the Anglican Church to form a distinctive Elizabethan Humanism (Pincombe 2001). Camden contributed to this by publishing in 1595 his enduringly popular textbook for studying Greek, Institutio Graecae Grammatices. Camden also gained as a scholar from this milieu in two ways. First, his position as second master brought with it 'the advantage of involvement in a close, homogeneous community of scholars and political and religious thinkers' (Herendeen 2004, 605). Most importantly, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, was Steward of the school and Camden acknowledged Cecil's encouragement and patronage of his work. Secondly, during these two decades, with his financial situation at last secured by his salary, we know that Camden travelled regularly and collected the material for Britannia. While the details of Camden's field trips are shadowy, we know that his mature life was punctuated by such trips: to Norfolk and Suffolk in 1578; to Yorkshire and Lancashire in 1582; to Devon and Oxford in 1588; to Wales in 1590; to Salisbury and Wells in 1596; and to Carlisle and Hadrian's Wall in 1600 (Parry 1995, 39). Camden's magnum opus, Britannia, was first published in 1586, although as a 'squat octavo' (Herendeen, 2004, 606) it did not in its first incarnation look notably 'great'. Subsequent editions were to appear throughout Camden's life in 1587, 1590, 1594, 1600 and 1607, with an English translation by Philemon Holland, overseen and approved by Camden in 1610. (The geographical and cultural import of Britannia is discussed below.) In career terms, Britannia consolidated Camden's position both in the European republic of letters and at Westminster School, where he was appointed keeper of the library in 1587, with a further stipend. Finally, Camden was appointed Headmaster of Westminster in 1593, a post he held for the last four years of his active association with the school. In 1597, Camden was appointed to the heraldic post of Clarenceux King of Arms. This made him one of the three most senior heralds in the country, a post which gave him considerable political power. Heralds attended court, granted arms
30
William Camden
and genealogies and determined on matters of title and degree. Camden was responsible for these matters in the areas south of the Trent. Camden's appointment came as ill health made him weary of the many demands life at Westminster posed, and was orchestrated by his intimate circle, notably by Fulke Greville, a friend of Philip Sidney, and by Cecil, who conducted the ceremony officially appointing Camden. Here we see Camden's politico-scholarly network supporting him in trying times to a new financial and professional base. While Camden's appointment gave him political power, it also made enemies for him, his appointment as an 'outsider' to the closed world of the College of Arms provoking internal dissention, notably in the form of bitter attacks on him by Ralph Brooke, the York herald. Brooke attacked Camden's Britannia, arguing both that it was littered with factual errors and that it was plagiarized from the earlier chorographical labours of John Leland. In particular, Brooke claimed Camden erred in genealogical matters, a twin slur on Camden's suitability to act as Clarenceux King of Arms and on his scholarly acumen. As Herendeen summarizes matters, 'in the records of Renaissance letters . . . there are few literary exchanges that are as heated and full of animus as that between Brooke [and] Camden' (Herendeen 2004, 609). Camden published a series of more minor works in the next ten years of his life, each of which ties the concerns he had in his professional capacity as a herald with the scholarly predilections he had exhibited in Britannia for work at the interface of geography, history and archaeology. Thus he published a Latin work on the monuments in Westminster Abbey, the Reges, reginae, nobiles et alii in ecclesia collegiate B. Petri Westmonasterii sepulti in 1600, a work whose fusion of classicism and Elizabethan Anglicanism mirrored that which he had taught for two decades at Westminster School. He then edited a set of the early manuscript chronicles he had used in developing his argument in Britannia under the title Anglica, Mormannica, Hibernica, Cambrica, a veteribm scripta, this work being published in Frankfurt in 1603. In 1605, Camden produced his only work in the English language, Remaines of a Greater Work Concerning Britain. This, as its title suggests, was a set of miscellaneous essays collecting material he had not found space or context to insert into Britannia. Remaines had material one might expect on topics such as the languages and inhabitants of Britain, but went on to include truly miscellaneous material such as essays on proverbs and anagrams in the archives of early English history. For Herendeen, Remaines is 'a popular spin-off from its more expensive and serious mother-lode, the Britannia' (Herendeen 2004, 610). Finally, in 1607, Camden produced a Latin translation of the trial of those involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, the hope being that Camden's repute in the European Republic of Letters would secure a warm reception for James I's actions. The next decade saw Camden engaged in the other great literary work of his career, a history of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which he began in 1608. Camden was invited to produce this work by his friend and patron, William Cecil, who supplied large amounts of primary source material to aid in the task. Instalments of the Annales rerum Anglicarum, et Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha were published in 1615 and 1617, with the final part being published posthumously in 1625. This was a very sensitive project politically, with Camden, for example, having to narrate the death of Mary Queen of Scots at Elizabeth's command in an era when Mary's son, James I, was his monarch. The work was an international success and cemented Camden's reputation as an historian and scholar. After 1617, Camden's health, problematic since the 1590s, deteriorated. In the last years of his life, Camden focused on establishing the first lectureship in civil history at Oxford University, something which reached fruition in 1620 and to
William Camden
31
which Degory Wheare was appointed as the first incumbent by Camden himself in 1622. Camden died at home in Chislehurst on 9 November 1623.
Camden and the Networks of Renaissance Geographical Scholarship As we have seen, Camden's life was spent in the ambit of Renaissance humanism, in whose precepts he was steeped and which he perpetuated and renewed both through his work as a teacher and his publications as a scholar. More specifically, however, it is worth drawing out in the present context the geographical components of Camden's humanist networks, both as an entree to his geographical oeuvre and as being indicative of the networks and spaces of geographical culture in the Renaissance. Camden was tied to several key scholarly networks at the nexus of geography, history and antiquarianism in Renaissance England. Both St Paul's and Westminster schools were centres for Elizabethan humanism, which itself fostered a reverence for antiquities and geographical learning, but perhaps most important were the networks represented by Oxford University in Camden's youth and the Elizabethan Society of Antiquities in his mature years as a writer. The culture of Oxford University was permeated at the time of Camden's attendance by a burgeoning fascination with geography. In his generation, Richard Hakluyt the younger (1552?—1616), whose trajectory was the reverse of Camden's in that he started at Westminster School and then migrated to Christ Church College Oxford (BA, 1574; MA, 1577), started to compile his collection of travel narratives, the Principal Voyages (Mancall 2007). At this time, Oxford saw a group of distinguished scholars teaching and writing geography books. This group started in Camden's generation with figures such as George Abbot at University College and John Prideaux, Rector of Exeter College, and continued with Robert Stafforde, Peter Heylyn, William Pemble and Nathaneal Carpenter, all of whom were active before Camden's death (Cormack 1997; Mayhew 2005). As Parry has written, 'the later Renaissance fascination with antique geography may well have been a consequence of the humanist study of the classical historians' (Parry 1995, 25). We can add that this fascination was also bound up not only with antiquity, but with modern conceptions of patriotism and the eulogy of the realm (Helgerson 1992, 105—48). This fascination clearly centred in the English context on Oxford University, manifesting itself in a diverse medley of geographical genres, all loosely focused on the humanist conjunction of history and geography and their interaction with issues of nationhood and identity. Camden was perhaps the most distinguished English scholar to be galvanized by this later Renaissance fascination, and certainly the most memorialized by posterity. But it is important to note that, taken in his Oxonian context, Camden was but one of many working on the nexus of geography and history as ways of understanding nationhood. The Elizabethan Society of Antiquities is a more shadowy presence in the historical record, but it met at Derby House, the London residence of the College of Arms in Camden's time. It was peopled by heralds among others, and their antiquarian and genealogical interests strongly guided the intellectual proclivities of the Society (Evans 1956). It was here that Camden first engaged with heraldic scholarship and proved his suitability for the post of Clarenceux King of Arms. Camden delivered a number of papers to the Society,
32
William Camden
and they show him presenting evidence about material and cultural artefacts in ways which strongly influenced his working methods in Britannia and tied him to the culture of heraldic scholarship (Hearne 1771). Both of these networks created versions of the distinctive scholarly fusion of geography and history which the Renaissance valued and which Camden's Britannia was to epitomize; both reveal Camden as a product of overlapping English networks of scholarly geographical inquiry, not as simply emerging ex nihilo. Camden's networks of geographical scholarship, like those of most Renaissance men of letters, stretched geographically a good deal further than just Britain. Indeed, it is highly misleading to view Camden exclusively through a lens of patriotism or nationalism. As we shall see in the following section, his patriotism is a distinctive one, but all his work (with the exception of the Remaines) was written in Latin for a cosmopolitan audience of European scholars. Camden was frequently visited by European scholars and also maintained extensive networks of correspondence. Indeed, the impetus for Britannia itself came from these circuits of scholarly exchange, in the form of Abraham Ortelius, the great Dutch humanist geographer and cartographer, who visited England in 1577, paying visits on scholarly luminaries such as Hakluyt the Elder and Camden. In his prefatory remarks to the much-expanded 1607 Latin edition of Britannia, Camden explained the book's origins. He had been collecting miscellaneous information about Britain, but his researches were given direction by Ortelius: 'Abraham Ortelius the worthy restorer of Ancient Geographic arriuing heere in England, aboue thirty foure yeares past, dealt earnestly with me that I would illustrate this He of BRITAINE, or (as he said) that I would restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britain to his antiquity' (Camden 1610, sig. lJ4r). Having produced his atlas of the contemporary world, Theatmm Orbis Terramm (1570), Ortelius wished to produce a complementary atlas of the classical world, the Parergon. His intention was that the British map should be glossed by a topographical essay by Camden. It was pursuant to this task that Britannia was born. Ortelius's visit points to several important points about the culture of Renaissance geographical scholarship. Above all, it was a cosmopolitan one, wherein even praise of one's country was understood as much as a classical exercise in the lam patriae genre as in terms of national aggrandisement. Furthermore, Ortelius visited Camden as a luminary of the scholarly firmament long before Camden had actually published anything. Scholarly credentials could be gained by correspondence and word of mouth long before venturing into print. In this case, Camden's antiquarian rambles and his letters about them had already given him scholarly status. Camden followed up Ortelius's visit with an exchange of letters, both entering the web of communications that was the Renaissance Republic of Letters. As such, epistolary exchange could place one in the republic of letters as surely as did the personal networks created by connections to institutions such as Oxford University and the Society of Antiquaries, and could furthermore extend one's reputation and ability to exchange information onto a far broader geographical stage. Ortelius, consequent on his meeting with Camden, sent him a presentation copy of his travel narrative, the Itinerarium per Monnullas Galliae belgicae partes (1584). This gift, part of the culture of scholarly exchange, also directs us to a final network of geographical scholarship into which Camden was firmly wired. For beyond direct exchanges of information at whatever spatial scale were the scholarly conversations of reading one another's work, which made the republic of letters function as an imagined community unified by print (Anderson 1991; Mayhew 2004). Camden's library was one of the 'leading libraries of seventeenth-century England in both size and quality' (DeMolen 1984, 332) and its content shows that his intellectual
William Camden
33
engagement with geographical issues was far broader than recourse to his writings alone would allow us to imagine (DeMolen 1984). The library unsurprisingly contains works of chorographical scholarship such as John Norden's Speculum Britanniae (1593), but it shows that Camden delved into all branches of geographical scholarship, and, further, that his interest in the fusion of history and geography was by no means limited to Britain, a point which reinforces the assertion that Camden's patriotism was by no means insular. On the first point, Camden's library shows that he had works about mathematical geography, notably George Buchanan's treatise on the sphere, and that he had related mathematical works of geographical interest about perspective and navigation. Furthermore, Camden possessed three works by Ptolemy, including the Geography, although it was Ptolemy's mathematical works that interested Camden most, meriting extensive annotations. But more numerous than these works were travel writings whereof Camden possessed a large quantity. In particular, he collected works about recent English imperial and commercial voyages with an assiduity almost worthy of Hakluyt. He owned copies of works by Gilbert and Settle on the search for the North West Passage, by Bigges and Carleill on the fledgling attempts to found English plantations in the Americas (on all of which, see Mancall 2007), and by Digges and Middleton in defence of the English East India Company (about which, see Ogborn 2007). Camden's library shows also that he possessed works about the antiquities of Aquitaine, Dieppe and Prague, works whose contents closely mirror the thematic interests displayed in Camden's published writings. He also owned works by the great European cosmographers, notably Andre Thevet (see Lestringant 1994) and David Chytraeus. Camden, then, was no little Englander in his chorographical interests. In sum, Camden's life, letters and library show him interacting in overlapping networks of geographical scholarship which defined his interests and gave him recognition as a denizen of the Renaissance republic of letters. He was tied by personal attendance and friendships to national networks of geographical and antiquarian scholarship, Oxford, the Society for Antiquities and Westminster being the most important. Further, his scholarly reputation travelled, placing him via correspondence and occasional encounters on the European scholarly stage with key players such as Ortelius. Finally, Camden's extensive library gave him still greater links to the conversations and controversies of Renaissance geography.
Camden's Contribution to Renaissance Geographical Scholarship In the opening sections of his Remaines (1605), Camden combined fulsome praise of Britain with some form of geographical description. Giving a general description of 'the most flourishing and excellent, most renowned and famous isle of the whole world', Camden goes on to discuss its climate ('temperate and wholesome') and situation, 'walled and garded with the ocean' (Camden 1870, 1) in ways reminiscent to modern eyes of Shakespeare's 'sceptred isle speech' in Richard II. True to his normal method, Camden then reverts to quoting others on the glories of Britain, gathering together a set of panegyrics ranging from ancient times down to Samuel Daniel's contemporary translation of Lucan. The Remaines goes on to deploy this same method of gathering together quotes for a wide range of other topics about Britain, but none of so geographical a bent.
34
William Camden
Likewise, Camden's last great work, the Annales, a history of Queen Elizabeth's reign, touched upon geography fleetingly. Camden's prefatory address to the reader sets out his method of historical writing, suggesting he will follow the traditional understanding of geography as facilitating historical analysis: 'matters belonging to Topography and Genealogy I have not neglected' (Camden 1970, 6). It is worth noting en passant that Camden's appointee to the chair in history which he endowed at Oxford, Degory Wheare (see above), made a very similar point in his lectures: 'we attribute to History a Left Eye . . . that is, Geography or Topography . . . For who is so ignorant in History as not to understand how much light is given to the Reader by the Circumstances of the Place in which any thing is done?' (Wheare 1710, 317). Camden's text makes good these claims by intermittently including geographical information where it helps to explain the historical narrative. The Annales also shows the broader geographical reading to which Camden's library bears witness being put to good use. On the first point, a good example is Camden's discussion for 1560, where Elizabeth sends an army into Scotland, the two sides meeting near Leith. Here, Camden elaborated on Leith's topography to explain why the Scots and French dug in there (Camden 1970, 48— 9). On the second point, Camden's history discussed the voyages of the Elizabethan explorers at some length and the first English plantations, outlining the efforts of the Muscovy Company and Drake's exploits in the Americas with considerable levels of geographical awareness (Camden 1970, 108-9, 210-11, and 300-301). But the bulk of the Annales is in line with the traditional humanist conception of history as a branch of rhetoric, and as such has little connection with geographical concerns. If the Remaines and the Annales had been the sum of Camden's work, he would merit at most a footnote in the history of geographical scholarship as being unusually astute at deploying geographical information within a standard work of Renaissance historiography, and as an antiquarian whose interests were occasionally and tangentially geographical. It is through Britannia (1586) that Camden merits our attention. Looking at Camden's life on its own terms and in terms of the verdict of posterity, it is clear that Britannia is the cornerstone of his achievement. It is Britannia which he composed in his youth, revised six times over 20 years, and for which he continued to collect data until his death. It is Britannia which first made Camden's name in the European republic of letters, and it is with Britannia that historians, geographers and critics have been most consistently preoccupied over the centuries for its role as the pioneering published chorography of Britain. We can now turn to analyse Britannia in more detail, noting how the text was composed and its intellectual position at the time of its composition, before turning in the following section to its subsequent fortunes as a monument of Renaissance geographical scholarship. In its mode of composition, Britannia may be said to mirror the heterogeneity of its subject matter. For as the text contains a welter of detail concerning the nation, so it was composed using a range of sources, welded together into a seamless fusion of historical information organized geographically, which defined the generic norms of British chorography for two centuries. We have already mentioned Camden's frequent field excursions and it is clear that these played an important part in the composition of the text. This is especially clear at some points, notably in the treatment of Hadrian's Wall and the epigraphic records of Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland in the edition of Britannia produced after Camden's excursion of 1600 (Hepple 2003). Yet we should not exaggerate Camden's role as the pioneer of archaeology for two reasons. First, Camden's observations on his field trips were highly selective by the standards of the critical
William Camden
35
archaeology which came into being in the later eighteenth century. He was fascinated with inscriptions, coins and heraldic crests, 'but when it came to things without words, such as stone monuments, earthworks, barrows, and the debris of the past, Camden made little of them' (Parry 1995, 30). In short, Camden's was a humanist archaeology which still prioritized texts even as its practices questioned their centrality. Secondly, the evidence from his field trips was always only a bitpart player in Camden's total composition, for textual evidence, true to Camden's position as a humanist scholar, was the linchpin to the Britannia. Textual evidence of several varieties was deployed in Britannia, and it is worth pausing to look at each. Mention must be made of Camden's recourse to etymologies (of varying degrees of plausibility) as a window on the early history and geography of the British. Camden believed that linguistic roots could unveil a world which had left few written records beyond words themselves, these often being preserved in place names. For example, derived from the Noachic conception of the peopling of the earth after the Flood, Camden suggested that it was the Cimmerians, descendents of Gomer, himself the son of Japhet, who had first peopled Britain on the etymological grounds that 'the name [Gomer] accordeth passing well: and granted it is, that they planted themselves in the utmost borders of Europe: Which thing also, the very name of Gomer, imposed first not upon some light occasion, but even by Divine providence and inspiration, doth signfie: For Gomer in the Hebrew tongue, betokeneth utmost Bordering' (Camden 1610, 10). Camden was acutely conscious of the centrality of the humanist craft of conjectural etymology to his argument in Britannia, and (as we shall see) defended himself on this score from critics. Beyond etymology, Camden was also heavily reliant on the work of his predecessor, John Leland, whose travel gleanings were available to Camden as he composed Britannia. As with geographical and historical works more generally at this time, Camden was willing to borrow freely from others, seeing the total composition and its method of construction as Britannia's claim to originality. Further, Camden was also keen to incorporate information supplied by a network of correspondents to ensure the quality of his spatial coverage was even. Britannia, then, is in compositional terms a humanist collage, fusing the evidence of direct observation with textual gleanings, and in its textual element interweaving diverse sources to achieve its total effect as a geographical description of the nation. In generic terms, Britannia??, status was more straightforward. In Camden's own explanation, the aim of Britannia was determined by Ortelius's cartographic project and was to produce a chorography of ancient Britain: 'Truly it was my project and purpose to seeke, rake and, free from darknesse such places as Caesar, Tacitus, Ptolemie, Antonine the Emperour, Motitia Provinciarum, & other antique writers have specified and TIME hath overcast' (Camden 1610, sig. lJ5r). Yet the reality was more complex than this. Large sections of the Britannia had little to do with Roman Britain due to the author's fascination with pre-Roman Britain, and Britannia traced in large part the features present in modern Britain to some patriotic purpose and divorced from the ancient and prehistoric world of Britain. At the very least, Britannia was an ancient and modern chorography. 'Chorography' is a term and a form of study with which most are unfamiliar today, but which was of great popularity in the early modern era and was a central component of geography in this era (Mendyk 1989; Cormack 1997). Its roots lay in classical divisions of knowledge, Ptolemy having famously distinguished geography or world description from chorography, the description of a specific place or nation (Berggren and Jones 2000, 57—9). It was in terms of the generic dictates and precedents of chorography that Camden's contemporaries and successors read his book. His later seventeenthcentury editor, Edmund Gibson, yolked him with two of the ancient world's famous
36
William Camden
chorographers, Varro and Pausanias: 'He was stil'd the Varro, the Strabo, and the Pausanias of Britain,' while Richard Gough's edition some century later went farther still, suggesting that 'Varro, Strabo, and Pausanias among the antients, fall short in the comparison' with Camden (Gibson 1695, sig.A2r; Gough 1789, 1, xiii-xiv). In a sense, both of Camden's editors are rather slapdash in their generic labelling of Camden: his project had little in common with the ancient precedent of Strabo, who described the entirety of the known world, and whose work was thus a geography categorically distinct from chorography in ancient divisions of knowledge. Peter Heylyn was rather more precise in pigeonholing Camden restrictedly as a chorographer: 'Chorographie . . . is the exact description of some Kingdome, countrey, or particular Province . . . Of this kind the description of the several estates of Greece written by Pausanias, is of most use and reputation of all the Ancients: as that of Camden Clarenceux, for the Isle of Britain' (Heylyn 1657, 28). Of course, the exact contents of a chorography were but weakly determined by the generic label, all local facts and oddities being within its purview, and all kinds of approaches ranging from anecdote, through humanist textual study to Baconian natural science being deployed in such works. Yet there can be no doubt that in the British context it was Camden's work which provided the benchmark by which later chorographers defined themselves. Spatially, Camden's chorography in Britannia is a set of county descriptions organized according to the tribes of the Saxon Heptarchy. Within each county, material is arranged to follow the sequence of places along rivers (a structure with precedents in Leland's Itinerary), while temporally Camden's prefatory essay ranges from prehistory to the Normans, his incidental information in the county descriptions being even more all-inclusive and coming up to contemporary times. The whole project of a British chorography, restoring antiquity to Britain and Britain to antiquity, had a specific intellectual resonance in late Tudor and early Stuart England, and was perceived as a highly-charged political enterprise at the time. Camden recognized the 'politics of scholarship' which was embedded in Britannia in two prefatory comments. At a technical level, there were critics of his textual form of geographical inquiry, whom he addressed in a way which laid his affinity with European humanism bare: 'Many happily will insult over me for that I have adventured to hunt after the originals of names by coniectures, who if they proceed on to reiect all coniectures, I feare me a great part of liberall learning and humane knowledge will be utterly out-cast into banishment' (Camden 1610 sig. lJ4v). There were, in fact, numbers of scholars who sought a more mathematical conception of geography which, in the name of scientific method, eschewed any connection with conjectural etymology and such techniques. Notable here, although not directly pitched against Camden, was Nathaneal Carpenter's stance in Geography Delineated Forth in Two Books (1625). Carpenter attacked the conjectural work of Joseph Scaliger, the leading humanist of Camden's generation with whose chronological work Camden engaged. Interestingly, Carpenter did so for the theological resonances which he saw in such work: 'the Critickes . . . of our Age, who like Popes or Dictatours, have taken vpon them an Vniversal authority to censure that which they neuer vnderstood. . . . To seeke for a determination of a Cosmographic all doubt in the Grammaticall resolution of two or three Hebrew wordes . . . were to neglect the kernall, and make a banquet on the shells' (Carpenter 1625, 93). As we have seen, such an attack could be launched against Camden just as safely, in that he also delighted in 'grammatical' resolutions to empirical questions. Carpenter's mathematical or scientific approach to geography had a clear politics, distancing itself from the humanist modes of scholarship such as Camden's which he associated with 'Popery'.
William Camden
37
Camden's second prefatory comment, which lays bare the politics of his chorographic scholarship, again links Britannia to the world of late-Tudor and early-Stuart politico-religious debates: 'There are certaine, as I heare who take it impatiently that I have mentioned some of the most famous Monasteries and their founders. I am sorry to heare it, and with their good favour will say thus much, They may take it as impatiently, and peradventure would haue us forget that our ancestoures were, and we are of the Christian profession when as there are not extant any other more conspicuous, and certain Monuments, of their piety, and zealous devotion toward God. Neither were there any other seed-gardens from whence Christian Religion, and good learning were propagated over this isle' (Camden 1610, sig. lJ5r )• Camden saw the primitive and pure English church establishment as a 'middle way' between Roman Catholicism and the 'hotter' forms of Protestantism, a position for which his career had suffered in Oxford and which he had promulgated successfully in the more congenial intellectual environment of Westminster School. Camden's politics, then, had much in common with those of his contemporary, Richard Hooker, as expressed in the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. It was in these terms that Camden's much-touted 'patriotism' functioned: England was geographically placed 'as a little world by it self,' (Gibson 1695, iv — this image of England had its roots in Virgil's Eclogues, I, 36), an empire in that term's older sense as a contiguous unit ruled by one sovereign power (Armitage 2000). The Reformation had merely reinstated the empire which geography and history had initially inscribed. As Camden's prefatory comments suggest, this geopolitical vision of Britain did not go unchallenged. Even those who agreed with Camden's humanist textual approach to geography could disagree with the substance of his analysis. This view is especially notable in a geography book written by George Abbot, future Archbishop of Canterbury, the Briefe Description of the Whole Worlde (1599). Abbot was a staunch Calvinist, in which context he was far more uncompromising about the monasteries and about the Roman Catholic contribution to English Christianity in general than had been Camden from his position of rapprochement with England's Roman Catholic past (Abbot 1605, sigNlv-N2r). Putting Camden's prefatory comments together with the types of geographical works to which they were addressed, it becomes clear that Camden's 'patriotism' can be rather more precisely defined as that suitable to late Elizabethan England. Britannia by its very methods, but also by its conclusions, raised the hackles of orthodox Calvinists practising geographical scholarship within the space of a generation. In an era of confessional conflict under James I, where Abbot and others increasingly saw Britain as embattled against the tide of Catholic counterreformation (Mayhew 2005), Britannia could in fact sound anything but patriotic. This positioning of chorographic work may also help to explain why in 1607 James I showed a visible disfavour to the meetings of the Society of Antiquities of which Camden was the moving spirit (Evans 1956).
Camden's Legacy to English Geographical Scholarship With the criticisms of Camden's forms of scholarship and patriotism in Carpenter and Abbot, we can see that Camden's type of geographical work, in both its methods and its politics was becoming contentious even before his death in 1623. Yet Camden's influence on the culture of geographical scholarship in Britain was extraordinary in both its depth and longevity. Camden's Britannia acted as both
38
William Camden
catalyst and benchmark for British chorographical scholarship from the late Renaissance right through to the death throes of the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century (Sweet 2004). The reputation of Camden and the Britannia were janus-faced. On the one side, there is the enormous respect for Camden as a scholarly persona and for Britannia as his chef d'oeuvre. We have already seen Camden ranked with ancient chorographers, Varro and Pausanias — the highest compliment a humanist could be paid. Likewise, his work was the direct template for the Scottish geographical descriptions compiled for Blaeu's 1654 Atlas Movus (Withers 2005). Moreover, whatever the doubts of Camden's Jacobean contemporaries including his king, subsequent generations patterned him as a religious patriot as well as a scholar of the first order. Thus Thomas Smith's 'Life' of Camden in Gibson's 1695 edition of Britannia denied any taint of crypto-Catholicism (an accusation, as we have seen, which had a certain contemporary resonance among Calvinist scholars), and noted that as headmaster of Westminster School, he had propagated his Anglicanism to his students, thereby laying 'the foundation of those pillars which prov'd so considerable supports both to Church and State'. Finally, Smith also argued that Camden's scholarly and his religious loyalty were linked in a way which cut against the image of chorography as 'Popish,' arguing that local studies rose to prominence as Roman Catholic 'School-Divinity' lost ground at the Reformation (Smith in Gibson 1695, dlv, blr, c2v and blv; Mayhew 2000). Richard Cough's 1789 edition of Britannia adopted a similar image of Camden and the canonical status of his chorography, while in the nineteenth century a society for the printing of manuscript writings pertaining to British history was named after him, thereby continuing to associate the name of Camden with history and patriotism in very changed circumstances. Yet there was another face to Camden's reputation: the very texts and editions which memorialized Camden and his scholarly achievement also suggested it was outdated. Thus, in Scotland, Sir Robert Sibbald's claims to be producing a modern geography of the nation were made in contradistinction to Camden's work, which was framed as both outdated and as English rather than British, Camden being described as 'no friend to us in what he writeth' (Sibbald 1682, cited in Withers 2001, 74). Within English geographical discourse, aligning Camden with his ancient precursors could also be used to suggest his antiquity in the sense of agedness as well as of authority. Gibson's 1695 edition showed this in a substantive way, in that Camden's text was faithfully translated and then had long sets of 'Additions' appended to each county description. These additions frequently adjusted or corrected Camden, the net result being to suggest a scholar whose work had been overtaken by the industry of a century of local inquiries by lesser lights working under the inspiration of his pioneering efforts. Camden's Britannia had already become a monument in the scholarly landscape worthy of observation and deciphering, rather than an active force shaping that landscape. Some fifty years later, Nathaniel Salmon (brother of Thomas Salmon, author of a significant Geographical and Historical Grammar) was more direct in his criticism of Camden. His Mew Survey of England promised to treat 'the Defects of CAMDEN' which he traced to two causes, 'the Indolence of the Age of Monkery, which made no Enquiries but took all Things upon Trust; and the Fondness more discerning Men have shewed to Etymology' (Salmon 1731, Titlepage and I 3). By aligning Camden with monkish superstition, Salmon reactivated the line of criticism of the denominational politics of Camden's scholarly methods first intimated over a century earlier. Richard Gough's edition of Britannia at the close of the eighteenth century took the critique a step further, showing Camden (and indeed Gibson) to be outdated in technical
William Camden
39
terms. Gough throughout his life engaged in field archaeology of the sort Camden had not even contemplated. Together with others of his generation, notably Richard Colt Hoare in his History of Wiltshire, Gough made 'things without words' speak as historical sources. In his edition of Britannia, Gough spoke of Camden as a pioneer, an ancient to be admired, but whose achievements were now the object rather than the fruits of the antiquary: 'he entered upon this task with every difficulty and disadvantage. It was a new science, which was to amuse and inform an age which had just begun to recover itself from the heat and perplexity of Philosophy and School Divinity' (Gough 1789, I iii). Measured against the emergent discipline of archaeology, Camden's humanist textual fieldwork was found wanting. Gibson, Salmon and Gough all pointed to the limitations in Camden's ancient chorography but continued to do this while glossing his text. It was left to J.R. McCulloch, the economist and author of several geographical grammars, to assert the outmodedness of the whole framework of Britannia. Commenting in 1856 on Gough's edition, he said: 'it may be doubted, considering the extraordinary growth of manufactures and commerce . . . whether another edition would be desirable. We incline to think that the historical and antiquarian portions of the work can no longer be advantageously combined with an exact description of the physical and industrial condition of the country' (McCulloch 1856, 55). As such, combining McCulloch's critique with the development of modern field archaeology, both Camden's modern and his ancient chorography had become outdated. McCulloch, in a sense, did indeed sound Camden's death knell, but this came some two and a half centuries after Camden. British geographical scholarship in the intervening quarter of a millennium would have been unimaginably different and lesser without Camden and Britannia.
Bibliography and Sources 1. BIOGRAPHIES OF CAMDEN Herendeen, Wyman, (2004), 'William Camden (1551-1623)', in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 9, pp. 603—614. —
(2007), William Camden: A Life in Context, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Smith, Thomas, (1695) 'The Life of Mr Camden', in Gibson's Edition of Britannia.
2. WORKS BY WILLIAM
CAMDEN
1586
Britannia, sine, Florentissimorum regnorum, Anglite, Scotia, Hibernite, et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio. London: R. Newbery. Subsequent editions in 1587, 1590, 1594, 1600 and 1607. English translations in 1610, 1695, 1722 and 1789.
1595
Institutio Graecae grammatices: compendaria in usum regiae scholae Westmonasteriensis. London: Edmund Bollifant for Simon Waterson, 1595.
1600
Reges, reginae, nobiles et alii in ecclesia collegiata B. Petri Westmonasterii sepulti. London: Edmund Bollifant.
1603
Anglica, Mormannica, Hibernica, Cambrica, a veteribus scripta, ed. Camden Frankfurt: Claudij Marnij, & hasredum lohannis Aubrij.
40
William Camden
1605
Remaines of a greater work, concerning Britaine: the inhabitants thereof, their languages, names, surnames, empreses, wise speeches, poesies, and epitaphs. London: Printed by G[eorge] E[ld] for Simon Waterson.
1615
Annales rerum Anglicarum, et Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha, ad annum salutis M. D. LXXXIX. London: Guilielmi Stansbij for Simon Waterson. English translation in 1625.
1625
Annales Anglicarum, et Hibernacarum, regnante Elizabetha. Leiden: Elsevier.
1691
V. cl. Gulielmi Camdeni et Illustrium virorum ad G. Camdenum Epistolae, ed. Thomas Smith. [Selection of Camden's letters]. London: R. Chiswell.
1771
Thomas Hearne (ed.), A Collection of Curious Discourses Written by Eminent Antiquarians, London, W. and J. Richardson. [Contains Camden's presentations to the Society of Antiquaries]
1975
'Poems by William Camden, with notes and translations from the Latin', ed. and trans. G.B.Johnston, Studies in Philology, 72, 1975.
3. CONTEXTUAL REFERENCES MENTIONED IN THE TEXT Abbot, G. (1605), A Briefe Description of the Whole Worlde, 3rd edn, London: John Browne. Anderson, B. (1991), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd edn, London: Verso. Armitage, D. (2000), The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Berggren, J. L., and A. Jones (eds. and trans), (2000), Ptolemy's Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Camden, W. (1610), Britain, or a chorographicall description of the most flourishing kingdoms, England, Scotland and Ireland, trans. Philemon Holland, London: George Bishop and John Norton. Camden, W. (1870), Remains Concerning Britain, London: John Russell Smith. Camden, W. (1970), The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, Late Queen of England, ed. Wallace T. MacCaffrey, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Carpenter, N. (1625), Geography Delineated Forth In Two Books, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cormack, L. (1997), Charting an Empire : Geography at the English Universities, 1580— 1620, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DeMolen, R. (1984), 'The Library of William Camden', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 128, 1984, 327-109. Evans, J. (1956), A History of the Society of Antiquities, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gibson, E. (ed.) (1695), Camden's Britannia, Newly Translated into English: With Large Additions and Improvements, London: A. Swalle and A. and J. Churchill.
William Camden
41
Gough, R. (ed.) (1789), Britain: or A Chorographical Description of the Flourishing Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 3 vols., London: T. Payne and Son and G.G.J. and J. Robertson. Helgerson, R. (1992), Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hepple, L. (2003), 'William Camden and Early Collections of Roman Antiquities in Britain', Journal of the History of Collections, 15, 159—73. Heylyn, P. (1657), Cosmographie in Foure Books, 2nd edn, London: Henry Seile. Lestringant, F. (1994), Mapping the Renaissance World: The Geographical World in the Age of Discovery, Oxford: Polity Press. McCulloch, J. R. (1856), A Catalogue of Books, The Property of a Political Economist, London: Privately Printed. Mancall, P. (2007), Hakluyt's Promise: An Elizabethan's Obsession for an English America, New Haven: Yale University Press. Mayhew, R. (2000), 'Edmund Gibson's Editions of Britannia'. Loyalist Chorography and the Particularist Politics of Precedent', Historical Research, 73, 239-61. —
(2004), 'British Geography's Republic of Letters: Mapping an Imagined Community, 1600-1800', Journal of the History of Ideas, 65, 251-276.
—
(2005), 'Geography's English Revolutions: Oxford Geography and the War of Ideas', in David Livingstone and Charles Withers (eds.), Geography and Revolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 243—72.
Mendyk, S. (1989), Speculum Britanniae: Regional Study, Antiquarianism, and Science in Britain to 1700, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Ogborn, M. (2007), Indian Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Parry, G. (1995), The Trophies of Time: English Antiquarians of the Seventeenth Century, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pincombe, M. (2001), Elizabethan Humanism: Literature and Learning in the later sixteenth century, London: Longmans. Salmon, N. (1731), A Mew Survey of England, 2 vols., London: J. Walthoe. Sweet, R. (2004), Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth Century Britain, London: Hambledon. Wheare, D. (1710), The method and order of reading both civil and ecclesiastical histories, trans. Edmund Bohun, London: R Bonwicke et al. Withers, C. W. J. (2001) Geography, Science and National Identity: Scotland since 1520, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —
(2005), 'Working with Old Maps: Tracing the Reception and Legacy of Blaeu's 1654 Atlas Novus', Scottish Geographical Journal, 121, 297-309.
42
William Camden
Chronology 1551
Born 2 May, Old Bailey, London
1563-6
Attends St Paul's School, London
1566—71
Attends Oxford University — Magdalen College, Broadgates Hall and Christ Church College
1575—93
Second Master at Westminster School
1586
First Edition of Britannia
1589
Prebend of Ilfracombe, Stall in Salisbury Cathedral
1593—97
Headmaster, Westminster School
1597—1623 Clarenceux King of Arms 1605
Publishes Remaines concerning Britain
1615
Publishes first part of Annales
1620
Establishes lectureship in civil history at Oxford University
1623
Dies 9 November at Chislehurst
This essay is dedicated to the memory of a fellow devotee of Camden, Les Hepple (1947-2007).
William Desborough Cooley 1795-1883
Roy Bridges
William Desborough Cooley is too often forgotten by present-day geographers. Yet for a period in the nineteenth century he had both a British and a European reputation. Cooley was a prolific writer on geographical and related topics, especially those concerning discovery and exploration and in this field he was, in fact, the quintessential 'armchair geographer'. Unfortunately, his willingness to question the information provided by practical travellers brought him into disrepute and ultimately made him a subject of derision. His penchant for controversy, together with his long-standing grudges, alienated him from leading members of the Royal Geographical Society (hereafter RGS) who constituted the geographical establishment in Britain. A more fundamental explanation for his loss of standing is that, in many respects, Cooley remained a product of the Enlightenment and its learning rather than of the more specialist sciences of his day which were to transform geography. Even so, his positive achievements in matters related to African geography remain noteworthy. His career also throws light on geographical endeavour in Britain during the nineteenth century.
Cooley's Career Very little is known of Cooley's private life. There seems to be no evidence that any of his papers were preserved much beyond the few examples mentioned in the Bibliography here. Of the few substantial accounts of Cooley's life, the first mainly highlights Cooley's contributions to the study of Africa (Bridges 1976). At the time of its sesquicentenary, the Hakluyt Society's foundation by Cooley was described (Bridges 1996). A third contribution is the updating of his entry for the new Oxford
44
William Desborough Cooley
Dictionary of National Biography (Bridges 2004). The original entry (Cooper 1887), following the example of the RGS obituary (Anon. 1883c), had not mentioned the Hakluyt Society. William Desborough Cooley was born on or about the 16 March 1795 in Dublin where his father, also William, was a barrister. His mother, Emily, was the daughter of a sculptor, Richard Cranfield. William Cooley the elder was himself the son of the distinguished architect, Thomas Cooley (1740/41-1784). The Oxford DMB article on the latter refers to a son, also called Thomas, as having been born to William the barrister in 1795 (Rowan 2004). It follows that William Desborough and the younger Thomas must have been twins. Thomas Cooley the younger became a portrait painter of some note despite the fact that he was deaf and dumb. Thomas studied and worked in London in the years 1811 — 1823 before returning to Dublin. He died in 1872. He painted a portrait of his geographer brother but its whereabouts is now difficult to establish (Strickland 1913). This evidence suggests that William Desborough Cooley's own deafness must have been congenital; it had probably become almost complete by 1862 judging from a letter he then wrote to the RGS. Secretary (RGS Archives, Correspondence File, Cooley to Shaw, 20 Jan 1862). Desborough Cooley (as he was often known) was educated by a private tutor before he entered Trinity College Dublin in 1811 as a 'pensioner' — that is someone who paid his own fees. He graduated A.B. in 1816 having studied mathematics and other subjects under the distinguished academic reformer, Dr Benjamin Lloyd (Burtchaell and Sadleir 1924). Cooley's mathematical interests were later to have an impact on his geographical work but they may have been more immediately important in providing him with some sort of income because he produced school text books on Euclid (Cooley 1840b, 1840c, 1840d). These works offered a very clear digest of Euclid's plane geometry — a digest which was necessary, Cooley remarked, because Euclid himself was 'verbose and repetitive'. Euclid was by no means the first or only authority whom Cooley would criticize. More interestingly, he also remarked that mathematics directed attention to the external world so enabling one to 'comprehend the laws by which it is regulated' and thus to avoid 'the numerous verbal tenets which occasion such vehement and interminable disputation in society' (Cooley 1840b, 10). This was surprising coming from someone himself so inclined to be disputatious but the thought may well indicate that Cooley believed that it was possible to reach certain conclusions if one followed the light of pure reason in order to comprehend the laws regulating the physical world. It would appear from the publishers' advertisements that Cooley's textbooks were well received by teachers and a new edition of Euclid came out in 1860 (Cooley 1860a). Whether Cooley practised his mathematical skills when he emerged as a 21year-old graduate in 1816 is not clear. Indeed, nothing certain is known of the next ten or a dozen years of his life although there are indications that he wrote on political questions such as Ireland or slave emancipation in the West Indies. He must, however, have been building up an interest in geographical questions by compiling a catalogue of 7,000 geographical works and accumulating his own considerable library of books on the subject as he later mentioned to a House of Commons inquiry on the British Museum (House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1850). By 1828, Cooley seems to have been settled in London and had begun to produce books and articles mostly on geographical matters. The first known by the author is an article on Turkey for the Foreign Quarterly Review (Cooley 1828). The flow of writings was to continue for almost 50 years. From about 1830 to 1850, Cooley was at the height of his own powers and his
William Desborough Cooley
45
influence on others. During the 1830s, major articles were contributed to the Foreign Quarterly Review and the Edinburgh Review while he had some sort of editorial position with the Athenaeum (Marchand 1941)^ the periodical which would later contain so many of his controversial pronouncements questioning the accuracy of the reports brought back from Eastern and Central Africa by practical travellers, especially those associated with the RGS. In this period, moreover, he became closely involved with the then newly-founded Society. Most notable in this period was his three-volume History of Maritime and Inland Discovery (Cooley 1830—31). This was the first comprehensive history of the subject. In the 1840s, Cooley produced two major works on African geography (Cooley 1841, 1845a) and founded what is his greatest memorial, the Hakluyt Society. Presumably his books and articles provided him with an income large enough for him to live in the Bloomsbury area of London; there is no record of his holding any regular salaried post. Despite his successes in this period, Cooley had already begun to show a propensity to pick quarrels and to denigrate those with whom he disagreed on geographical matters. He seems first to have attracted general notice by exposing a traveller named J. B. Douville as a fraud. Douville was believed to have explored the territories beyond the Portuguese settlements in what we now call Angola (Douville 1832). His descriptions had earned him a medal from the Paris Geographical Society and acclaim in London before Cooley showed up inconsistencies in his claims in a review which began: 'Africa, distinguished in all ages as a land of prodigies and wonders, has never given birth to anything more extraordinary than the volumes now before us' (Cooley 1832, 163). In 1835, Cooley attacked the paid Secretary of the RGS, Captain Alexander Maconochie, for some kind of misconduct which much later evidence reveals to have been an allegation that the Captain had embezzled Cooley's subscription to the Society. Maconochie offered to fight a duel but the Society's investigators said Cooley's charges were both 'extraordinary' and 'lamely supported'. Cooley had to back down and resign his vice-presidency of the Society (RGS Archives, Committee Minutes 14 Aug 1834; 19 Oct, 21 Dec 1835). From about 1850 to 1866, Cooley continued to write prolifically but also to engage more and more in controversies, principally over questions related to African geography. This was the period in which the interior of tropical Africa was entered by scientific explorers capable of providing reasonably reliable descriptions of the positions of rivers, lakes, mountains and people. Cooley did not hesitate to castigate the mistakes which he thought even so great an observer as Livingstone had made. Attacks on practical travellers on the basis of his 'theoretical discoveries' began to seem tiresome, if not ridiculous, and by the end of this period he had ceased to have much credence among British geographers. It is worth noting, however, that some of his writing from this period, such as what he had to say about Ptolemy's geographical evidence, has more of a lasting significance. Cooley's health began to decline by 1850 and, as noted above, he became deaf. This may explain why, for example, he found it difficult efficiently to manage his own creation, the Hakluyt Society, as its first Secretary (Bridges 1996, 74—7). One can imagine, too, that an increasing sense of isolation caused by his deafness would make it difficult for him to engage in friendly debate with others and to learn to modify the ideas that he had developed earlier in his life. There are indications that his writing now earned him less; he moved into cheaper lodgings near King's Cross and was threatened by real poverty. It is to the credit of the RGS that, despite his constant attacks upon the institution, they arranged for Cooley to receive a Civil List pension in 1859 and accorded him free membership in 1864. The Civil List pension of £100 per annum was, in his later years, almost his sole means of support (Anon. 1883c).
46
William Desborough Cooley
From about 1866, when he was well into his seventies, Cooley produced fewer works than in previous decades. Even so, two substantial books appeared. One, typically, was a diatribe against Dr Livingstone and the RGS (Cooley 1874). Everyone else then regarded Livingstone as a living saint which makes Cooley's book remarkable enough. Nor was it entirely without justification in criticising the way the Society had tried to capitalize on the great man's reputation. More interesting and significant in these last years was the 80-year-old savant's Physical Geography (Cooley 1876). This work may be a truer memorial to the man than his criticisms of other geographers. It is truer also in a more profound sense since, as argued below, it reveals that Cooley was something of an anachronistic relic of the Enlightenment who had never come to terms with the great nineteenth-century developments in the biological and geological sciences which so affected geographical study. Perhaps towards the end of his life Cooley had learned to moderate his strictures on other geographers. He gifted sixty books to the RGS in 1880. When he died, the Society's somewhat dismissive but nevertheless reasonably respectful obituary (Anon. 1883c) set the tone for those in the Athenaeum and the Times (Anon. 1883a; Anon. 1883b). Cooley died on 1 March 1883 in Crowndale Road, Somers Town in London with a wealth at death of just over £1,000 (Bridges 2004).
Cooley's Geographical Scholarship In an age when there was still much ignorance or uncertainty about the existence of many of the major natural features and human habitations of the Earth or about their actual positions, Cooley performed a valuable service in eliciting data from classical, Arab and other earlier sources of evidence. As practical scientific exploration proceeded, his writings came to be seen as irrelevant, wrong, or even ridiculous. To regard these statements as the final judgement on Cooley would leave him meriting only a footnote in the history of geography. Closer examination of his work reveals that his attempts to carry out what he saw in about 1830 as being the most important task of geography, namely, to 'establish the relative positions of places' (Cooley 1830—1, III, 2) did yield useful materials for scholars in geography and allied disciplines. Later, Cooley attempted to carry geography forward in other ways. It is a matter for regret that his African pre-occupations left him little time to develop his ideas about the relationship between the physical environment and human development. Elements of these lesser-known aspects of his work merit attention as well as the controversies for which he is generally remembered. MATHEMATICS
AND
INSTRUMENTATION
Cooley's mathematical training led him to take an interest in practical surveying. His Maritime and Inland Discovery (1830—31) had made it clear that he regarded men like Giovanni Cassini, Joseph Delisle, Jean Bourgignon D'Anville and, above all, Edmund Halley as luminaries whose astronomical and cartographic work had made possible the means by which geographers could establish positions accurately (Cooley 1830—31, III, 3—12). Cooley believed that he could design a new and improved type of sextant and entered into negotiations with the RGS between 1833 and 1843 about getting the instrument constructed but there is no evidence that the project was successful. Nor did the advice he apparently gave on magnetic
William Desborough Cooley
47
surveying lead to any positive result (RGS Archives, Council Minutes 1833/1834; Letter Book 1841/1843). At least it can be argued that Cooley realized that there were 'errors to which systematical geography tends, while it is not yet founded on science' (Cooley 1841, xx) and that he was trying to do something about improving the foundation. COOLEY AS AN ORGANIZER OF GEOGRAPHICAL ACTIVITY: THE RGS AND THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY Having emerged as a notable writer on geographical subjects, Cooley was elected a Fellow of the newly-founded RGS in 1831 and later became, for a short time, Acting Secretary and Vice-President. Cooley's position allowed him to persuade influential men associated with the Society that it would be worth promoting expeditions to regions which his own historical and contemporary investigations had shown to be of interest. The interior of Eastern and Southern Africa was one of the least known parts of the world so far as formal geographical information was concerned and one in which Cooley had already begun to take a close interest. In July 1833, he presented a paper to the RGS reporting that he had established that there were peoples living in the region who had 'some degree of industry and civilization', a contention he based on evidence he gleaned from earlier Portuguese contacts with the gold producers of the Zimbabwean Plateau (Cooley 1833b). A further publication (Cooley 1834) argued that an expedition from Delagoa Bay might yield worthwhile commercial as well as geographical data. The RGS Council took up the suggestion, chose Captain James Alexander as the explorer and voted him the somewhat inadequate sum of £50 for his expenses. In the event, Alexander cost the Society £750 and, to Cooley's chagrin, did not even get to Delagoa Bay, choosing instead to make a minor foray into South West Africa (Alexander 1838). Another expedition which Cooley tried to arrange was a follow-up to the activities on the East African coast of Captain William Fitzwilliam Owen during his great hydrographical survey of Africa and Arabia. Cooley had reviewed Boteler's account of the survey (Cooley 1835), met Owen and corresponded with Lt. J. B. Emery who had been deployed as Governor of Mombasa when Owen tried to take it under British control in 1822—4. Under the plan, Owen was to be appointed British Consul General for Eastern Africa and Emery to travel inland to the great lake he had heard about while he was in Mombasa. At that time, Emery had employed one Khamis bin Othman as an interpreter. Khamis came to Britain in 1834 and Cooley interviewed him as part of the preparations for the expedition. Although Emery eventually agreed to return to East Africa, no funds could be raised to make it possible, nor would the Government appoint Owen, and so Cooley's attempt to get an explorer into the Eastern African interior was thwarted once again. He made further attempts in 1837 and 1845 but to no avail (Bridges 1976, 30—32). These attempts were made when the RGS was neither prosperous nor had yet fully developed the technique of obtaining government support for expeditions. This was Cooley's bad luck although his dispute with Captain Maconochie must already have undermined his credibility with the Society. Had Cooley's plans been more successful, perhaps he would not have been thrown back to relying so entirely and, as it proved, so unwisely, upon his own deductions from the uncertain evidence he had to hand. Cooley made two other major organizational efforts. One was a publishing initiative called The World Surveyed (Cooley 1845b) which did not last long. The other was successful and long enduring. Yet even this — the founding of the Hakluyt Society in 1846 — did not have quite the result intended. Both of these initiatives
48
William Desborough Cooley
were reactions by Cooley to what he regarded as the failings of geographers in Britain in general and those connected with the RGS in particular. In the first place, these geographers failed to take enough notice of the work of contemporary non-British geographers and travellers. This omission would be corrected by the publishing venture providing translations of important geographical works little known because of language barriers. In the second place, Cooley, together in this instance with a reasonable number of supporters, argued that insufficient attention was paid by British geographers to the wealth of information available to them from the past. This was to be remedied by the publication of suitable texts by the Hakluyt Society. Ironically, the insular attitude which Cooley deplored affected his new Society. He had proposed to call it the 'Columbus Society' but chauvinism, or perhaps a realization of the need to attract British subscribers, led his associates to persuade him to call it after Hakluyt, a name associated with early English overseas enterprise. In the end, Cooley was vindicated: the majority of the more than 200 texts the Society has published since 1846 have been non-British. A full account of the foundation and early years of the Hakluyt Society is available elsewhere (Bridges 1996) and is not appropriate here. It is worth noting, however, that the success of the Hakluyt Society has been essentially as a body promoting an understanding of travel and the encounters between different human groups in world history; even in its earliest years, its texts were not chosen with a view to filling gaps in current knowledge of a particular region. Oddly, Cooley's own solitary edition for the Society was an account of Drake's 1595 venture against the Spanish which had little, if any, geographical importance (Cooley 1849b). The first of the World Surveyed ventures was Cooley's translation from the German (and an abridgement to a quarter of its original length) of Friedrich Parrot's account of his travels in the region of Mount Ararat, the summit of which he had reached in 1829 (Parrot 1845). Cooley's translation clearly involved enormous effort. He added an appendix of his own on the level of the Caspian Sea, thus showing an interest in physical geography to match that of the earnest German scientist who wrote about what would today be called geophysics. Adolf Erman, to whom the RGS had actually awarded one of its medals, was another German scientist traveller whose account of Siberia Cooley could not reduce into less than two rather dull volumes (Cooley 1848; Erman 1848). Since the Longman firm declined to publish any more in the series, Cooley's scheme came to a disappointing end. In introducing Parrot's volume, Cooley had written that 'there is no study more delightful or practically more useful than that which makes us acquainted with the earth and its inhabitants' because, he added, 'it leads us to understand the laws of nature and we have before us the brilliant example of Alexander von Humboldt' (Parrot 1845, v). Perhaps Cooley would have been better employed in improving geography had he made efforts to bring Humboldt to serious notice in Britain. COOLEY'S HISTORICAL WORK Cooley's great achievement in founding the Hakluyt Society was more of a literary and historical success than a strictly geographical one. The same verdict could be given on much of the other work that he did in attempting to further geography. As we have seen, Cooley did believe geography needed historical information to help establish 'the relative position of places' — still a pressing concern in the 1830s and 1840s. Even his Maritime and Inland Discovery (which was intended as history) he saw as a necessary preparation for contemporary geographical investigations by showing where information was available and where it was lacking (Cooley 1830— 31, 111,2).
William Desborough Cooley
49
Maritime and Inland Discovery was published in three volumes as part of Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia series in 1830—1. Although the author was not named, it soon became generally known that it was Cooley (Anon. 1832). Its success was signalled by the appearance of an American edition in 1833 (Cooley 1833a), translations into Dutch (Cooley, 1835—7), and French (Cooley 1840a) and a second British edition by 1848 and an Italian edition in 1850 (Cooley 1846-8, 1850). The work was still in use 40 or 50 years later. The editor of a compendium on Captain Cook's work in about 1874 thought it appropriate to use long passages to put the great navigator's exploits into context (Purves n.d., 5—8, 52—69, 347—51). In 1885, Novo y Colson, who brought out the first published account of the expedition of Alejandro Malaspina, acknowledged that he had been inspired to do so by reading Maritime and Inland Discovery (Novo y Colson 1885, 28, 285-6). Whatever the work's intrinsic merits, the fact that it was the first ever history of the process by which all parts of the globe became known to one another is no doubt one reason for its success. There had been many collections of travels previously, not least those published by Richard Hakluyt in 1589 and 1598—1600. Yet no one before Cooley had attempted to analyse the progress of exploration from the time of the Ancient World to the present as an historical process. Although the work may have played a small part in persuading contemporaries to initiate exploration in regions for which information was lacking, Cooley actually began the work with another and slightly different justification for what he was trying to do. 'The history of the progress of geographical knowledge', he wrote, 'is calculated more than any other branch of learning to illustrate the progressive civilisation of mankind.' He ended the work with the interesting judgement that national jealousies and religious bigotry were greater obstacles to the progress of geographical knowledge than seas and mountains (Cooley 1830—31, I, 1; III, 362). In Maritime and Inland Discovery, Cooley justified his attention to the very earliest geographical accounts because, he said, among the exaggerations and fables 'we find a few threads of consistent fact' (Cooley 1830—31, I, 2). Here was the germ of the idea for a technique which Cooley was later to call 'rectification of sources'. The principle was developed in the book that was the result of detailed historical investigation and in some ways his most impressive work, The Megroland of the Arabs (Cooley 1841). This was intended as a contribution to contemporary knowledge of West Africa's geography — establishing the 'relative position of places' in that part of the world. The book owed much to Cooley's friendship with its dedicatee, a Spanish exile, Don Pascual de Gayangos (1809—97), who had located and drawn upon Arabic sources for the history of his own country. He helped Cooley find and use similar sources for the understanding of Sudanic West Africa, especially the travellers Al Bekri (died 1094), Al Idrisi (died 1166), Ibn Batutah (died 1377) (Geographers Vol. 14) and Ibn Khaldun (died 1406). It is doubtful, however, that Cooley ever became proficient in Arabic to any great extent. Cooley's new technique was to work out whether an author could have known the things he claimed to know. More importantly, he reckoned he could understand his authors and the factors which affected the way that they presented their information and then trace the effects of the means by which their testimonies had been transmitted, including the hazards of translation. This aspect of his method sounds remarkably like modern-day textual scholarship and it may well be that his approach would find favour among some present-day geographers. Be that as it may, Cooley's object in 1841 was to correct errors in geography current in his time such as that of James Rennell (Geographers Vol. 1) who, for example, confused Kano and Ghana. Cooley also aimed to illuminate the work of recent travellers such as Hugh Clapperton by fitting them into what he regarded as a correct framework. In great
50
William Desborough Cooley
contrast to what was to happen in relation to Eastern Africa, Cooley actually managed to gain the respect of the greatest of nineteenth-century travellers in Sudanic West Africa, Heinrich Barth, with whom he corresponded in the 1850s (Bridges 1976, 276). Of course, medieval sources could not remain unchangingly relevant and Cooley did not know about the changes caused in West Africa by the recent jihad of Uthman dan Fodio. Uthman, a Fulani Islamic scholar, preached against laxities in the Hausa kingdoms of the area that is now roughly Northern Nigeria. These kingdoms were taken over by the Fulani between 1804 and 1809 and Uthman and his son, Mohammed Bello, set up a new 'empire' based on Sokoto. Bornu successfully resisted the jihad and became a rival power. Hence the political geography which Cooley learned had been significantly changed. Cooley also greatly exaggerated the accuracy of the results of his 'rectification' process. Once again, then, Cooley's Megroland was less a contribution to current geography than to historical understanding but its success was important. According to Philip Curtin, Cooley is to be praised for revealing that West Africa was not the site of a 'changeless barbarism' but a region where sophisticated societies had produced civilizations (Curtin 1965, 336). A more important verdict is that of Pekka Masonen who in 2000 produced an impressive scholarly account of the middle ages in the West African Sudan: 'The real honour of establishing [the] modern historiography of Sudanic Africa' [he writes], 'indisputably belongs to William Desborough Cooley' (Masonen 2000, 238). Most European geographers seeking information from earlier sources would have turned to classical authorities more readily than to Arab travellers. Cooley thought it was even more necessary for him to apply his rectification procedures to some of the great classical figures. He turned first to Herodotus and then to Ptolemy. Herodotus had been considered in Maritime and Inland Discovery. The great historian's travels and especially his long residence in Egypt during the fifth century BG had given him many opportunities to acquire geographical information. For Cooley, the work of Herodotus was a 'precious gift' which could still be consulted with 'profit and delight'. His information was generally correct despite his repeating some fables. Cooley complained, however, that modern geographers who drew on Herodotus took far too many liberties with the text — for example in trying to identify the Scythians (Cooley 1830—31, I, 27—45). It was in order to correct such tendencies that Cooley in 1844 turned to Pierre Larcher's Motes on Herodotus (Cooley, 1844). Larcher was a late eighteenth-century French scholar whose Motes were first published in 1786 (Larcher 1786). Typically, Cooley claimed he could reduce the length of Larcher's notes by excising 'useless matter' without impairing their value. He would then bring them up to date with his own additions — which were not in fact unduly extensive (Cooley 1844, I, v—vii). He differed with Larcher over whether Herodotus actually believed the Phoenicians had circumnavigated Africa, doubted whether the Nasamonians had reached Timbuktu, debated the existence of snow on the Ethiopian mountains and devoted some pages to the two passages in which Herodotus had discussed the sources of the Nile (Cooley 1844, I, 26-30, 229, 231-33, 240-41). In the case of the last-named problem, Cooley held that neither Herodotus nor, later, Ptolemy, knew anything of the White Nile; the sources of which they heard were those of the Blue Nile. Cooley himself seems to have thought that the White Nile was comparatively insignificant and contributed little to the floods of Egypt. This may explain the rather surprising fact that he did not become deeply embroiled in the great controversies of the 1860s and 1870s on the source of the Nile. Certainly, Cooley gave no more credit than had Herodotus himself to the story of the unfathomably deep fountains of the Nile beside the hills of Crophi and Mophi (Cooley 1844, I, 234).
William Desborough Cooley
51
In his notes on Herodotus, Cooley showed a less than reverential attitude to the second-century AD Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy. Ten years later, he set out his reservations in his Ptolemy and the Mile (Cooley 1854). This is an essay of 113 pages in which Cooley demonstrated that modern authorities, from D'Anville onwards, had attributed to Ptolemy a knowledge of the African interior which he could not possibly have possessed. The moderns should also realize, added Cooley, that some of the key passages on the Nile sources and on the so-called 'Mountains of the Moon' were not Ptolemy's own work but later insertions. More especially, the alleged journey of one Diogenes to the two lakes at the source of the Nile was not only a late addition to the text provided by Marinus of Tyre but also related to the 'Nile of Mogadishu', that is, the Webbe [Shaballe] River. Cooley further weakened Ptolemy's reputation by showing that the air of scientific accuracy given to his work by the provision of latitudes and longitudes was misleading: close examination showed the co-ordinates to be wrong (Cooley 1854, 2, 3, 13, 26-7, 55-6, 76-85, 92). A modern author writing about the astronomy on which the Alexandrian's coordinates was based certainly avers that it was fabricated: 'Ptolemy is the most successful fraud in the history of science' (Newton 1978, 379). There remain scholars prepared to take Ptolemy's evidence more seriously than Cooley had done and a much larger number of credulous commentators who think they can locate the 'Mountains of the Moon' or the two lakes. It is a pity that, by the end of his life, Cooley's reputation had been so undermined that only a few scholars have subsequently taken his work on Ptolemy seriously. Cooley was almost certainly right to believe that Ptolemy's Nile was really the Blue Nile and that although the Alexandrian geographer's information was stretched out to cover areas apparently further south, he really knew nothing of the White Nile (Crawford 1949). Two other considerable works resulted from Cooley's researches on Eastern Africa as depicted in classical and later sources of evidence. In 1849, a major article on Somalia convincingly showed it to have been the 'Regio Cinnamomifera' of the ancients — in other words, their source of spices. The interest which his account generated among certain contemporary officials had considerable influence on the decision to send Richard Burton's expedition to the Horn of Africa in 1854 (Cooley 1849a; RGS Archives, Letter Book, Smith to Galloway, 11 Mar 1850). The other, much later work, was a long article in French on the account of Ethiopia left by Pedro Paez, a Jesuit priest who had reached the source of the Blue Nile in 1609. Cooley shows how the text had been handed down in a major example of one of his 'rectification of sources' exercises (Cooley 1872). His work continued to be referred to as an important account of Paez in the Encyclopedia Britannica until the 1911 edition at least. COOLEY AND CONTEMPORARY GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERIES IN AFRICA Since it was fundamental to Cooley's thinking that historical evidence should be brought to bear on contemporary geographical problems, it is rather artificial to separate his work on historical sources from his reactions to those current problems. Nevertheless, a very large number of his publications were comments on recent exploratory expeditions and their implications. Cooley did not hesitate to tell travellers and observers as eminent as Burton or Livingstone that they were wrong and too often did so in rather intemperate language. Not surprisingly, the explorers tended to react with irritation and anger. Cooley's researches in the 1830s and 1840s had led him to develop certain ideas about features of the interior of Africa which he was most unwilling to abandon or to modify in the face of testimony from a scientific traveller.
52
William Desborough Cooley
One can list the major propositions that were in the end to lead to his authority being discounted and ridiculed. First, Cooley denied that there was snow on the summits of the mountains Kilimanjaro and Kenya. The missionaries Rebmann and Krapf, with their 'eager craving for wonders, and childish reasoning', had reported that there was in 1848—9. Cooley's evidence suggested otherwise and, in any case, he averred, Kilimanjaro was 'on a fifth of the scale' needed to sustain snow — a statement which rather undermines one's confidence in his command of physical geography. Not until 1874 did he concede even that there might be intermittent freezing (Cooley 1849c; Cooley 1852, 75-109; Cooley 1854, 96; Cooley 1874, 70). More generally, Cooley thought that he was better able to interpret what geographical information Krapf and Rebmann had acquired in East Africa than they were themselves and produced a map to demonstrate this (Cooley c.1850). A second and more important assumption made by Cooley was that what we know as Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika was one continuous water — 'Lake Nyassi' — which he himself had 'discovered' by writing his review article of 1835 and, especially, his 'Geography of Nyassi' contribution to the RGS Journal of 1845. Although by 1857 it was clear that there were two lakes, this was not directly proved by a traveller until Livingstone (even then to the disbelief of Cooley) passed between the two lakes in 1872 (Cooley 1835; Cooley 1845a; Cooley 1852, 73-4; Cooley 1856a, 36). Cooley's third major delusion, which he continued to hold until the end of his life, was that the Zambesi River basin was altogether east of the 30° meridian; the waters in the further interior, including the Victoria Falls, were part of a separate river system, regardless of Livingstone's believing he had reached the Upper Zambesi in 1851 and then travelled its course eastward to the Indian Ocean on his great transcontinental journey of 1854—56 (Cooley 1852, 22—3, 133^f and maps; Cooley 1855; Cooley 1856b). He continued to hold this view (Cooley 1866; Cooley 1874, 14, 16-17). These ideas of Cooley's, together with many related issues, were set out most fully in his Inner Africa Laid Open of 1852 and on a separately printed map (Cooley 1853). This was just before the great series of explorations by Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Stanley and others that revealed the main features of East Africa's interior. The conclusions of Inner Africa were never seriously modified, and these Cooley also asserted in many vigorously-written articles for periodicals, especially the Athenaeum. The details of all the arguments that raged are now rather irrelevant; for the most part, they revolved around the three major delusions outlined above. Cooley's articles attracted rejoinders from other 'armchair geographers' as well as from, for example, Richard Burton, a pioneer practical traveller in East Africa. Burton resented Cooley's review in the Athenaeum of his account of his 1856—8 expedition (Cooley 1860b) and considered that, having actually visited Lake Tanganyika, he was a better authority than Cooley. He also claimed he knew more about languages. Their disputes dragged on for some years, principally over the one lake idea and over whether the African area Unyamwezi, whose name could be translated as the 'Land of the Moon', had anything to do with the 'Mountains of the Moon' shown on alleged Ptolemaic maps. Burton was provoked to dub Cooley 'a complete failure' (Burton 1864, 408). Cooley was provoked in turn to assert in a specially published booklet that: T venture to suggest that the chief results of Captain Burton's visit to the Lake Regions of Africa, as related by him, are totally erroneous.' (Cooley 1864b, 3). Cooley's obituary in the Athenaeum, the periodical to which he had contributed almost a hundred articles, reviews, letters and comments in the 1850s and 1860s, spoke of the 'singular tenacity' with which he held to his views adding tactfully that he had the credit of 'having first dealt in a scientific spirit with questions which
William Desborough Cooley
53
have since been solved by actual observations.' (Anon. 1883a). One can add that the controversies did heighten interest in the exploration of the African interior. What, however, the controversies tend to conceal is that, in his attempts to elucidate contemporary problems, Cooley did produce some worthwhile and interesting information and ideas despite his stubborn mistakes over a few major issues. He frequently used linguistic evidence to back his arguments. He realized that what we call the Bantu languages were all related, proposed to designate them 'Austral-Ethiopian' or, later, 'Zingian' and claimed to be composing a grammar for them (RGS Archives, Evening Minutes, 8 July 1833; Correspondence File, Cooley to Shaw, 1 February 1850; Cooley 1833b; Cooley 1845a, 193). In other respects, too, Cooley took African culture more seriously and sensibly than most other commentators at the time (Bridges 1976, 275). Above all, his methodology — the 'rectification of sources' — was basically sensible. It might merely expose a fraud like Douville's or a mistake like Speke's in accepting as genuine a forged 'ancient Hindu map' of Eastern Africa (Cooley 1864c), but it could also lead to major rethinking about so important an authority as Ptolemy. Moreover, Cooley, unlike most contemporary European geographers, was ready to look at unfamiliar sources. Not only did he, for example, draw on medieval Arab travellers, he was also prepared to listen to the testimony of a contemporary Arab trader and his illiterate slave. The fruits were evident in the 1835 and 1845 works on 'Lake Nyassi'. The fact that Cooley was wrong about the lake should not be allowed to obscure the important information which Mohammed bin Nassur, Khamis bin Othman and the slave Nasib provided about the major trade routes and the places along them in East Africa. It is worth adding that Cooley used contemporary and near-contemporary Portuguese sources which most British geographers, including Livingstone, discounted or ignored (Cooley 1835; Cooley 1845a; Cooley 1852, 78; Cooley, 1860b). Of course, his linguistic pronouncements went far beyond his or anyone else's real knowledge of African languages, while his comments on African culture and source materials were easily ignored in the controversies over the positions of lakes and mountains and rivers. If only Cooley had had the good sense or the humility to modify his ideas as firsthand data came in, his standing, both at the time and later, might have been much greater. There would have been some plausibility in a claim that he had 'discovered' Lake Tanganyika, for example; Burton, initially at least, was prepared to acknowledge the importance of what Cooley had established ten years before he and Speke reached the lake (Burton 1859, 3). As it was, a turning point came in 1864 when the RGS refused to print the text of a paper which Cooley had delivered to a meeting, substituting only the barest summary (Cooley 1864a). COOLEY AND PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY Another reason for deploring Cooley's habit of becoming involved in controversies largely of his own making is that they distracted his readers and himself from debating those interesting ideas he had on physical geography and on the response of human societies to physical conditions. Admittedly, the few instances one can find in Cooley's writings of his views on the latter question tend to suggest that he had not progressed far beyond a crude determinism. Yet he was writing at a time when, in Britain at least, the division between, on the one hand, 'physical geography', which was more or less identical with geology, and on the other, 'political geography', was almost absolute. Certainly, the publications of the RGS, overwhelmingly concerned with the results of exploration, rarely covered broader questions of physical or human geography even if respectful attention was
54
William Desborough Cooley
occasionally given to Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter (Geographers Vol. 5) or the home-grown physical geographer, Mary Somerville (Geographers Vol. 2). In his Maritime and Inland Discovery, Cooley offered vague remarks about the wants of primitive peoples encouraging migrations. No theory was either worked out or proposed. The book did show, however, that Cooley was aware that geography — even if it was essentially concerned with the 'relative position of places' — needed to be based on precise science. Indeed, he approvingly quoted von Humboldt on the relations between geography and physical sciences (Cooley 1830— 31,1, 1—2, 12, 248, 274). Ten years later, in his Megroland, Cooley included a short passage which, while pointing to the considerable levels of civilization attained by the Sudanic empires of West Africa, said that there was also barbarism — which is 'supported by natural circumstances with which it is vain to think of coping'. Barbarism was indicated to Cooley by the existence of slavery. And it was the desert that provided 'the great nursery of slave hunters'. Consequently, the towns on the southern edge of the Sahara were demoralized. The conditions were not to be changed because in desert and semi-desert areas, slaves were the only forms of riches (Cooley 1841, 139). Stated thus, the argument is inadequate and unconvincing but it reveals that Cooley was capable of reflecting more broadly on the reasons for human conditions. A short passage in Inner Africa over ten years later refers to Cooley's hope that he might reveal 'the chief physical features of that hitherto dark interior, and those most likely to operate on the social condition of mankind' (Cooley 1852, 1). Unfortunately, there is not much sign that he tried to fulfil his own hope. In 1846, Cooley produced what was his only contribution to studies of the geography of the British Isles, a very short paper communicated to the sixteenth summer meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He suggested the desirability of a 'physico-geographical survey of the British islands'. In particular, he argued, agricultural science would benefit if climatic data were recorded for each locality so that its capabilities for particular food crops could be established. Climate defined 'zones of vegetable life'; yet most farmers grew crops which were traditional. Instead, the results of the survey ought to be published and 'given to the people' [Cooley's italics] so that each area could confine itself to the cultivation to which it was most suited (Cooley 1847). Undoubtedly, this was a response both to the famine conditions then afflicting parts of Scotland and Ireland as well as to Robert Peel's repeal of the Corn Laws. Clearly, Cooley knew little about agriculture and ignored geology and soil conditions, while the climatic determinism involved in his explanation was crude indeed. Even so, here, perhaps, was the beginning of what could have been a movement towards a regional geography in which physical and human factors were brought together. Cooley's reluctance to take geology seriously mars his most important work on the scientific bases of geography, his Physical Geography (Cooley 1876). He there mentions geology only to insist that it alone ought not to be regarded as constituting physical geography. This was a fair point to make but did not amount to a reason for excluding it. For Cooley, physical geography was 'the course of Physics reigning on the Earth's surface, over land, sea and air and of which, as it depends to some extent on the features of that surface, Geography is a function'. Grudging concession to the 'features of that surface' is about as far as he goes in discussing what was otherwise also known as physiography and this is despite the fact that he approved of the way Immanuel Kant (Geographers Vol. 4), Alexander von Humboldt and Sir John Herschel gave physical geography much attention and saw it as determining the limits of vegetable and animal forms (Cooley 1876, v, vi-
William Desborough Cooley
55
Some reason for his attitude is given in Cooley's observation that it was the fault of the RGS that geography had been rigidly divided into physical and political with the former meaning only geology. He referred, in a justifiably critical way, to the RGS annual Geography Prize examinations for public schools which the Society organized during the years 1869—1885 in an effort to popularize the subject in education (Mill 1930, 247—8). Cooley complained that 'a feeble and useless attempt is made to distinguish between a description of the Earth and a description and the countries and kingdoms of the Earth, the natural philosophy involved with geographical considerations being in the mean time forgotten'. Somewhat perversely, Cooley then noted that Natural History should not be blended with Physical Science (for reasons he did not clearly explain) and in the end he did not succeed in showing what should be the characteristics of an integration of the physical and human worlds; that task had to await the arrival of Halford Mackinder. Much of Cooley's 1876 work was taken up with describing the various branches of physical geography apart from the geological and biological. Hence we have astronomy, the globe, climate, the oceans, ice and icebergs, and mountains, but only in terms of their influence on climate. There is no substantial discussion of human responses. One gets the impression that Cooley deliberately ignored all the great nineteenth-century developments in geological and biological studies which were then transforming geography. On the other hand, his maps showing isotherms, for example, are clear and up-to-date and he does mention the importance for Western Europe of the Gulf Stream. Towards the end of his 1876 volume, Cooley refers to the work of Charles Lyell. Cooley disliked Lyell's notion of continuous slow change which, he averred, 'conceals much fallacy'. Cooley also rejected the connected principles of uniformitarianism; he believed, for example, that any denudation which took place was immediately compensated for by deposition nearby. What Cooley really wanted, it would appear, was a globe that had been essentially unchanging since the Creation which, he stated, was a once and for all miracle (Cooley 1876, 159—62, 307, 420-21, 425-29). If only we can discover the laws which govern the globe we have now, which is the same as it was at the Creation, we can fully understand physical geography. Perhaps Cooley was trying to get back to the apparent certainties of his mathematical studies which had taught him that we can 'imagine the solidity and sublime ingenuity with which the whole fabric of nature is put together' (Cooley 1840b, 10). Essentially, Cooley remained a product of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment as it manifested itself in the teaching he imbibed at Trinity College Dublin. Although, therefore, there is much of interest in Physical Geography, particularly insofar as the physics of the atmosphere is concerned, the work did not make a breakthrough in the philosophy of the subject or contribute significantly to empirical understanding of the earth's surface form and processes.
Cooley's Influence and Heritage Only two years before Physical Geography, Cooley published his final diatribe against the British geographical establishment entitled Dr Livingstone and the Royal Geographical Society (Cooley 1874). He had first criticized Livingstone as early as 1855 for his 'incorrect geography' (Cooley 1855) and continued to do so later when no one else in Britain dared to question the reports of a man who had become a
56
William Desborough Cooley
national hero. Cooley was mistaken over most of the geographical questions and failed to see how great a field scientist Livingstone had become, but he was certainly justified in criticizing Livingstone's reluctance to accord any credit to other travellers, especially to the Portuguese Jose Monteiro, Antonio Gamitto, and Antonio da Silva Porto and to the Hungarian, Ladislaus Magyar. With equal justification, Cooley also castigated Livingstone's credulity over classical evidence concerning the sources of the Nile. Nor was Cooley altogether wrong to question the way the RGS had promoted Livingstone's fame in order to bolster its own importance. It was a pity, however, that he felt bound to add to this criticism his own 40-year-old grievances about Maconochie and the unresolved question of his subscription. Cooley also remained unwilling even yet to abandon his one-lake theory or really to accept that there was snow on Kilimanjaro (Cooley 1874, 16—18, 24, 26, 32-4, 36, 61-2, 69). Given his refusal to accept corrections or to cease criticizing famous explorers, it is hardly surprising that Cooley was a discredited figure long before he died in 1883. The best that could be said for him, it might seem, is that, at a time when large parts of the world, notably the interior of Africa, remained unvisited by scientific travellers, he was able to provide useful data both from historical and from unconventional contemporary sources. As more and better information became available, Cooley's work became increasingly irrelevant and often irritatingly obtuse. An obvious verdict on him might be, therefore, that he was at best a man of influence in geographical circles in the 1830s and 1840s who now deserves little more than a footnote in the history of geographical study. Yet this would be an unjust verdict or, at least, an incomplete one. Cooley's critical attitude to textual sources and even to practical explorers was a useful antidote to credulity in his own time and remains so. Livingstone, for example, might have saved his own life had he overcome his distaste for 'armchair geographers' and taken note of what Cooley had to teach, especially about the Nile fountains story in Herodotus. He might then have given up his fruitless search for the fountains (Livingstone 1874, I, 284, 337-11, II, 49-52, 177, 302 and map). Burton, Speke, Stanley and many commentators up to the present day would have been well advised to note the doubt Cooley had thrown on the authenticity of the passages in Ptolemy's geography which told of two lakes and the 'Mountains of the Moon' at the head of the Nile. Stanley's In Darkest Africa accepts the Ptolemy myth in a chapter which purports to trace knowledge of the Nile sources from the time of Homer (Stanley 1890, II, 291-312). Perhaps explorers felt the need to validate their own work by giving it classical backing but even a later authority like Sir Percy Sykes perpetuated the Ptolemaic lakes and mountains idea (Sykes 1934, 39—10). More recently, John Udal's very detailed account of the exploration of the Nile up to 1862 refers to the alleged evidence in the Ptolemaic text derived from Diogenes as an 'astonishingly accurate description' (Udal 1998, 1—2, 495). If, unfortunately, as these examples show, Cooley's work on Herodotus and Ptolemy remains to be accepted, at least his achievement in founding the Hakluyt Society — still flourishing 160 years later — indicates an important heritage for historical and literary studies arising from geographical work. Cooley's not inconsiderable contribution to historical understanding has been recognized to some extent and it is worth noting that both his Megroland and Inner Africa Laid Open were reprinted in the 1960s because they were seen as contributing to an understanding of African history (Cooley 1841/1966; Cooley 1852/1969). Despite these useful services to connected branches of scholarship, Cooley's contribution to the evolution of geography and the development of its philosophy and its methods remains ambivalent if not, indeed, perverse. He was aware of the
William Desborough Cooley
57
need to break out from the limited focus of geographical study in the nineteenth century with its concentration on exploration and putting places in their correct positions on maps. Yet he himself fed this obsession, while his attempts to provide something different in the shape of a marriage of physical and human geography had either not been carried very far or had suffered from his own prejudices on certain matters. Those prejudices certainly prevented him from achieving greatness but they do not altogether obscure his real achievements in reminding us of the importance of older sources of geographical knowledge for modern geographical understanding. Finally, whatever one may think of Cooley now, his career is instructive for anyone wishing to understand the way geography developed in the nineteenth century.
Acknowledgements I am grateful to the Royal Geographical Society for providing the photograph of Cooley and for permission to use it as well as to cite materials from its archives (listed below). The co-editor, Charles Withers, has been patient and understanding and I much appreciate his help.
Bibliography and Sources 1. OBITUARIES AND OTHER STUDIES OF W. D. COOLEY Anon. (1883a) 'Obituary of W. Desborough Cooley', Athenaeum, 2889, 10 Mar 1883, 315. —
(1883b) 'W. Desborough Cooley', The Times, 10 Mar 1883, 12.
—
(1883c) 'William Desborough Cooley', Proceedings Royal Geographical Society, new series, V, 232—3.
—
(1930) 'Cooley, W.D.' Enciclopedia Universal Illustrado Europeo-Americana 15, 318.
Bridges, R. C. (1976) 'W. D. Cooley, the RGS and African Geography in the Nineteenth Century', Geographical Journal 142, 27-47, 274-286. —
R. C.. (1996) 'William Desborough Cooley and the foundation of the Hakluyt Society' in Compassing the Vaste Globe of the Earth. Studies in the History of the Hakluyt Society 1846-1996, R. C. Bridges and P. E. H. Hair (eds.), London, The Hakluyt Society, Second Series, No. 183, 51-78.
Bridges, R (2004) 'Cooley, William Desborough (1795P-1883)' Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 13, 186-7. [Article 6201]. C(ooper), T.(1887) 'Cooley, William Desborough (d. 1883)' Dictionary of National Biography, 12, 107-8.
58
William Desborough Cooley
2. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WORKS OF W. D. COOLEY (This by no means constitutes a complete list of Cooley's publications; a fuller list appears in R. C. Bridges (1976) 285—6 which in turn cites sixty-four works but does not claim completeness. It is highly likely that far more reviews and short contributions to periodicals exist than have been traced in any accounts of Cooley's career.) 1828
(Review of) 'Voyage Pittoresque. . . par M. Melling; Esquisses des Moeurs. . .par G. Palaiologue; L'Europe. . . et la Reformation de la Turquie par M. de Pradt.' Foreign Quarterly Review 2, 243-274.
1830—31
A History of Maritime and Inland Discovery (Dr Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia), 3 vols, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown Green; and John Taylor.
1832
(Review of) 'Voyage au Congo et dans I'interieure de L'Afrique Equatoriale. . . parJ.B. Douville.' Foreign Quarterly Review 10, 163—206.
1833a
A History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, 3 vols, Boston: Lily, Wait.
1833b
'A memoir on the civilization of the tribes inhabiting the highlands near Dalagoa Bay.' Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 3, 310—24.
1834
Prospectus of an Expedition into the Interior of South Africa, London: Clowes.
1835
(Review of) 'A Voyage of Discovery to Africa and Arabia by T. Boteler.' Edinburgh Review 61, 342—64.
1835—37
Geshiedenis der Aardrijkakunddige Ontdekkingen., 3 vols, Haarlem: Bohn.
1840a
Histoire generale des voyages de decouvertes maritimes et continentals depuis Le commencement du monde jusqu'a nos jours, traduite de Panglais par Ad. Joanne et Old Nick [P. Forgues], Paris: Paulin.
1840b
Euclid's Elements of Plane Geometry with Explanatory Supplementary Propositions, London: Whittaker.
1840c
Geometrical Propositions Demonstrated; or, a Supplement to Euclid, being a Key to the Exercises Appended to Euclid's Elements, London: Whittaker.
1840d
The Figures of Euclid with the Enunciations as Printed in Euclid's Elements of Plane Geometry, London: Whittaker.
1841
The Megroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained or, an Enquiry into the Early History and Geography of Central Africa, London, Arrowsmith. Second edition, with bibliographical introduction by J. R. Willis, London: Cass, 1966.
1844
Larcher's Motes on Herodotus. Historical and Cultural Comments on the History of Herodotus with a Chronological Table. From the French of P. H. Larcher. Mew edition with Corrections and Additions, 2 vols, London: Whittaker; Longman, Brown; Duncan & Malcolm; Rivington; Oxford: Parker.
1845a
'The geography of Nyassi, or the great lake of Southern Africa investigated. . .' Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 15, 185—235.
1845b
The World Surveyed in the XlXth Century; or, Recent Narratives of Scientific and Exploratory Expeditions. (Undertaken Chiefly by Command of Foreign Governments.) Translated and (where necessary) Abridged. Vol. I Parrot's
Appendix and
William Desborough Cooley
59
Journey to Ararat. London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman. [See Parrot 1845, below.] 1846—8
A History Of Maritime and Inland Discovery. 2nd edn, London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman.
1847
'Synopsis of a proposal respecting a physico-geographical survey of the British islands, particularly in relation to agriculture,' Report of the Sixteenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 1846. Notices and Abstracts. . . London: Murray, 72—3.
1848
The World Surveyed in the XlXth century . . . Vols II & III. Travels in Siberia. [See Erman 1848, below]
1849a
'On the Regio Cinnamomifera of the ancients,' Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 19, 166—91.
1849b
Sir Francis Drake His Voyage, 1595, by Thomas Maynarde, together with the Spanish Account of Drake's Attack on Puerto Rico, London: Hakluyt Society.
1849c
'Letter to the Editor' [on Kilimanjaro], Athenaeum 1125, 516-17.
1850
Storia delle scoperte maritime e continentali. . .Naples, Stamperia e Cartiere del Fibreno.
c. 1850
Map of Part of Africa showing the Discoveries of the Rev. Dr Krapf and Rev. J. Rebmann, London.
1852
Inner Africa Laid Open in an Attempt to Trace the Chief Lines of Communication across that Continent South of the Equator. . . London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman. 2nd edn, New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.
1853
Map of Africa from the Equator to the Southern Tropic showing the Routes to Lake Myassi... London.
1854
Claudius Ptolemy and the Mile, or an Enquiry into That Geographer's Real Merits and Speculative Errors, his Knowledge of Eastern Africa and the Authenticity of the Mountains of the Moon, London: Parker.
1855
'Dr Livingstone's reise von fluss Liambey nach Loanda,' Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes' Geographischer Anstalt 1, 311 — 17 & Tafel 21.
1856a
'J. Erhardt's memoire iiber Ost und Central Afrika,' Mittheilungen. . . 2, 24-6.
1856b
'Dr. Livingston's [sic] remarkable journey,' Athenaeum 1507, 1141—3.
1860a
Elements of Geometry Simplified and Explained with Practical Geometry and Supplement, London & Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate.
1860b
'The land of the Moon,' Athenaeum 1703, 823-4.
1864a
'On the travels of the Portuguese and others in inner Africa,' Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, old series, 8, 256—7.
1864b
Memoir on the Lake Regions of East Africa Reviewed in Reply to Capt. R. Burton, London: Stanford.
1864c
'The sources of the Nile,' Athenaeum 1889, 54-5.
1866
'Dr Livingstone's errors,' Fortnightly Review 4, 96—110.
60
William Desborough Cooley
1872
'Notice sur le Pere Pedro Paez,' Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic, 6° serie, 3, 532-53.
1874
Dr Livingstone and the Royal Geographical Society, London: Dulau.
1876
Physical Geography, or the Terraqueous Globe and its Phenomena, London: Dulau.
3. CONTEXTUAL
REFERENCES
Anon (1832), (Review of) 'Maritime and Inland Discovery...,' Athenaeum 156, 660; 157, 673-1. Alexander, J. E. (1838), An Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa, 2 vols, London: Colborn. Burtchaell, G. D. and Sadleir, T. U. (1924), Alumni Dublinenses, London: Williams and Norgate. Burton, R. F. (1859), 'The Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa,' Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 29, 1-454. Burton, R. F. (1864), 'Letter to the Editor,' Athenaeum 1899, 407-8. Crawford, O. G. S. (1949), 'Some Medieval Theories about the Nile,' Geographical Journal 114, 6-25. Curtin, P. D. (1965), The Image of Africa, London: Macmillan. Douville, J. B. (1832), Voyage au Congo et dans I'interieure de I'Afrique equinoxiale, 3 vols, Paris: Renouard. Erman, A. (1848), Travels in Siberia including Excursions Northwards down the Obi to the Polar Line and Southwards to the Chinese Frontier, translated by W. D. Cooley, 2 vols (The World Surveyed, vols II and III) London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman. House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1850, Vol XXIV, 4697-1749, 'Report of the Commission appointed to inquire into the constitution and government of the British Museum,' Evidence of W. D. Cooley. Larcher, P. H. (1786), Histoire d'Herodote traduite du Grec, avec des remarques historiques et critiques, un essae sur la chronologie d'Herodote, et une table geographique, 1 vols, Paris. Livingstone, David (1874), The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa, Horace Waller (ed.), 2 vols, London: Murray. Marchand, L. A. (1941), The Athenaeum: a Mirror of Victorian Culture, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. Masonen, P. (2000), The Megroland Revisited. Discovery and Invention of the Sudanese Middle Ages, Helsinki: Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. Mill, H. R. (1930), The Record of the Royal Geographical Society 1830-1930, London: Royal Geographical Society. Newton, R. R. (1978), The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy, Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
William Desborough Cooley
61
Novo y Colson, D. P. de (1885), Alrededor del mundo par las corbetas Descubierta y Atrevida al mando de los Capitanes de navio D. Alejandro Malaspinay Don Jose de Bmtamentey Guerra desde 1789 a 1794, Madrid. Parrot, F. (1845), Journey to Ararat, translated by W. D. Cooley, (The World Surveyed, vol. I), London: Longman, Brown, Green & Longman. Purves, D. L. (n.d. [c. 1874]), Captain Cook's Voyage around the World, Edinburgh: Nimmo, Hay and Mitchell. Rowan, A. M. (2004), 'Cooley, Thomas, (1740/41-1784) Architect,' Dictionary of .National Biography 13, 185-6. [Article 6200].
Oxford
Stanley, H. M. (1890), In Darkest Africa, 2 vols, London: Sampson Low. Strickland, W. G. (1913), 'Cooley, Thomas, A. R. H. A. (b. 1795, d. 1872) portrait painter,' A Dictionary of Irish Artists, 2 vols, Dublin and London: Maunsell, 205-207. Sykes, P. (1934), A History of Exploration from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, London. Udal, J. O. (1998), The Mile in Darkness: Conquest and Exploration 1504-1862, Wilby: Michael Russell.
4. ARCHIVAL SOURCES CITED IN THE TEXT Royal Geographical Society Archives: (i)
Committee Minutes: 14 Aug 1834; 19 Oct, 21 Dec 1835.
(ii)
Council Minutes: 21 Dec 1833; 18 Jun, 14 Aug, 1834; 19 Oct, 21 Dec 1835; 3 Mar 1843.
(iii)
Evening Minutes: 8 Jul 1833.
(iv)
Letter Books: Jackson to Cooley, 14 Dec 1841; 3 Mar, 1843; R. G. S. to Galloway, 11 Mar 1850.
(v)
Correspondence Files: Cooley to Shaw, 1 Feb 1850; 20 Jan 1862.
Chronology 1795
Born 16 March, one of twin brothers, in Dublin, Ireland
1811
Enters Trinity College, Dublin as a 'pensioner'
1816
Graduates A.B. from Trinity College
1828
Established in London; a staff writer and assistant editor for Athenaeum
1831
Elected a Fellow of the newly-established Royal Geographical Society [RGS] Completes publication of A History of Maritime and Inland Discovery
1832
Exposes Douville's fraudulent exploratory claims
62
William Desborough Cooley Elected to Council of RGS
1833
Joins Edinburgh Review as a regular writer Corresponds with Owen and Emery and begins campaign to send RGS expedition to East Africa
1834
Meets Khamis bin Othman. Becomes a vice-president and then Acting Secretary of RGS
1835
Edinburgh Review article reveals 'Lake Nyassi' in East Africa Dispute with Maconochie leads to resignation from RGS posts
1837
East African expedition thwarted
1840
Publication of three mathematical text books
1841
The Megroland of the Arabs
1844
Comments on the History of Herodotus
1845
'Geography of Nyassi' article in Journal of the RGS] first of 'World Surveyed' volumes
1846
Founds Hakluyt Society
1849
Resigns from Secretaryship of Hakluyt Society
1852
Inner Africa Laid Open
1854
Claudius Ptolemy and the Mile
1859
Granted Civil List pension
1862
Probably completely deaf by this date
1864
Memoir on the Lake Regions of East Africa
1872
'Notice sur Pedro Paez' article
1874
Dr Livingstone and the Royal Geographical Society
1876
Physical Geography
1883
1 March dies in Somers Town, King's Cross, London
Kate Marsden 1859-1931
Elizabeth Baigent
Kate Maraden in court dreaa, Lafayette, Ltd, London: 1906, copyright Royal Geographical Society, London: S0011694, original at RGS N02/32.
Kate Marsden is celebrated by geographers as an intrepid Victorian traveller, after her journey across Siberia in 1890—1 to discover the condition of lepers there, and as one of the first women elected fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (1892). Her book on Siberia is regularly anthologized in collections of women's travel writing. Outside geographical circles she is celebrated by people in Viluysk in Siberia as the founder of a leprosy hospital (active 1897—1917), and is known to some as the founder of a leprosy charity (1895 to present day), and the cofounder of a local museum (1914 to present day). In her lifetime she was dogged by scandal, which continues to arouse interest: some criticism of her stems from her personality which was at the least inconstant, but much also exemplifies the prejudice which early women travellers encountered, from other women as much as from men. In this essay events described in easily available sources are treated at shorter length than those described only in obscure publications or archives.
Education, Life, and Work Kate Marsden was born on 13 May 1859 in Edmonton, Middlesex, youngest child of the four sons and four daughters, born to J. D. Marsden, (d. 1873), solicitor of 59 The following abbreviations are used in this essay: 'RGS' for Royal Geographical Society; 'StFLG' for St Francis Leper/Leprosy Guild; 'US NA' for United States of America National Archives; 'BexM' for Bexhill-on-Sea Museum; 'LMI' for The Leprosy Mission International; 'COS' for Charity Organisation Society; 'NYPL' for New York Public Library; 'WCTU' for Women's Christian Temperance Union; 'VCH' for Victoria County History; 'Oxford DNB' for Matthew, H.C.G. and Harrison, B.H. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, and Goldman, L., (ed.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition 2004—.
64
Kate Marsden
Friday Street, Cheapside, and Sophie Mathilda Wellsted (d. 1891). Kate was her full name. The family lived comfortably. Kate was educated at home and then at a boarding school at Margate, which she hated. Marsden and her authorized biographer, Henry Johnson, relate events from her childhood to show her destiny as nurse and traveller (Marsden 1892 and 1921; Johnson 1895; Brewer 1890-1, 1345). Marsden's missionary service was presaged by the young Kate's disdain of useless pastimes. Her adventurous pursuit of facts at first hand was foreshadowed by her early exploration of the family's greenhouse chimney to discover how the heating system worked. Her vocation as a nurse was presaged by her care of her dolls. As a child, 'Like St. Francis of Assisi, she regarded animals as her friends and kinsfolk,' wrote Johnson (Johnson 1895, 5) when she had either become or was on the point of becoming an oblate of the Society of St Francis, a saint traditionally associated with leprosy. After the death of her father and the consequent decline in the family's fortunes, Marsden entered the Evangelical Protestant Deaconesses' institution and training hospital at Tottenham in 1877. The order of deaconesses was revived in 1836 at Kaiserwerth, Germany, by Lutheran pastor Theodore Fliedner whose deaconesses lived as a community, ministering to the sick and poor, and teaching. The idea was taken up in Britain from the 1850s and deaconesses were commissioned by evangelicals in the Church of England and by some nonconformist churches to minister to local people's material and spiritual needs. They were distinguished both from Roman Catholic and Anglican sisterhoods (though sometimes confused with them), and from male deacons, who were in holy orders (Marshall 1890; Prelinger 1986, 161-92; Heeney 1988). The Tottenham Deaconesses' Institution was founded by Dr Michael Laseron with financial support from John Morley of Upper Clapton and his brother Samuel. Avenue House, on the south-east side of Tottenham Green had been converted and opened, with a new hospital block, in 1868. The hospital was enlarged from 50 to 100 beds by 1890 ([VCH 1]; Robinson, 1890, ch. 10). The Lady Superintendent, (Elizabeth) Christian Dundas (b. 1841), had trained at Kaiserwerth, and continued that model at Tottenham, the evangelical deaconess nurses ministering to the perceived spiritual wants of the patients, as well as to their physical needs. The institution was non-sectarian but secured particular support from nonconformists ([VCH 1]). Marsden served as a nurse probationer, but it seems unlikely that she became a commissioned deaconess (Stead 1892, 185). BULGARIA The suffering occasioned by the Russo-Turkish war was widely reported in the British press between 1877 and 1878 and Marsden went as a volunteer with a party of other Tottenham nurses to nurse there, though still only a probationer of eighteen. She spent four months in Bulgaria, returning to England in November 1877. Little is known of what she did there. Gaining her information from Marsden, Brewer suggests that the ten Tottenham nurses were attached to the 68th (Russian) hospital, but also attended sick and wounded soldiers in the field, riding out in rough carts (Brewer 1890—1, 134—5). The staunch companion of her later life, Miss Emily Norris, describes how Marsden 'rode into Plevna with the first contingent of soldiers and went straight to the Harem and so prevented the soldiers entering . . . [she also] suck[ed] tubes of tracheotomy in the field hospital, when they had an epidemic of diphtheria . . . She used to go out alone at night, except for her bearers, on to the battlefield, to tend to the wounded and dying.' She also apparently crossed the Caucasus escorted by chivalrous brigands who acted out of
Kate Marsden
65
gratitude at her having nursed their fellows (RGS archive, CB 10, letter to Arthur Hinks, 15 April 1931). A contemporary testimonial from Dundas suggests less adventurous duties: 'She assisted vigorously in nursing the sick Sisters [in Bulgaria]' (13 May 1878, cited in Johnson 1895, 12). Whatever the precise nature of her service, she was decorated for it by the Russian Red Cross Society in 1890 (The Times, 5 May 1890) and it shaped the rest of her life since it introduced her to foreign travel and to leprosy (Marsden 1892, 3—4). After having trained at Tottenham for one year, Marsden left with a testimonial which described her as 'an intelligent, willing pupil . . . very kind to the patients . . . showing decided nursing talent and ability' (13 May 1878, cited in Johnson 1895, 12). She went to Westminster Hospital to join her friend the Lady Superintendent, Miss Merryweather (Helmstadter 1994). Through her friend's influence (Baly 1989) she then obtained the post of sister-in-charge at the Liverpool Convalescent Institution at Woolton where she spent four and a half years, before her health broke down and she resigned her post in 1882 ([VCH 2]; Brewer 1890-1, 134-5). A testimonial records that 'she earned, by her zeal and efficiency, the esteem of the Council and the gratitude of the patients' (cited in Johnson 1895, 13). This was the first of many breakdowns of health in her life. NEW ZEALAND 1884-6 After having left Woolton, Marsden was reported to be going either to India to work or to Australia for a lung complaint, but stayed in Britain, nursing an invalid sister and doing 'philanthropic or Christian work' (Johnson 1895, 15) when her health permitted. Travelling with her mother, Marsden went to nurse her consumptive sister in New Zealand in November 1884. The sister died shortly after they arrived but the pair remained and by April 1885 Marsden had been appointed Lady Superintendent of Wellington hospital where she was to supervise the hospital and train nurses (Chapman 2000, 125). Marsden helped set up a branch of the St John's Ambulance Association in New Zealand and served as honorary secretary to the Ladies' Committee where she mixed with the elite: the president of the committee was Lady Jervois (wife of the governor of New Zealand, Sir William Francis Drummond Jervois (1821 — 1897); the vice-president was Lady Vogel (wife of Julius Vogel, sometime premier of New Zealand) (Johnson 1895, 16). She also had among her supporters Sir William Jervois and Sir George Grey (1812-1898), governor of New Zealand 1845-54 and 1861-68, and premier of New Zealand 1877—79) who had been a friend of her uncle, Captain James Raymond Wellsted (1805-1842) FRGS, an early traveller in Arabia (Johnson 1895, 16; Chapman 2000, 125). Johnson records that she had a 'severe accident in the hospital, and for several months was dangerously ill. She was compelled to resign her post' (Johnson 1895, 17). There followed testimonials from Jervois (reporting her 'excellent service' and her being 'most highly esteemed') and from the chairman of the hospital committee which intended to apply for recompense for her under the civil service act and gave her one month's pay in lieu of notice (Johnson 1895, 18—20). After a 'partial recovery' (Johnson 1895, 17) Marsden removed to Nelson, New Zealand, from where she continued her St John's Ambulance work and lectured on first aid, attracting favourable newspaper comment (e.g. in The [Nelson] Colonist, 6 March 1889, cited in Johnson 1895, 24). According to Johnson and newspaper reports she gave considerable help to injured miners and also to Maori afflicted with leprosy (Johnson 1895, 16; Chapman 2000, 127—9). She determined to dedicate her life to serving those affected by leprosy.
66
Kate Marsden
RUSSIA 1890-2 Marsden and her mother returned to London in 1886. Marsden's stated aim after reaching London was to go to Paris to visit Pasteur, who was (wrongly) reputed to have discovered a vaccination against leprosy, and then to the leper colony run by Father Damien (1840—1889), the Belgian missionary on Molokai, Hawaii. She did not get to Molokai, having been rejected, she thought, because she was a Protestant (Chapman 2000, 127; Johnson 1895, 26). Marsden then determined to help leprosy victims in Russia and set out, according to Johnson at the suggestion of her friends, to gain the support of royalty, being presented to the Queen on 5 March 1890 (The Times, 6 March 1890). The Princess of Wales engaged the support of her sister, the Empress of Russia. Royal and imperial patronage unquestionably helped Marsden, but currying favour with the eminent was evidently to her taste. She also continued her New Zealand practice of courting press attention, and her impending journey attracted wide notice in the general and the girls' and women's press: for example the Girl's Own Paper ran a five-part story about her (Brewer 1890—1). Marsden left for St Petersburg in April 1890 where she was welcomed by the empress and given a letter of introduction, returning to London via Paris where she had a 'long interview' with Pasteur before returning home to consult Florence Nightingale (Johnson 1895, 28—30). Another personality trait emerges: she travelled long distances with ill-defined but often ostensibly charitable aims and often at the expense of others (Johnson 1895, 30). Marsden left England in September 1890 for Alexandria where she admired the German hospital and visited the wife of Khedive. She went on to Jaffa and Jerusalem where, with the Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, Dr G.F.P. Blythe, and his wife, she visited a leper hospital and the deaconesses' home. From Jerusalem she went to Constantinople where she resolved to find a herb grown in the north of Siberia which allegedly cured leprosy. She then went to Tiflis, where she visited two hospitals and crossed the Caucasus mountains to Moscow, arriving in November 1890. From Moscow she went to St Petersburg where she again met the Empress who confirmed the existence of the herb (Johnson 1895, 31—7; Marsden 1892, ch. 1). To find the herb and help Siberian lepers whose lot was particularly hard, Marsden set out for Siberia on 1 February 1891 with a Russian-speaking missionary, Miss Ada Field. They travelled by sledge in extremely cold weather and great discomfort to Omsk where Field's poor health forced her to turn back. Marsden continued alone to Irkutsk, via Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk, visiting prisons and hospitals, where she distributed tea, sugar, and gospels, and galvanized church and civil authorities in support of her mission. She reached Yakutsk by barge and then travelled on horseback to Vilyuysk. The extreme cold of the Siberian spring gave way to summer mosquitoes and storms. The party rode through forests and swamps, in danger of attack from bears and of their horses' sinking into subterranean fires. When she reached the leper outcasts she found them largely abandoned to their fate, in dismal huts, ill clad and short of food. She gave some comfort with her tea, sugar, and gospels, but her journey was largely to find out the true state of affairs rather than to bring immediate relief. Marsden turned back for Moscow and St Petersburg and, after another arduous journey, arrived in December 1891. She spent five months in European Russia, mixing with notables, lecturing and raising considerable sums of money for the Siberian lepers (Marsden 1892; Pesterev 1993, 42; Anderson 2006, 162-4).
Kate Marsden
67
LONDON AND CHICAGO 1892-3 By 1892 Marsden was back in London where she prepared her book for the press, gave lectures, and 'held drawing-room meetings at which several members of the Royal Family were present' (Johnson 1895, 51 and The Times, 26 November 1892 for a typical meeting). In October 1892 she was summoned to Balmoral where the Queen gave her a brooch (Johnson 1895, 52—3) and in the same month Princess Christian presented her with the silver medal of the Royal British Nurses Association (The Lancet, 140 (3609), 29 October 1892, 1014-15). A few weeks later, on 23 November 1892, Marsden was elected fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, one of the first women fellows (RGS archive, fellowship papers). Marsden's On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers was published in New York and London (Marsden 1892). The first edition is undated and publication dates of 1891, 1892, and 1893 have been suggested. It was widely reviewed. A version had been published in Moscow in 1892. Its purpose was to raise money for Marsden's leper work in Siberia and it reported the dispatch of four Russian Sisters of Mercy to help the lepers, and the considerable sums raised by her. In England the Kate Marsden Leper Fund with its London committee had collected -£2,400 by 30 June 1893 and sent most of it to Konstantin Pobedonostzev, of the Holy Synod in St Petersburg. Using it work was begun on a leper hospital in Vilyuysk (Millinship 1994). Marsden secured space at the World's Fair (World's Columbian Exposition 1892—3) in Chicago where in the Women's Building she exhibited models of the proposed buildings for her leper hospitals (Herben 1893, 302). Already, however, there were signs of discontent, elaborated below, with Marsden's methods and personality. Believing that attack was the best form of defence she went to press, having published in 1893 in Chicago a brochure to accompany her exhibit (Marsden c.1893) and in the same year in New York a highly sympathetic biography of herself by Henry Johnson, a staunch friend, but also a barrister who trod carefully. Both works are pious in tone, and in her brochure Marsden cites an official Russian medical report, rather than her own book, to show the plight of the Siberian lepers, and points out that practical and financial matters are in the hands of Miss Field.
MARSDEN'S DOWNFALL 1893-5 These two publications could not, however, prevent rumblings of discontent with Marsden erupting into public controversy. There had already been some who had planned to support her cause but then thought better of it: philanthropist Mrs Elizabeth Dean, for example, decided in 1891 to devote her energies to other church work (Religious Notes, 30 July 1891, 15; Chapman 2000, 131). In 1892 the Charity Organization Society of London was reported to be investigating Marsden's leper fund (Chapman 2000, 131). In April 1893 the Union Signal, the paper of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), withdrew its support for her (Millinship 1998b). In the same month an excoriating review of Marsden's book by Isabel Florence Hapgood (1850—1928), an American writer on Russia and translator of Tolstoy, damned the book, its author, and her project. Marsden, according to Hapgood who gained her information from Special Commissioner Sergius Petroff who accompanied Marsden, lied about the hardships she endured and the conditions of the Siberian lepers. Things were by no means as bad as she had painted and the Russians in any case had matters in hand. As for Marsden herself, her piety and temperance were a sham and her grammar and
68
Kate Marsden
style deficient, and the reader who wanted to know more was directed to various New Zealand papers for more information (Hapgood 1893). This was the public face of a sustained attack by Hapgood and others, the precise nature of which eluded Marsden's earlier biographer (Middleton, personal information), but has since been substantially cleared up by William Millinship, working with British and Russian sources, Hilary Chapman, using sources in New Zealand the USA, and Tony Gould, using sources from the USA, and in this essay, the first place where the various findings have been brought together. The details of the allegations are now known, though few of Marsden's contemporaries knew all of them, and Marsden herself may not have known them all. Hapgood's motives in attacking Marsden remain a mystery. She had much in common with Marsden. Both were unmarried professional women: both knew Russia first-hand and defended Russians against Western criticisms; both raised money in the west for Russia; and both had a taste for mixing with the great and the good (Whitakker, 1988 and personal communication). Hapgood was jealous of others who interpreted Russia to the west (Whitakker 1988) and perhaps sensed Marsden as a rival (Millinship 1999). The women had strongly held and incompatible religious beliefs: Hapgood, an Episcopalian, was critical of those, particularly Tolstoy but also in a sense Marsden, whose lives proclaimed Christianity incompatible with a comfortable and conventional life such as hers (Whittaker 1988). Hapgood had received allegations that Marsden was a closet Roman Catholic (Chapman 2000, 130, 138—9), and this may have provoked Protestant distaste. Hapgood was loudly self-congratulatory in accounting for every cent she had raised for Russians (Whitakker 1988), while Marsden was at the least careless with charitable funds. Whatever the cause of Hapgood's dislike, she pursued Marsden with the tenacity, strong principles, and self-righteousness which she exemplified throughout her life (Whitakker 1988, and personal communication). Her papers show her corresponding with well-placed individuals in the United States and Europe, and with organizations such as the WCTU, COS, IOKDS, and the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, over a six-year period (1891—7) to bring down Marsden and keep her down (NYPL, Hapgood mss, boxes 1 and 2). Hapgood's informants were her Russian acquaintances and Ellen Hewett (1843—1926), New Zealand friend and later implacable enemy of Marsden. Hewett supplied the New Zealand press, Hapgood, and Henry Labouchere (1831 — 1912), with information about Marsden, and galvanized other New Zealanders to write to Hapgood. Labouchere was an early investigative journalist whose Truth magazine specialized in exposing fraud and who had a particular aversion to homosexuality (it was his clause added to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 by which Oscar Wilde was tried) (Sidebotham and Matthew 2004). This collection of people, each with prejudices and vested interests, together brought about Marsden's downfall, working through the press in New Zealand, England, and the USA, and behind the scenes in those countries and Russia. Hewett charged Marsden with petty financial irregularity, alleging for example that loans she had made were not repaid and that Marsden had sold furniture on behalf of another woman and pocketed the money (Chapman 2000, 129—30). Much more seriously, she gathered evidence that shortly before her accident in New Zealand, Marsden took out two insurance policies giving her -£6 a week in case of incapacity and that she hid herself from visitors after the accident (Chapman 2000, 131). Most serious of all, Hewett alleged that Marsden aimed to make money out of her leper work (Chapman 2000, 131). Hewett also passed on allegations from women in New Zealand that Marsden formed ardent, sometimes predatory and sometimes lesbian relationships with them before casting some of
Kate Marsden
69
them off and vilifying them (Chapman, 2000, 130, 133). Hewett accused her of having lied in New Zealand about the extent of the health problems she saw (and in part rectified) (Chapman 2000, 128), and Hapgood accused her of the same failings in Siberia (Hapgood 1893). In July 1893, the Charity Organization Society of London reported on Marsden's Siberian work. It described how the information from Marsden's book and London committee was judged against allegations from Hewett and Hapgood which provided a 'really remarkable' commentary on Marsden's own claims. Presented with such copious allegations, the committee could not be other than severely critical of Marsden. It found no evidence that any money had been misspent by Marsden's committee which was 'composed to some extent [of] Miss Marsden's personal friends' though all its active members were 'persons of credit'. Nonetheless it refrained from endorsing statements that money collected by Marsden had reached the committee and described Marsden herself as 'utterly unbusiness-like', 'extremely careless in dealing with money', and 'obviously singularly ill fitted for the difficult and delicate task of administering Charitable funds'. It further described the whole project to help Siberian lepers as neither 'necessary nor practicable' (LMI, COS Report Case no 16, 929, The Kate Marsden Leper Fund 27 July 1893; Gould 2005, 153, and personal communication). Abandoning (Millinship 1998b) or at least curtailing (Johnson 1895, 56) her planned fundraising tour of America, Marsden went to St Petersburg where an investigation committee was set up in December 1893. Chapman suggests that she appeared at some of its initial hearings (Chapman 2000, 133), though Marsden claimed she had never met her accusers (RGS archive, CB 7, 589/1, printed sheet, Marsden to 'editor' of the RGS, 2 November 1895). The committee prepared a draft report exonerating Marsden from the charge of financial irregularity. Committee member Revd Alexander Francis then, however, received from Hapgood a letter from a New Zealand woman confessing to lesbian relations with Marsden. This being the second such allegation that he had received from Hapgood, he believed it. He wrote to The Times (16 August 1894) withdrawing support for Marsden. Marsden retaliated (letter to The Times, 18 August 1894), publishing some of the draft report which supported her case and threatening legal action against Francis. Francis responded with more explicit criticism (letter to The Times, 18 August 1894) to which Marsden retaliated via her solicitors ([Colyer and Colyer], letter to The Times, 20 August 1894), asking readers to suspend judgement until her libel action was resolved. The actions against Francis and The Times never came to court; she claimed because she could not afford to pursue them (RGS archive, CB 7, 589/1 printed sheet Marsden to the 'editor' of the RGS 2 November 1895), but more probably because she would have had to answer 'interrogatories' prepared by The Times's solicitor, Joseph Soames, using affidavits from New Zealand supplied by Hapgood, if the action had gone to court. Soames was employing the same private investigator on the case who had pursued Oscar Wilde (Millinship 1994). Francis kept the sexual scandal quiet, even from members of his own committee: 'It would be terrible for all concerned were it to be known that immorality with women is, according to Miss Marsden's own written confessions, one of her sins', he wrote. Francis published 'facts concerning her fraudulent transactions, in order that the public may suppose that that is the greater offence' (A.F. Francis to the Prefect of St Petersburg, 1894, Russian State Archives cited in Millinship 1994; Chapman 2000, 134). His secrecy led to confusion. He did not even tell fellow members of the investigating committee of his intention to write to The Times, so
70
Kate Marsden
baffled members of this and Marsden's London committee continued to support her (Johnson 1895, 57; Chapman 2000, 134). Allegations of financial irregularity and exaggeration about her Siberian work were not convincing to many who knew the work best, as is shown by a signed and sealed deposition by six members of the investigating committee made by the British consul in Moscow on 6/18 January 1895 (RGS archive, CB 7, 589/3, copy of deposition). J.D. Butler, chairman of Miss Marsden's Siberian Leper Fund, wrote to The Times stating that Francis had never communicated with the London committee, which, contrary to rumours, was not going to dissolve itself. The committee had had no response to its repeated requests that Francis produce documentary proof of charges (RGS archive, CB 7, 589/2, copy of 23 August 1894 of letter from J.D. Butler). This statement makes Francis's letters to The Times wrong in at least one point of fact. Journalist W. T. Stead, who had earlier given Marsden considerable sympathetic publicity (Stead 1892), followed Francis in using financial doubts as a means publicly to withdraw support without dwelling on her sexual transgressions. He declared that she was 'not trained to business habits' and that 'it would be as well if in future she were not to be subjected to the strain or the responsibility of collecting funds for the lepers of Siberia, or of undertaking the distribution on the spot of the money so collected' (Stead 1893; Millinship 1998b, 1999). LATER WORK FOR LEPROSY SUFFERERS 1894-9 Marsden is generally reported as having disappeared from view at this point (Middelton, personal communication), but she refused to lie down. A German translation of her book was published in Leipzig in 1894 and reissued under a slightly different title in 1897, and it was not mere rhetorical flourish when she declared in 1895, Tn the meantime I am endeavouring to forward work and help for Lepers all over the world, as they and their needs seem to have been entirely forgotten in the crusade of persistent and underhand persecution to which I have been submitted' (RGS archive, CB 7, 589/1, printed sheet, Marsden to 'editor' of the RGS, 2 November 1895). She was obliquely reporting the existence of the St Francis Leper (now Leprosy) Guild, founded 23 October 1895. Marsden had by this time converted to Roman Catholicism and, throwing herself into her new venture with characteristic enthusiasm, had become an oblate of the society of St Francis. Oblates were members of the Franciscan third order, formed in the thirteenth century and revived in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches in the nineteenth century. Within the Anglican church it had connections with the deaconess movement in which Marsden had been involved (Sharpe 2004). The St Francis Leper Guild was inaugurated by Baroness Gudin, Lady Marion Meller, Revd James Meller, the Hon Mrs Forbes, Monsigneur Howlett as representative of Cardinal Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster, Marsden's biographer Henry Johnson, and the Very Revd Father David, OSF. Marsden again cultivates the great and good, this time the Roman Catholic elite. (Later committee members included Lady Herbert of Lea and Baroness de Berland (StFLG, minutes, 8 September 1897, 26 June 1901)). It was 'carried unanimously that Miss Kate Marsden O.S.F. be appointed Lecturer to the Guild' (StFLG, minutes, 23 October 1895). Other officers were treasurer J. D. Butler, chairman of Marsden's Siberian Leper Fund, and secretary Miss Butler, probably his daughter. Marsden was living at this point with the Butlers at 11 Redcliffe Gardens (RGS archive, CB 7, 589/2, letters) and they may have introduced Marsden to Baroness Gudin who lived nearby at 27 Redcliffe Square. With Butler's and Marsden's involvement, this guild is the clear successor to
Kate Marsden
71
Marsden's Siberian Leper Fund, and in some ways more ambitious since it had a worldwide reach. Following Cardinal Vaughan's insistence that only Roman Catholics be involved in the guild, at its second meeting Butler and Johnson withdrew, but Miss Butler was allowed to remain as secretary until 1923 (StFLG, minutes, 3 December 1895). Marsden resigned from the guild on 8 May 1896, fearing that her notoriety was hampering its work, the second edition of Johnson's biography, published in London in 1895 having failed to dispel gossip. Her resignation was accepted as a practical necessity by the committee, notwithstanding their recorded confidence in her (StFLG, minutes, 8 May 1896), but a year later, the pope having given his blessing to the 'founder' of the guild (Marsden), the committee felt able to re-elect her as Organizer, noting pragmatically that her notoriety was unlikely to harm them now and commending her quiet work for the guild during her year in obscurity The charges brought against her, they stated, were unfounded, referred to the time before she became a Catholic, were unlikely now to alienate supporters, since her conversion had already alienated many of her Protestant sympathisers, and perhaps arose because others were jealous of her (StFLG, minutes, 26 May 1897). The charges are described as financial only (StFLG, minutes, 26 May 1897), so the committee either did not or chose not to know about the sexual allegations. Marsden is scrupulous in having her use of the guild's money recorded: she forewent reimbursement of expenses incurred in connection with the guild's work, and was a small donor (StFLG, annual report, May 1897; minutes, 23 October 1895, 8 May 1896, 20 July 1897, 8 September 1897), although before her resignation it was agreed to pay her a stipend as the Guild's lecturer (StFLG, minutes, 3 December 1895). In 1897 Marsden went to Paris to seek space for the guild at the exhibition of 1900. She met Cardinal Richard and others who 'considered it would be necessary that Miss Marsden should herself go to Rome, lay the plan of her work before the Holy Father and obtain his personal approbation and Blessing for herself and for the work she proposed to do' (StFLG, minutes, 20 July 1897). By September 1897 she had made another visit to Paris, where she gained the support of the Archbishop of Paris, and to Rome. Around 1897 and certainly by 1898, Marsden settled in Philadelphia, USA. As the guild's representative there she enlisted two American Roman Catholic archbishops as patrons, planned a separate organizing committee for America modelled on that for France, and visited Honolulu (StFLG, minutes, 18 November 1898). Perhaps unbeknownst to the guild she had apparently by this time been diagnosed with leprosy by a doctor in Honolulu who allegedly obliged her to consult a doctor in Philadelphia. Marsden complained that the false diagnosis obliged her to consult doctors around the globe whose fees had swallowed her savings of $5,000 and her house in Philadelphia. The stigma following the diagnosis had jeopardized all prospects of employment and a settled life (US NA, letter, 25 November 1901 to the Marquess of Lansdowne; RGS archives, CB 8, letter, 31 January 1911 to J.S. Keltic). She was destitute and dependent on others (US NA, letter to Lord Pauncefote, 20 December 1901). It seems fairly clear that she did not have leprosy, and the certificate from the doctor in Honolulu is missing from the RGS archive so that it is difficult to comment on this episode, beyond emphasizing her alleged loss of savings and her extensive travel with ill-defined purposes. By 1899 the president of the guild feared that Marsden might 'overreach her strength and her means', and proposed that 'she should be relieved, for the present, from the responsibility of being the representative of the Guild abroad' (StFLG,
72
Kate Marsden
Figure 1: Geographical Leper Chart, St Francis Leper Guild, reproduced by kind permission of the St Francis Leprosy Guild. minutes, 30 November 1899). This is the last mention of Marsden in the minutes, and it seems that her work with the guild formed a familiar pattern: an ambitious start with the influential co-opted to various committees, travel over long distances with ill-specified aims, publicity on a grand scale (her plans for a stand at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 were abandoned after she resigned), and her withdrawal on grounds of ill health. As with her Russian work, however, the work was laudable and steadier persons saw it through. Mrs May French Sheldon (1848—1936), the American traveller, another of the first women fellows of the RGS and a constant friend of Marsden, remained a patroness of the guild and collected and lectured on its behalf (StFLG, minutes, 20 July 1897, scrapbook; Johnson 1895, 56). Princess Christian, whom Marsden had met at court, also retained an interest in the guild (StFLG, scrapbook). FOUNDING THE BEXHILL-ON-SEA MUSEUM c. 1912-14 By about 1902 or 1903 Marsden had returned to the UK permanently from the USA and was living with the sisters Emily Lloyd Norris and A. M. Norris: 'two simple women, daughters of a clergyman' (BexM, letter, J. C. Thompson to H.J. Sargent, 1 November 1932). Theirs was a quiet life, though in 1906 Marsden was presented at court for a second time (photograph of Marsden in court dress (RGS picture library S0011694 and portrait in this essay), though this was not reported in The Times (Middleton 1982, 145). Marsden and the Norris sisters lived in various places (St Leonard's-on-Sea in 1910, the Isle of Wight in 1911) before settling at Bexhill-on-Sea in about 1912 (RGS archive, CB 8, various letters). Again Marsden's finances are the object of some discussion: letters to the RGS begging for time to pay her subscription paint a picture of poverty; it is said that she 'threw
Kate Marsden
73
herself upon' the Misses Norris (BexM, letter, J.C. Thompson to H.J. Sargent, 1 November 1932), and Arthur Hinks of the RGS wrote 'I think a lawyer came to see me alleging that Miss Marsden had got a wealthy old lady under her thumb and was living upon her and extracting all her money (RGS archive, CB 8, letter to L. Darwin, 3 July 1924). Hinks later described Miss Norris as the lady 'upon whom Miss Marsden lived for 30 years or so' (RGS archive, CB 10, letter to the president of the RGS, 14 April 1931). This well-attested poverty is difficult to reconcile with the architectural plans of c. 1910—1913 showing a house with each storey equipped as an independent flat for 'Miss Marsden and Miss Norris'. Why Marsden was the principal client in the undertaking, what had happened to the other Miss Norris, and why Marsden was planning largely separate accommodation from Emily Norris who not only maintained but nursed her is wholly unclear, but at the least such things point to another of Marsden's schemes, though like many others it came to nothing (BexM archivist, personal communication). What did materialize in Bexhill was the Town Museum. The idea emerged in about 1912 and, while others retrospectively claimed much of the credit (BexM, Bexhill Museum Association scrapbook, account by J.C. Thompson), Marsden was at the forefront from the start, using the methods at which she was adept. She organized public meetings of interested parties with as many of the great and the good as Bexhill could boast (though this time it was an admiral and an archdeacon rather than royalty or nobility), ensured considerable newspaper coverage in which she shone (though this time in the Bexhill Observer rather than the international press); set up an exhibition of objects suitable for the museum (though at the Bexhill Town Hall rather than the Chicago World's Fair or Paris Exhibition), travelled at the museum's expense (though to Bournemouth and Sherbourne rather than St Petersburg and Paris), and sought items for the museum from prominent companies such as Bryant and May, Fry, and Colman, as well as from the Imperial Institute in London. Having learnt her lesson, Marsden was scrupulous about money and probably lost money on her involvement with the project (BexM, account book). Progress was made until the Mayor of Bexhill revealed Marsden's past which he had learned from newspapers. The museum committee 'with great reluctance and regret decided to accept Miss Marsden's resignation . . . it was decided to send a letter to Miss Marsden conveying the sincere thanks of the Committee for her untiring and devoted labour for the course of the proposed Town Museum; expressing their intense indignation at the gross and unwarrantable slander brought against her, the effect of which had been gravely to weaken her health and to deprive the committee of her invaluable services' (BexM, minutes, 24 April 1913). The committee faltered, but eventually the museum opened on 22 May 1914 (BexM, invitation card). Its survival owes much to the steady work of others, but to Marsden it owes its initial impetus, some of its objects by benefaction (notably her collection of tropical shells, perhaps acquired in Honolulu and/or New Zealand (BexM, accessions book)), and its most important objects — the Egyptological collection of her friend, Dr Walter Amsden, medical officer to the British School in Egypt (BexM, minutes, 8 September 1914). LATER LIFE From about 1914 Marsden's story is one of retirement, ill health, and dependence on the saintly Miss Norris. Her bouts of illness were often attributed to stress or overwork, though more specific ailments included a lung complaint (1884), a fall (1885), leprosy (1901), and dropsy (1914) (BexM, letter to Mr Burrows, 9 August 1914). In 1916 Marsden was made free life fellow of the RGS, officially in
74
Kate Marsden
recognition of her long period as fellow and the donation to the society of a jewel given to her by Queen Victoria, but more probably because of the president's kindness and an unrequited desire to be free of her piteous letters which arrived more regularly than her subscription (RGS archive, CB 8, letter, Douglas Freshfield, president of the RGS to Marsden, 9 May 1916) (On Freshfield, see Geographers Vol. 13). Marsden published My Mission in Siberia: a Vindication (1921) in an unsuccessful effort to recover her reputation. The RGS refused to be co-opted as a supporter (as secretary Hinks noted to the president 'it would be awkward for the Society to pledge itself (RGS archive, CB 8, note, 1916)), though Marsden was permitted to reprint the review in the Geographical Journal of her first book (RGS archive, CB 8, letter, Freshfield to Marsden, 5 November 1919). Marsden and the Norris sisters were reported in various locations (Marlow in 1924, Hillingdon in 1928 (RGS archive, CB 9, various letters)). Marsden died of senile decay in the Springfield Hospital (earlier the Surrey county pauper lunatic asylum), Beechcroft Road, Wandsworth, London, on 26 March 1931, and was buried without a headstone in Hillingdon cemetery (Middleton, 2004; Millinship, 1988b, 20; death certificate). She had had a stroke in about 1925 and was bedridden from about 1930. For some or all of this time she had been living (with the Norris sisters) at The Rest, Vine Grove, Blossom Way, Hillingdon, Middlesex (BexM, letter E. Norris to H.J. Sargent, 30 October 1932). Miss Norris's grief at Marsden's death shines through a series of touching letters to the RGS, though these tell us more about Norris than Marsden (RGS archive, CB 10). The Bexhill museum committee (largely at Thompson's instigation) refused a portrait of Marsden offered after her death by the Misses Norris and Hunt Holley, rousing Miss Emily Norris to real anger (BexM, Marsden portrait file, letters to H.J. Sargent, 15 December 1932). The RGS took a number of her possessions that were connected with her famous journey, including her Russian watch, her medals, and a whistle (RGS, archives, artefacts, D l ) .
Scientific Ideas and Geographical Thought Compared with that of the other geographers this series memorializes, Marsden's contribution to geography was limited, but it was not trivial. Among the varying personae that Kate Marsden created for herself or that others created for her, that of'geographer' was the one which she stuck to resolutely and which was proof to challengers. As she wrote to the ever-patient John Scott Keltic, 'as you know my Fellowship of the Geographical was dearer to me than life itself (RGS archive, CB 8, 15 January 1915) (On Keltic, see Geographers Vol. 10). Her importunate correspondence with the Society shows her clinging to her fellowship despite frequent inability to afford the annual fee (RGS archive, CB 8, 9). Her fellowship of the RGS was emblazoned on the title page of her Vindication and underlay her role in the Bexhill museum. While other women served on the committee as simple members or as secretary, she took a scientific role, soliciting benefactions as 'Miss Marsden, FRGS' (BexM, accessions book) and corresponding with fellows of the RGS and other geographical societies (Bexhill Chronicle, 16 November 1912). Today the founders of the museum are identified as Kate Marsden, FRGS, equal partner to the male J. C. Thompson, FGS. Her geographical fellowship gave her status in a male world. More generally, she showed herself aware of geographical methods: the frontispiece to her 1892 book was a map of her completed and projected journeys. Marsden's claim to the title 'geographer' rested mainly on her one journey and
Kate Marsden
75
resultant book, though her 'geographical leper chart' and her part in the Bexhill Museum also show her geographical interest. All travel writers are open to the charge that their authors are honestly mistaken, romancing, fantasizing, or simply lying (Adams 1962). Marsden, however, was more than usually vulnerable to such charges, since she was accused of lying, profiteering, and self-aggrandisement in other areas of her life. She sets out the problem herself: she would have written more plainly, 'But I knew the particulars of the inconveniences, dangers, and exciting incidents, which have been, as it were, the inseparable companions of my travels, would add largely to the general interest of the book and would therefore increase its sale', the profits being intended for her leper work (Marsden 1892, 2). This justification is a literary device, reminiscent of those of her many contemporaries whose improbable friends besought them to commit their thoughts, intended for only private circulation, to a wider audience. Nonetheless the problem is real, and Marsden's remedy is threefold. First she invites scoffers to repeat her journey, happy in the knowledge that scarcely any will be able to take up her challenge. Second, she claims lofty indifference; 'I may be called an enthusiast, or a woman who bids high for the world's applause. I care not what I am called, or what I am thought of, so long as the goal of my ambition be reached' (Marsden 1892, 12, 6). This is another standard device, rendered wholly implausible in her case by her third remedy which showed just how dearly she prized the world's approbation: she includes in her 1892 account numerous testimonials and letters, and in 1921 issued the even more elaborately buttressed Vindication when the first letters had failed to convince a sceptical public. The letters are from the socially well-placed (such as Countess Tolstoi, Lady of Honour to the Tzarina) and underline her perennial pleasure in associating with the great and the good, but also the geographically well-placed, that is those on the spot in Russia, including Siberia, who attested to her having been to the places she described and to her having done good works there (Marsden 1892, chs. 12 and 15 and appendix). They predictably failed in their purpose. Inclusion of such testimonials emphasizes the vulnerability and marginality of the author. Another well-known woman who adopted the device was Mary Seacole (1805—1881), nurse and hotellier, in her Wonderful Adventures (1857) in which she attempted to recover her fortunes by displaying the approbation of the well-placed after her service to European troops in the Crimea had led to her financial ruin (Rupprecht 2006, 194). The confident, successful, and well-placed have no need of such testimonials, and their effect can be far from that desired. More pertinently in an assessment of the veracity of Marsden's travel works, the testimonials had two further deleterious consequences: they drew attention to the self-aggrandisement of which her critics accused her and which cast doubt over her motives, and they suggest that Marsden's word alone is untrustworthy (Anderson 2006). All this makes it necessary to review the accusations made against Marsden, before assessing the likelihood that she lied about her travels. The charges that Marsden had been financially deceitful may in part be true. It is difficult to discount sworn statements that she lied in her dealings with insurance companies in New Zealand for gain (Chapman 2000, 131). She was not in paid employment after 1885: it seems unlikely that she drew her Leper Guild salary, though she did travel at the guild's expense (StFLG, mss) and she had no private income (Johnson 1895, 8; Stead 1892, 186). The royalties from her books may have been considerable, since they were published in several countries and the British edition went to at least twelve editions, but they were intended for leprosy work rather than Marsden herself. She repeatedly emphasized that purchase of her book would help leper work (e.g. Marsden, 1893?, 2). It is thus hard to explain her
76
Kate Marsden
savings of $5,000 and house in Philadelphia, or how she travelled extensively, or with what money she proposed to build the house in Bexhill. On the other hand, it is known that others exaggerated financial misdeeds to distract attention from her lesbianism; that considerable sums of money raised by Marsden did reach their charitable object, both after a committee was put in charge of them (LMI, COS report), and when she was personally responsible for them (Pesterev 1993, 42); and that Marsden lived in genteel poverty, dependent on others all her later life. If she was casual with money, touching everyone from elderly widows (Chapman 2000) to the British ambassador in Washington (US NA, letter to Rt Hon Lord Pauncefote, 20 December 1901) for 'loans' which she never repaid, others were equally casual in accusing her of financial impropriety. Hapgood accuses her of using money collected for the lepers to pay for her travels, without pausing to consider whether this was a necessary expense in the raising of far larger amounts for the lepers (Hapgood 1893). At a distance of some thousands of miles Playfair Magazine (Wellington, 10 March 1894) felt able to report that she made 'such a comfortable living out of the leper rescue business' (seen in BexM, Kate Marsden file) and as late as 1924 Arthur Hinks, without evidence, wrote: 'charges have been made against her that she spent money which was collected for the lepers in living riotously' (RGS archive, CB 8, letter to L. Darwin, 3 July 1924). Charges of Marsden's financial deceit, then, seem capable of neither proof nor disproof, so her book cannot be dismissed as the work of a proven liar. The charge that Marsden was vainglorious was certainly justified. Throughout her life to a quite remarkable extent she courted the approbation of the famous and titled, through audiences, 'drawing rooms', letters, and testimonials, and that of the general public, through the popular press. But whether she lied to gain approbation, as her critics claimed, is unproven. If exaggeration built up her reputation, then her critics' doubts saved theirs. The New Zealand officials, for example, who testified that there were no Maori with leprosy for Marsden to tend, and that Marsden had given little help to injured miners (Chapman 2000, 131) had an interest in scotching reports that misery had existed in areas under their responsibility until Marsden addressed it. Similarly, Hapgood's informant Petroff had an interest in proving that all was in hand in providing for the Siberian lepers and that Marsden's visit was unnecessary, and his position was in any case ambivalent since he not only supplied Hapgood with criticism of Marsden, but testifies to the veracity of Marsden's achievements (Marsden 1892, appendix; Hapgood 1893). Marsden courted the press, but could not control it, and claimed on at least one occasion quite plausibly that exaggerated statements about her deeds stemmed from press inaccuracy (Chapman 2000, 128). Ironically, her most vigorous critics (Hewett, Hapgood, and Labouchere) were themselves adept publicists. Her critics' case needs to be scrutinized just as carefully as Marsden's. It is unproven then whether Marsden was dishonest about money and about herself to gain advantage, so that her book cannot be discounted as the work of a proven liar; but it would be difficult to give it credence if it were the work of someone who was mentally ill — a suggestion made by many in Marsden's lifetime and since. Hewett reported that girls whom Marsden had lived with feared for her sanity (Chapman 2000, 140). Johnson referred to Marsden's 'most trying mental illness' when 'she said and did things for which she could not justly be held morally responsible' (Johnson 1895, 57). Miss Norris did the same (BexM, E. Norris to H.J. Sargent privately 15 December 1932). Stead reported that she had been 'subject to painful maladies which disturbed her mental balance' (Stead 1893, 503) and wrote, T think Miss Marsden is cracked, to tell you the truth, but all good people are
Kate Marsden
11
cracked, only she is a little bit more cracked than what her friends could wish' (letter to Aylmer Maude, 11 October 1892, cited in Millinship 1999, 25). It is unclear whether these reports are to be believed. Hewett hated Marsden beyond reason, and seems to have been prepared to pass on any rumour. Stead used other shortcomings to divert attention from her lesbianism (Millinship 1999, 26), while Johnson and Norris drew their information from Marsden herself. The latter two wrote of an isolated episode in New Zealand following her accident when she 'did not live up to her high standards' (BexM, letter E. Norris to H. J. Sargent privately 15 December 1932), for which going to Siberia was her 'expiation' (Johnson 1895, 57). This slip in standards was perhaps the lesbian relations to which she apparently confessed to Francis (Millinship 1994) and perhaps to the cofounder of the Bexhill Museum, J. C. Thompson (T put it to her whether or no there was anything in the statements against her she could not answer and she bowed her head and confessed there was' (BexM, Marsden portrait file, letter to H.J. Sargent, 7 November 1932)). If she had been an active lesbian in New Zealand (and there are no charges of lesbianism outside that time), then temporary insanity was a defence as handy for Marsden as for those who regretted having supported her. Marsden was certainly unstable in religion. An evangelical deaconess of low church or dissenting persuasion in 1877, Marsden was described by Helen Snow of Wellington in 1892 as 'a disguised Romanist' (Chapman 2000, 130). Hewett claimed to have turned Marsden back to Protestantism in 1886, and it was alleged that in New Zealand in the 1880s Marsden was both confirmed as an Anglican and receiving instruction for reception into the Roman Catholic church (Chapman 2000, 129, 138-9). By 1890 she was described as a 'Sister of Mercy', that is, in Roman Catholic orders (Johnson 1895, 28). In 1893 she declared firmly, T am a Protestant' (Marsden 1894) and was reported to be 'a member of the King's Daughters', an American Protestant women's organization which like Marsden was present at the Chicago World's Fair and which shared her interest in leprosy ([Dion's Herald], 12 April 1893; [IOKDS]; Stead 1892, 185). The following year she was reported to be a Sister of Charity, that is, in Anglican orders (Marsden 1894; [Anglican]). By 1895 she had become a Roman Catholic oblate of the Society of St Francis, but it seems likely that she renounced Roman Catholicism. She seems never to have mentioned the Leper Guild to those outside it, though she might have been justly proud of its achievements and it was hardly in her nature to underplay her own (RGS archive and BexM, corresp; Marsden 1921). This suggests her Roman Catholic period was not something she later wanted widely known, perhaps especially if it might have affected the willingness of the Protestant Misses Norris to look after her. Her declaration in 1916 that she would 'pass on into the great unknown and join the host of our travellers there' (RGS archive, CB 8, letter to J.S. Keltic, 10 May 1916) speaks of whimsical mysticism rather than orthodox faith, and thus both Roman Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism seem to have been enthusiasms that Marsden dropped. But having Enthusiasms (and Doubts) typified Marsden's era and was not itself reprehensible and certainly not proof of mental illness. Indeed Marsden's opponents seem at times more unhinged about religion than she was alleged to be: Helen Snow claimed that Marsden was 'from 10 years of age trained as a Jesuit by her father who was one, unknown by the rest of his family' (Chapman 2000, 130). Nonetheless it is clear that Marsden's religion failed to give her the inner repose and steady sense of purpose shown by other remarkable missionary travellers, such as Annie Taylor (b. 1885), missionary in Tibet and China (Middleton, 1982), and her later transcendental moment seems not to have reflected the type of strong, if half-baked, convictions which impelled
78
Kate Marsden
travellers such as Francis Younghusband (1863-1942) (French 1994; Matless 2004). Rather her religion was a clear sign of her inconstancy. Marsden, like many other travellers, would not have set out on her arduous journeys had she been conventional. Stead remarked of it at the time, 'It must be admitted that a madder scheme never entered into the mind of a human being' (Stead 1892, 185), and nearly a century later the curator of the Yakutsk museum remarked of Marsden's journey, 'It was a time when no-one in their senses would venture into Siberia, still less into Yakutia' (Bolting 1965, 107). Such evidence as there is of Marsden (elevation of mood, increased energy and activity, grandiose and over-optimist ideas, and interest in new ventures, alternating with loss of energy, diminished activity, bleak views of the future, and ideas of guilt and unworthiness) is consistent with her having bipolar affective disorder. Intriguingly given the accusations against her, the manic phases of this disorder can also be associated with increased libido and a tendency to overspend. But the reported range and intensity of her unusual characteristics does not enable a confident diagnosis by modern criteria of mental disorder ([ICD-10], 1992; Hugh Series, personal communication). The conclusion must be that Marsden's books cannot properly be written off as the work of someone mentally unstable or of a proven liar, but must be evaluated on their own merits. Of Marsden's three books, the last (Vindicator!, 1921), is largely a reiteration of her second work (On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers, 1893), to which her first (Travels of Miss Marsden, 1892), was simply the Russian precursor. Attention here is therefore confined to the second work. Of this an authoritative if brief contemporary review appeared in the Geographical Journal of April 1893 written by P.K. [Peter [Pyotr Alekseievich] Kropotkin] (1842-1921) (On Krotopkin, see Geographers Vol. 7). He stated, 'The account is quite correct, without any tendency to sensationalism or exaggeration.' Moreover, 'The description of a land on fire . . . when the whole peat soil is burning is very good, and makes a valuable addition to the description of the scenery of Siberia'. This review is particularly important, written as it was by a Russian with first-hand experience of Siberia, Russian society at many levels, and the prison and exile systems which Marsden describes. Other travellers to Siberia confirmed the accuracy of her reports: Captain Harry de Windt (1856—1933), who travelled in the area just after Marsden, reported that he was 'only too glad to add my testimony to the fact that you carried out your very arduous and often dangerous task in a manner which should have elicited nothing but the highest praise in England' (RGS archive, CB 8, letter to Marsden, 23 October 1919). Windt had not only been to Siberia, but had a particular interest in prisons (de Windt 1892, 1895, 1896). Douglas Bolting who visited ihe area in ihe 1960s reported, 'Though Kale Marsden chooses lo describe only ihe mosl hazardous and wearisome incidenls on her Iravels, she does nol unduly exaggerate ihem. . . . she gives a lugubriously fascinating piclure of Iravel conditions in rural Yakutia lhal have changed hardly al all lo ihe presenl day' (Boiling 1965, 111-12). Pelroff s allegations lhal ihe scheme lo help ihe Siberian lepers was all in hand before Marsden's arrival seems ilself lo be economical wilh ihe Irulh. There had indeed been previous allempls lo care for ihe lepers and money had been raised, bul disagreemenl belween officials had caused ihese efforts lo founder before Marsden's arrival. She was ihe calalysl lo ihe successful completion of ihe projecl (Peslerev 1993, 43)). Her book has latterly been judged lo have been mailer of fad in style, wilh 'none of ihe melodrama' of a work of fiction (Morris and O'Connor 1994, 122), and Robinson is slruck wilh Marsden's 'irrepressible sense of humour' ralher lhan her self-importance (Robinson 1990, 142).
Kate Marsden
79
All this evidence, and in particular Marsden's continuing high reputation in Yakutia, makes clear that her book is not a romance and that her election FRGS was justified. There was certainly much written about Marsden's travels which was romance, and some of this seems to have come from Marsden herself. Brewer's account in the Girl's Own Paper based on an interview with Marsden contains many absurdities, such as Marsden's driving a buggy pulled by a team of thoroughbred horses straight at angry bulls, one of whom gored a horse, Marsden later sewing up the wounds. 'One is reminded when listening to her of Bret Harte and Rider Haggard' is Brewer's comment, which scarcely helps Marsden's claims to veracity (Brewer 1890—1, 134—5). But the travel work by Marsden is pronounced plausible by well-placed and disinterested judges, and commands respect. Marsden was a keen photographer, and aware of the power of the visual image. She gained imperial permission to photograph what she wanted in Russia, including sensitive subjects such as prisons and is reported as having photographed many curiosities before her Siberian journey (Brewer 1890—1). She also had photographs taken of herself at various stages of her journey and in the company of the great and the good (e.g. Marsden 1892, 75 for her insistence on having her photograph taken in the presence of the Governor General and two archbishops before she set off through Siberia). She had herself photographed in carefully chosen poses, whether in court dress, nursing uniform, or on her travels (e.g. RGS picture library S0010734 (Figure 2), S0010735, S0011694, and S0011695). The images of her in the field, including those which illustrate her account of her travels, are further important confirmations of the facts of her travel, but, collectively, images of her underline the complexity of her character. She posed, for example, not only in court, nursing, and travelling dress, but also in fancy dress, as a woman of Jerusalem and of Bethlehem. Her reason was ostensibly to show what women in the Holy Land looked like (for reproduction and discussion, see Brewer 1890—1, 284—5), but this aim could much more plausibly have been met by photographing local women. Marsden's lectures were illustrated by lantern slides which after her death went to the British Empire Lepers/Leprosy Association (RGS archive, CB 10, letter, E. Norris to A. Hinks, 16 April 1932), but which are now untraceable (LEPRA archivist, personal communication). This is a pity as she probably took many of the slides which, together with those used to illustrate her books, would have been a useful guide both to her achievements and, just as importantly, how she wanted them to be viewed. Much less well known than her travel works is Marsden's pioneering work in medical geography. By 1895 it was reported that 'she has been occupied in the preparation of a Leper Chart, compiled from authentic sources, showing the geographical distribution of leprosy and the condition of lepers. She proposes to publish this chart immediately' (Johnson 1895, 58). Probably the only surviving copy of the Geographical Leper Chart (Figure 1) has recently come to light. This copy may be the work of others in addition to Marsden since it refers to sources published in 1909, ten years after Marsden's known connections with the guild ended, but Marsden the nurse and Marsden the geographer are evidently at the root of it. The information on the chart, organized by continent, was drawn from authoritative works of medical geography (e.g. Hirsch 1883—6; Leloir 1886), and first-hand accounts of travellers in areas affected by leprosy (e.g. Zambaco 1891). Marsden realized that the chart, though showing signs of considerable scholarship, needed more data and, being Roman Catholic at the time, hit upon the ingenious idea of enlisting the help of Propaganda (the Vatican department charged with regulating ecclesiastical affairs in non-Catholic countries) to require the gathering of and then collate geographical information on the existence and condition of
80
Kate Marsden
Figure 2: Kate Marsden in Siberia, photographers unknown, 1891, Royal Geographical Society, London: S0010734, original at RGS PR/026695. lepers throughout the world ([Catholic Encyclopaedia]) She persuaded the suitably eminent Cardinal Vaughan to ask Propaganda to make the request, but it seems to have come to nothing after Marsden's resignation from the guild (there is no mention of it in the 1917 Catholic Encyclopaedia for example).
Influence and Spread of Ideas Marsden's charitable works had a lasting effect and influence. The money she raised for Siberian lepers had by 1897 been used to build a leper hospital in Vilyuysk (Millinship 1994; Pesterev 1993; Anderson 2006). It closed in 1917 after 20 years' service, when leprosy was declared eradicated (Millinship 1994). The hospital buildings were used by psychiatric patients into the twenty-first century (Anderson 2006, 164). Marsden's help to the lepers of Yakutsk is a solid achievement, attested to by contemporaries (for example de Windt: T heard nothing but good spoken of you while I was in Yakutsk' (RGS archive, CB 8, letter to Marsden, 23 October 1919) and by the continuing admiration of local people (Bolting 1965; Pesterev 1993; The Times, 19 August 1994). Memorials to her in Yakutsk include an obelisk (Anderson 2006, 197) and, rather bizarrely, the Kate Marsden diamond, a 55.6 carat diamond mined locally and named after her in 1991 on the centenary of her journey (Pesterev 1993, 43). In the Viluysk Museum of Local Lore there is a permanent exhibition about Marsden and in 1991 a commemorative plaque from the grateful people of Viluysk was placed on one of former leper hospital buildings, declaring, 'the memory of Miss Marsden's deed, accomplished in 1891, will not grow diminished by time' (Anderson 2006, 197).
Kate Marsden
81
Of Marsden's other charitable works, the St Francis Leper (Leprosy) Guild survives. It distributes more than £300,000 each year (2005 figures) (StFLG, brochure). The Bexhill Museum survives and is significant locally. More than 300 of its most important objects, solicited by Marsden, can now be studied online ([Virtual Egypt]). Collectively these are remarkable practical achievements for anyone, and especially for a Victorian spinster with few means. The influence of Marsden's geographical work is less easy to assess than that of her charitable work. Her work in medical geography was stymied by her forced resignation to escape scandal, and then superseded when international conferences on leprosy (e.g. Berlin in 1897, Bergen in 1909) began to collate statistics on leprosy. The surviving Leper Chart includes statistics from the Bergen conference, making it by this point derivative and to some extent redundant. But Marsden's work anticipated this international work, much as her work in Siberia and with miners in New Zealand had anticipated official action, and it remains a prescient piece of medical geography. It must also be one of few works of medical geography to have been encased in white satin and presented to a pope in the Vatican (presentation to Leo XIII, StFLG, minutes, 2 February 1897). Marsden's greatest influence on geography has been because of her sex which profoundly affected her work, life, and reputation. She was active when the bourgeois doctrine of separate spheres — public for men and private for women — shaped expectations of the roles and attitudes which came 'naturally' to each sex and which exposed those who sought to break out of the appropriate sphere to charges that they were not only singular, but aberrant and unnatural (Harrison 1978; Hall 1987 and 1990; Holloway 2005). Marsden's sex embroiled her in the controversy over the election of women to the RGS in 1892. The early date of her journey, its serious purpose, its physical difficulty, and the fact that her destination was little known, meant that she could not be castigated by opponents of women's election as a 'globetrotteress', engaged in something quite separate from the serious business of male exploration. Rather she was one of the 'well qualified ladies' whose election helped to break down the barriers to women's recognition (Middleton 1982; Bell and McEwan 1996). Some of those elected with her, such as Isabella Bishop (Bird), and other women travellers such as Mary Kingsley (Geographers Vol. 19) and Marianne North were at the least ambivalent about women's rights. There is little evidence about Marsden's general views on the matter, although the fact that she described herself as 'spinster' rather than 'traveller' on her RGS election papers, and the complete absence of comment in her otherwise copious correspondence do not suggest that she was particularly alert to women's issues in a general sense (RGS archive, fellowship papers). Nonetheless, she consistently staked her personal claims to acceptance in a man's world. At the height of the controversy surrounding her in 1894 she asked for a ticket for the RGS anniversary dinner. She was refused on the grounds that she would be 'the only lady among 200, nearly all of them smoking' (Middleton 1973, 68). Her singularity evidently did not trouble Marsden, but was sufficient justification for the male officers of the RGS to exclude her to preserve the RGS's atmosphere of male clubbability (Baigent 2006; Stoddart 1986). (Ironically, her portrait was later hung in the RGS's ladies' smoking room (Middleton 1982, 145)). Marsden's whole life shows her unwilling to conform to expectations that a Victorian or Edwardian woman would confine herself to the private sphere, or, if admitted to the public, contrive to remain 'invisible and undocumented' (Birkett 1989, 214). She confidently and consistently adopted an independent public life, taking parts more often played by men: traveller, fellow of the RGS, author, lecturer, publicist, organizer, researcher, representative abroad.
82
Kate Marsden
Women's entry into public life in this period was characteristically in areas seen as an extension of the private: nursing, voluntary social work, missionary and other religious work, teaching girls and young women, writing for children. Such roles involved the practice outside the home of skills such as nurturing and domestic management learnt in the home and suited women's alleged caring and religious natures (Howarth 1993, Garnett 1993). Marsden followed this trend in her role as nurse, especially in her decision to serve as a deaconess rather than in a nursing sisterhood. She may have chosen this path because she was evangelical rather than high church, but it had the practical effect of putting her more clearly under the authority of men (Prelinger 1986). She also followed the trend in her early travels which were undertaken for private reasons (to nurse a dying sister in New Zealand), for reasons to do with nursing (visiting the deaconess-run leper hospital in Jerusalem), or for quasi-missionary purposes (with missionary Miss Field to distribute gospels to Russian prisoners, as well as to discover facts about lepers). But such roles were for Marsden merely springboards to a more clearly public life, quite outside accepted boundaries. When Miss Field's heath gave way in suitably womanly fashion at Omsk, Marsden went on alone unchaperoned, and indeed in doing so she reverted to her earlier solo travels in Egypt and the Holy Land (Brewer 1890-1). When her reputation had been impugned, her financial and moral probity questioned, and even her body allegedly tainted by leprosy, she refused to retire to a private life. Indeed she used her private life as the justification for public action: her travels and campaigns were her 'living her repentance and sorrow' for her earlier private shortcomings as she expressed it (Johnson 1895, 57, original italics). Although she was effectively quashed by a mixture of her own instability and male opposition, her public aims remained ambitious. Her fund for lepers in Siberia was succeeded by the St Francis Guild with worldwide goals. Her plans for the Bexhill museum were grandiose: rather than just the stuffed birds characteristic of such museums, Bexhill's collection was to reflect her contacts with geographical societies throughout the world, and the Amsden Egyptological collection which she secured is of (modest) international importance. There was generally a gap between Marsden's aspiration and her achievement, but neither was characterized by feminine confinement to the private rather than the public sphere. If Marsden avoided arguing from her own actions for a more public role for women in general, this was probably because she was quite remarkably egocentric; but the possibility of her being a role model for other women was not lost on others. The author of a serial about Marsden in the Girl's Own Paper for example, having established Marsden's credentials as a Christian and 'a very womanly, gentle woman', states that, after Marsden's endurance of the hardships of Siberia, 'As a woman I should say Stanley will have to take a back seat!' (Brewer 1890—1, 60 and 61). Marsden's refusal to be subservient is not only an example in its own right, but it emboldens the author 'as a woman' to judge the best known explorer of the age. Stead drew a still more ambitious moral from the achievements of Marsden and her friend May French Sheldon: 'a woman can go where a man would completely fail' (Stead 1892, 185). Where Marsden did play on her sex in her public life it was sometimes to secure publicity and acceptability by emphasizing her exceptionalism and sometimes was simply opportunistic. She secured the patronage of royal and imperial women for nursing — a woman's cause. She granted interviews to papers for girls and women (Brewer 1890—1). Her travel book — 'this story of a woman's work' — was dedicated to Queen Victoria — 'the most queenly woman and the most womanly Queen' (Marsden 1892, dedication), and she described herself as 'a feeble woman' or a
Kate Marsden
83
'nervous woman' (Marsden 1892, 2, 63) as a literary device to draw attention to the hardships she endured in Siberia. But this womanly persona seems to have been mere opportunism for Marsden: she took advantage of the existence of a Women's Building at the Chicago World's Fair to secure space for herself, but was just as ready to secure space at the Paris Exhibition in a general area. On the odd occasions when she related her own experience to that of wider groups of people it was rarely to women. Rather she positioned herself as a Christian (throughout her publications) and later as a geographer (RGS archive, and BexM, corresp.). If Marsden's public life was characterized by her adoption of men's roles, her private life was dominated by women: educated at a girls' school, living with her mother, living with deaconesses, forming friendships with New Zealand women, Miss Field, and Mrs French Sheldon, living in the Family Dormitory for the Chicago World's Fair (Marsden 1893?), and latterly living with two other spinsters. The allegation which proved most damaging to her — her lesbianism — also concerned women and her private life, and in the end her private life overwhelmed her public. Although she is such an original that it is hard to argue she typifies anything, she nonetheless exemplifies the difficulties that women faced in adopting a public role, and establishing themselves as serious geographers and scientists. 'Women travellers were open to innuendoes not only of improper behaviour, but also of inappropriate and unwomanly motives, striking to the very heart of the legitimacy of their travels' (Birkett 1989, 199). Marsden was consistently criticized for having transgressed sexual norms in a way that her male equivalents were not. In one way the difference worked to her advantage: since female homosexuality was not criminalized she could never face trial for lesbianism, but more generally the difference worked to her disadvantage. Her biographer was careful to balance his comments on her tallness, her early taste for carpentry and tree climbing, and dislike of ladylike accomplishments with a stress on her adoption of traditional roles of nurse and carer, and said that her tallness made her stately, an appropriate stance for a woman, and perhaps especially a lady (Johnson 1895, 2—7). Nonetheless his comments were perhaps unwise, given that the book was written in answer to critics, some of whom were uneasy when she transgressed accepted sexual roles. Marsden's book was criticized for being full of laboured trivia (and was often dismissed for this by male reviewers ([Literary World], 1893)), but much of this was to anticipate criticism of herself as unwomanly. She had travelled as the sole woman with fifteen men in Siberia, in close proximity day and night, and she labours the facts that she looks comical and unsexed rather than alluring and womanly, and that she does not undress at night as a defence against charges of indelicacy or impropriety (Marsden 1892, 15, 47, 96, 100, 107 and image of herself in travelling dress as frontispiece). Similarly, faced with no option but to ride her horse astride on the local saddles, she takes pains to explain her reasons and makes quite clear that she has never done this kind of thing before (Marsden 1892, 95—6; Stead 1892, 186). Now rumours about her alleged lesbianism are well known, but in Marsden's lifetime gossip about illicit heterosexual activity also circulated. A reviewer of her book in the Newark Daily Associate wrote of 'hints of an intrigue between her and a Russian noble' (http://www.logoi.com/notes/lepers_siberia.html) and Arthur Hinks of the RGS wrote of her 'living riotously with a Russian General' (RGS archive, CB 8, letter to Leonard Darwin, 3 July 1924). Neither commentator provided any evidence to support this gossip, and Hinks's action particularly showed the vulnerability of women. He made his comment as part of a report on Marsden for whom aid had been requested from the Professional Classes Aid Council. His inclusion of sexual gossip effectively prevented her getting financial help so that she could live independently, but in the same letter he
84
Kate Marsden
presented her as a parasite, living on others. Men continued to feel free to judge Marsden. Revd Thompson of Bexhill, in a letter whose purpose was to buttress his claim to be the sole founder of the museum, reports that he confronted Marsden with the gossip and extracted a confession from her; grossly understates her part in the first stirrings of the museum committee; and wholly erroneously reports that the committee 'insist[ed] on her leaving it and withdrawing from all Connection with the Museum' (BexM, letter to H. Sargent, 7 November 1932, Marsden portrait file; Mew Milton and District Advertiser, Thompson file). Women, too, felt free to judge Marsden in a way they would not have done a man. It was ironic that her most vigorous female opponents were themselves scarcely models of retiring femininity. Rather, each had a well-developed public persona. Hapgood's independence has been noted, and Hewett, too, was a traveller, the author of a book which brought her private reminiscences into the public sphere, and adept at manipulating the press (Chapman 2000, 138). The women pressed their case against Marsden largely through men in positions of public influence (Francis, Labouchere, Stead), working behind the scenes in a way which conformed to expectations of women's behaviour. The accusations were the product of a powerful blend of men's public and women's private actions. The opposition to women's admission as fellows of the RGS came from men unwilling to relinquish their control over the society. The society coveted its public role as shaper of national policy on exploration, science, and empire (Stafford 1989; Driver 2001), a public face moulded in large part by personal contacts between men, who rubbed shoulders in the various metropolitan learned societies of which they were fellows — places which were private but not domestic (Stoddart 1986, ch. 4). The admission of women threatened the society's public-in-private work by introducing an unwelcome note of domesticity to the society's private spaces, even though they were to have their own social rooms. In fact the admission of Marsden and her cohort to the fellowship was largely irrelevant to the society's public work, since the election of women fellows was halted after 1892, leaving her one of an isolated handful of women (Bell and McEwan 1996; Mill 1930). It was, however, an aspect of the society's work which she aped in her own way. She consistently aspired to contact with those in the highest ranks of social and political life (royalty, high ranking church and state officials), though always as a supplicant who never aspired to the familiarity of equality which RGS officials cultivated with their peers in the Royal Society or Admiralty (Stafford 1989; Baigent 2006). But the opposition to the admission of women to the RGS as fellows was on grounds of class and control as well as sex. Many conservative members of the society were happy to allow in women guests: that they would be of the right class was guaranteed by their male host who would also keep them under control. Women fellows, by contrast, were not under the control of men and threatened to lower the social tone if fellowship became a way for schoolmistresses and governesses to gain a qualification (Birkett 1989, 219). Marsden proved right their forebodings: she clung limpet-like to her fellowship, despite her straitened circumstances, and the letters 'FRGS' appeared as a guarantor of her acceptability. She also introduced other female fellows with small purses, who were no worse qualified than many of their male counterparts, but who were socially worlds apart from many of them (RGS archive, fellowship forms Miss Emily Lloyd Norris, Miss Helen Hunt Holly, Miss Frances Eliza Hunt Holly) She, and her friends on her business, bombarded the society with correspondence, making requests which secretary Arthur Hinks declared exasperatedly to show 'a certain want of proportion' (RGS archive, CB 10, letter to president, 14 April 1931). Marsden thus epitomized the kind of woman whom conservatives feared would dilute the
Kate Marsden
85
private pleasures of society life. Regardless of her solid claims to admission on geographical grounds, she certainly represented a threat to the RGS on social grounds. Throughout her life, then, Marsden refused to let her sex determine her own actions, but it continued to determine in whole or part how others saw, judged, and reacted to her.
Conclusion For Miss Emily Norris, her companion and support for nearly 30 years, Kate Marsden was 'the noblest and best of women' (RGS archive, CB 9, letter to A. Hinks, 31 December 1924). For Hinks, secretary of the RGS, she was 'a rather tiresome old lady about whom a good deal has been said' (RGS archive, CB 8, letter to L. Darwin, 3 July 1924). New Zealander Helen Snow thanked Marsden's attacker Isabel Hapgood with the words, 'It may never be known how many sisters you have saved from KM's clutches but .. . they owe you a debt of gratitude' (cited in Chapman 2000, 133), while members of the leprosy charity which she founded expressed their gratitude to Marsden and 'wished it to be recorded that they themselves had the most entire trust and confidence in her' (StFLG, minutes, 8 May 1896). Evidently, in the words of her museum co-founder at Bexhill, 'Miss Marsden was a great mystery . .. [people] seemed mesmerised by her' (BexM, J.C. Thompson, to H.J. Sargent 1 November 1932). From the late twentieth century she has been the subject of biographical interest by geographers (Middleton 1962, 1982, 1973, 2004); those with a medical interest (Gould 2005; Benson 1984); those interested in Russia (Chapman 2000; Millinship 1994, 1998a, 1998b, 1999); writers on the history of travel (Birkett 1989; Anderson 2006; Robinson 1990; Keay 1989), and present-day travellers (Bolting 1965). Her writing has been reprinted (Marsden 1986, 2001, 2004), and has featured not only in anthologies of writing by travellers, especially women travellers (Allen 1981; Morris and O'Connor 1993, 1994; Hamalian 1981), but also in works to inspire the young with tales of daring deeds (McLoone 1997). The burgeoning literature on Marsden shows that she continues to fascinate, though as our knowledge of her becomes complete, the effect is less one of mesmerism than of critical judgement. We know infinitely more about Marsden's private and public lives than about those of almost any other geographer of the period, or indeed any other, and the temptation is for the private to engulf the public. To allow this to happen again subjects her as a woman to quite different standards of scrutiny than are deemed appropriate for men, and this first attempt here at a professional assessment is an important step in her reassessment.
Acknowledgements I am very grateful to the staff of the RGS archive, the St Francis Leprosy Guild, London, the Bexhill-on-Sea Museum, the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, LEPRA (British Leprosy Relief Association), and the Culin Archival Collection, Brooklyn Museum, New York; Tony Gould, for a copy of the Charity
86
Kate Marsden
Organization Society report on the Kate Marsden fund and exchange of views; Deb Kim and Grace Royer for transcripts of letters in the US National Archives and searches in the Library of Congress; Dr Hugh Series, FRCPsych., for psychiatric advice; Professor Robert Whittaker, Lehman College, CUNY, for correspondence on Isabel Hapgood; Dr Judith Pallot for help with Russian material; Drs Margaret Felling and Jo Robertson for advice on medical geography, and to Mrs Dorothy Middleton for stimulating collaboration on early women travellers from 1993 to her death in 1999 during work on the Oxford D.NB.
Bibliography and Sources 1. REFERENCES ON KATE MARSDEN Adams, P. G. (1962), Travelers and Travel Liars, 1660—1800, Berkeley: California University Press. Allen, A. (1981), Travelling Ladies, London: Jupiter Books. Anderson, M. (2006), Women and the politics of travel 1870-1914, Madison, Teaneck: Farleigh Dickinson University Press. [Anglican Communion] (http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communities/ community_detail/sc.cfm), consulted 17 July 2007. Baigent, E. (2004), 'Founders of the Royal Geographical Society', in Oxford DMB. Baly, M. (1989), 'Florence Nightingale and the history of public health nursing', Humane Medicine, 5 Autumn, 1989, no pagination, http://www.humanehealthcare.com/Article.asp?art_id =235, consulted 20 July 2007. Bell, M., and McEwan, C. (1996), 'The Admission of Women Fellows to the Royal Geographical Society, 1892—1914: the Controversy and the Outcome', Geographical Journal 162, 295-312. Birkett, D. (1989), Spinsters Abroad: Victorian Lady Explorers, Oxford: Blackwell. Bolting, D. (1965), One Chilly Siberian Morning, London: Travel Book Club. Bravina, R. I. (1992), Voprosy obshchestvenno-politicheskoy i sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoy istorii Yakutii. Sbornik nauchnikh statey [Questions of the social and political and socioeconomic history of Yakutiya. Collected articles^ Yakutsk: Yakutskiy gosudarstvennyy universitet. Benson, E. R. (1984), 'A Nurse's Mission to Siberia: Kate Marsden 1859-1931', American Association for the History of Nursing Bulletin 6, 1 and 4. Brewer, E. (1890—1891), 'Kate Marsden, and her Mission to Russia and Siberia', Girl's Own Paper 12 (565), 60-1, 134-5, 206-7, 284-5, and 414-5. [Catholic Encyclopaedia] Catholic Encyclopaedia 1917, http://www.newadvent.org/ cathen/12456a.htm consulted 16 July 2007. Chapman, H. (2000), 'The New Zealand campaign against Kate Marsden, traveller to Siberia', Mew ^ealand Slavonic Journal, 123—40. [Colyer and Colyer], letter, The Times, 20 August 1894.
Kate Marsden
87
Driver, F. (2001), Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration and Empire, Oxford: Blackwell. Francis, A. F., letters, The Times, 16 and 18 August 1894. French, P. (1994), Younghusband: the Last Great Imperial Adventurer, London: HarperCollins. Garnett, J. (1993), 'Women in the New Dictionary of National Biography: a preliminary report', DNB archive, Oxford. Gould, T. (2005), Don't Fence Me In: From Curse to Cure: Leprosy in Modern Times, London: Bloomsbury. Hall, C. (1987), Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 17801850, London: Hutchinson. —
(1990), 'The sweet delights of home', in Perrot, M., (ed.), A History of Private Life IV: From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 46—93.
Hamalian, L. (1981), Ladies on the Loose: Women Travellers of the 18th and 19th Centuries, New York: Dodde, Mead. Hapgood, I. F. (1893), '"Philanthropy" on horseback', The Nation, 56 (1449), 6 April, 258-9. —
(1895), Russian Rambles, Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company; London: Longmans.
Harrison, B. H. (1978), Separate Spheres: the Opposition to Women's Suffrage London: Groom Helm.
in Britain,
Heeney, B. (1988), The Women's Movement in the Church of England 1850-1930, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Helmstadter, C. (1994), 'The Passing of the Night Watch: Night Nursing Reform in the London Teaching Hospitals 1856—90', Canadian Bulletin of Medical History I Bulletin canadien d'historie de la medicine 11, 23—69. Herben, G. F. (1893), 'Models for the proposed buildings in Kate Marsden's leper hospitals' Woman's building at the World's Fair, Dion's Herald [Boston] 71(38), 20 September 1893, 302. Hirsch, A. (1883—86), Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, 3 vols, trans. Creighton, C., London: New Sydenham Society. Holloway, G. (2005), Women and Work in Britain since 1840, London: Routledge. Howarth, J. (1993), 'Associate editor report on vie vof, DNB archive, Oxford. [ICD10] (1992), The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders: Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines, Geneva, World Health Organization. [IOKDS] International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons, http:// www.iokds.org/index.html consulted 17 July 2007. Johnson, H. (1895), The Life of Kate Marsden, New York: Cassell, c.1893; 2nd edn, London: Simpkin. Keay, J. (1989), With Passport and Parasol: The Adventures of Seven Victorian Ladies, London: BBC books.
88
Kate Marsden
Kropotkin, P. [P. K.] (1893), Review of On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers, in 'Geographical Literature of the Month', Geographical Journal 59, 376. Leloir, H. C. C. (1886), Traitepratique et theorique de la leper, Paris, Progres medical. [Literary World] (1893), 'Miss Marsden among the Siberian lepers', 8 April 1893, 24
(7), 111. [Marshall, E. E.] (1890), District Visitors, Deaconesses, and a Proposed Adaptation, in part, of the Third Order, London: Skeffmgton & Son. Matless, D. (2004), 'Younghusband, Francis', in Oxford D.NB. McLoone, M. (1997), Women Explorers in Polar Regions: Louise Arner Boyd, Agnes Deans Cameron, Kate Marsden, Ida Pfeiffer, Helen Thayer, Mankato, Minn.: Capstone Press. Middleton, D. (1962), 'The lady pioneers III Kate Marsden 1859-1931', Geographical Magazine 34, 651—7. —
(1982), 'Kate Marsden', in Middleton, D. (ed.), Victorian Lady Travellers, Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 128—45.
—
(1973), 'Some Victorian Lady Travellers', The Geographical Journal 139, 65— 75.
—
(2004), 'Marsden, Kate', in Oxford DNB.
Mill, H.R. (1930), The Record of the Royal Geographical Society, 1830-1930, London: Royal Geographical Society. Millinship, W. (1994), 'Heroine of Russia cast out into the cold', The Times, 15 August 1994. —
(1998a), 'Kate Marsden (1859-1931)', Newsstead 12, 8.
—
(1998b), 'How Kate Marsden lost Stead's support', Newsstead 12, 20-1.
—
(1999), 'Why Kate Marsden helped the Siberian lepers', .Newsstead 15, 24-7.
Morris, M., and O'Connor, L. (eds.) (1993) Maiden Voyages: Writings of Women Travelers, New York:, Vintage Books. —
The Virago Book of Women Travellers, London: Virago, 1994.
Pesterev, V.I. (1993), Istoricheskiye miniatyury o Yakutii [Historical Miniatures about Takutiya], Yakutsk: Natsional'noye Knizhnoye Izdatel'stvo Respubliki Sakha. —
(1992), 'Missiya miss Marsden' ['Miss Marsden's mission'], Severnyye Prostory 1, 8-23.
Prelinger, C. M. (1986), 'The Female Diaconate in the Anglican church: what kind of ministry for women?', in Malmgreen, G., (ed.), Religion in the Lives of English Women 1760-1930, London: Groom Helm, 161-92. Religious Notes, New York, 30 July 1891, 43, issue 2226, 15. Robinson, J. (1990), Wayward Women: A Guide to Women Travellers, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robinson, J. M. B. (1890), Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America, New York: Hunt and Eaton, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20747 consulted 10 July 2007.
Kate Marsden
89
Rupprecht, A. (2006), 'Wonderful adventures of Mrs Seacole in many lands (1857): colonial identity and the geographical imagination', in Lambert, D. and Lester, A. (eds.), Colonial Lives across the British Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 176-203. Sharpe, R. A. (2004), 'Marshall, Emily Esther', in Oxford
DNB.
Sidebotham, H. and Matthew, H.C.G. (2004), 'Labouchere, Henry Du Pre', in Oxford DNB. [Sisters of Charity], http://www.anglicancommunion.org/communities/community_detail/sc.cfm, consulted 27 October 2006. Stafford, R. A. (1989), Scientist of Empire: Sir Roderick Murchison, Scientific Exploration, and Victorian Imperialism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stead, W. T. (1892), 'The Quest for the Holy Grail: An English lady among the lepers of Siberia', Review of Reviews 6, 184—8. —
(1893), 'Miss Kate Marsden and the Siberian lepers', Review of Reviews 7, 503.
Stoddart, D. R. (1986) On Geography and its History, Oxford: Blackwell. [VCH 1] Baker, T. F. T., and Pugh, R. B., (eds.) with Baggs, A. P., Bolton, D. K., Scarff, E. P., and Tyack, G. C., 'Tottenham: public services', A History of the County of Middlesex'. Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Minims, Tottenham, Victoria County History 1976, 345-48. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid = 26992 consulted 12 July 2007. [VCH 2] Farrer, W. and Brownbill, J., (eds.), 'Liverpool: Charities', A History of the County of Lancashire'. Volume 4; 1911, 55—7. URL: http://www.britishhistory.ac.uk/report.aspPcompid = 41378 consulted 22 October 2006. [Virtual Egypt] http://www.accessingvirtualegypt.ucl.ac.uk/museums/bexhill.php consulted 22 October 2006. Whittaker, R. (1998), 'Tolstoy's American translator: letters to Isabel Hapgood, 1888-1903', TnQuarterly 22 March 1998. Williams, F. C. (1894), 'The Siberian lepers' friend', The Chautauquan 19(3) June 1894, 339. de Windt, H. (1892), Siberia as it is, London: Chapman and Hall. —
(1895), The Prisons of Siberia, London: Foreign Press Association, 1895.
—
(1896), The Mew Siberia: an Account of a Visit to the Penal Island of Sakhalin and Political Prisons and Mines of the Trans-Baikal District, London: Chapman and Hall.
[Wood, C.W. ed.], (1891), 'Kate Marsden', The Argosy 51 (1), January 1891, 1922. [Yakut oblast' newssheef] 23 April 1892. Zambaco, D.A. (1891), Voyage chez les lepreux, Paris: Masson. [Dion's Herald], 'Our Book Table', Dion's Herald 71(15) 12 April 1893, 115.
90
Kate Marsden
2. WORKS BY KATE MARSDEN 1892
Travels of Miss Marsden Moscow: Tipografiya Obshchestva Rasprostraneniya Poleznykh Knig.
1892
On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers London: Record Press.
1893?
'Russian and Siberian leper mission: founded by Kate Marsden', Chicago: Kate Marsden.
1894
'The Leper', in Eagle, M.K.O., (ed.), The Congress of Women: held in the Woman's Building, World's Columban Exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893, Chicago: Monarch Book Company, 1894, 213—16.
1894
letter, The Times, 18 August 1894.
1894
Reise zu den Aussatzigen in Sibirien, Leipzig: Friedrich.
1897
Eine Reise nach Sibirien, Leipzig: Friedrich.
1921
My Mission in Siberia: a Vindication, London: Stanford.
1986
On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers, introduction, v—ix by Newby, E., London: Century Hutchinson.
1991
Puteshestviye miss Marsden v Yakutskuyu oblast' [Journey of Miss Marsden to Yakutskaya Oblast'] [reprint of 1892 work] Polyarnaya Zuezda 1991(2), 3-22.
2001
On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers, introduction, v—ix by Newby, E., London: Phoenix Press.
2004
Riding through Siberia: a Mounted Medical Mission in 1891, n.p., The Long Riders' Guild Press.
3. UNPUBLISHED SOURCES ON KATE MARSDEN Bexhill-on-Sea Museum: scrapbook, Marsden portrait file, misc mss. New York Public Library, New York: Isabel Florence Hapgood papers 1864—1922 (http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/rbk/faids/hapgoodi.pdf) Royal Geographical Society London: archive: fellowship papers, CB 8, 9, 10; objects (e.g. whistle, watch, medals); picture library photographs (SOO10734, S0010735, S0011694, and S0011695). St Francis Leprosy Guild, Charles Square, London: minutes, scrapbook. The Leprosy Mission International, London: Charity Organization Society Report Case no 16, 929, The Kate Marsden Leper Fund 27 July 1893. US National Archives, Washington DC: National Archives and Records Administration.
Chronology 1859
Born 13 May 1859 at Edmonton, Middlesex
Kate Marsden 1877
Probationer at the Deaconesses Institute, Tottenham
1877
Serves as nurse in Bulgaria
1878
Appointed nurse at Westminster Hospital, London
c.l880
Appointed lady superintendent at Woolton Hospital, Liverpool
91
1884 Nov Goes to New Zealand to nurse dying sister 1885
Appointed lady superintendent of Wellington Hospital, New Zealand
1885
Helps to found St John's Ambulance branch, Wellington
1885
Replaced at Wellington Hospital after accident
1886 May Announces start of leprosy work 1886 Apr
Sails for England
1890
Visits Pasteur in Paris
1890
Presented at court
1890 Sep
Leaves England for Jerusalem, Constantinople, Tiflis, Moscow
1890
Decorated by the Russian Red Cross Society in St Petersburg
1891 Feb
Sets out for Siberia
1891 Dec Returns to Moscow 1892
Travels of Miss Marsden published in Moscow
1892
Lionized in London and elsewhere
1892 Oct
Presented to Queen Victoria at Balmoral
1892 Oct
Receives silver badge of the Royal British Nurses' Association
1892 Nov Elected fellow of RGS as one of first women fellows 1893 spring Publishes On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers in London and New York 1893
Exhibits model of leper colony at Chicago World's Fair
1893
Charity Organization Society issues damning report which it supplies to Katherine Willard, member of St Petersburg investigating committee
1893 Dec Travels to St Petersburg to attend hearings of investigating committee 1893
Henry Johnson publishes sympathetic biography in New York
1894 Aug In The Times Revd Alexander Francis withdraws support for Marsden: Marsden refutes allegations: Francis makes charges more explicit 1895
Second edition of biography by Johnson published in London
1895 Nov Libel action against Francis dismissed 1895 Oct
Founds St Francis Leper (now Leprosy) Guild
1896
Resigns from guild because of scandal
1897
Reelected to guild after receiving papal blessing
1897
Travels to France and Rome on behalf of guild
92
Kate Marsden
1897/8
Moves to Philadelphia
1898
Travels to Honolulu for guild and in connection with her alleged leprosy
1906
Presented at court to Edward VII
1912
Establishes committee which leads to foundation of Bexhill Museum
1913
Resigns from committee because of scandal
1914
Bexhill Museum opens
1916
Made life fellow of RGS
1921
Publishes My Mission in Siberia: a Vindication
1931
Dies 26 March 1931 in poverty at Hillingdon
Max Sorre
93
Max Sorre 1880-1962
Hugh Clout
Maximilian Sorre placed ecology at the heart of his life's work, initially emphasizing plant geography but gradually developing a wider conception that encompassed urban ecology. His range of expertise was enormous but he is best known for his three-volume treatise on human geography. This brilliant son of a humble family trained as a schoolteacher and then spent two years in Paris where he attended classes by Paul Vidal de La Blache (Geographers Vol. 12). While teaching in Montpellier, Sorre prepared a doctorate on the Pyrenees that highlighted biogeography. A succession of university posts, including a highly successful position at Lille, was followed by administrative roles in the provinces and then a major post with responsibility for schooling throughout France. In 1940 Sorre moved to a Chair at the Sorbonne and soon completed the first part of his treatise on human geography with its innovative ecological approach. His teaching was much appreciated but he was by then too old to build up a 'school' of disciples. In retirement, he taught urban ecology to planners in Paris and wrote the two remaining volumes of his magnum opus as well as shorter texts on migration, on sociology and geography, and on human geography. International conferences enabled him to transmit his pioneering work beyond France. Despite his repeated defence of the integrative nature of geography, his wide range of competence and his interdisciplinary overtures were not always well received at home. Other than in his theses, he always used 'Max' as his first name.
Education, Life and Work Maximilien Sorre was born on 16 July 1880, the son of a railway worker employed at the main station at Rennes and whose family roots were in the Marais de Dol (Galtier 1962, 366). Primary and secondary education was completed in that city and, like many intelligent young men of humble origin, Sorre trained as a schoolteacher. Through the teacher training college at Rennes he encountered Emmanuel de Martonne (Geographers Vol. 12) who taught geography at the local
94
Max Sorre
university. Sorre's remarkable ability allowed him to undergo two years of further training at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Saint-Cloud in the western suburbs of Paris (Chevalier 1996, 19). At this time he was exposed to the teaching of Paul Vidal de La Blache who had moved to a chair of geography at the Sorbonne in 1898, having taught for two decades at the elite Ecole Normale Superieure (rue d'Ulm) in central Paris. In this way, Sorre may be recognized as a Vidalian although his route to the master was very different from that of students coming through the rue d'Ulm, notably Lucien Gallois (Geographers Vol. 24), Emmanuel de Martonne, Albert Demangeon (Geographers Vol. 11), Jules Sion and Antoine Vacher. His career would prove more varied than theirs. After Saint-Cloud, Sorre taught for sixteen years in teacher training colleges, first at La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendee (followed by military service), then for three months at Perpignan, and subsequently at Montpellier where he taught French literature for over a decade. He was undertaking geographical work throughout that period, publishing in the Annales de Geographic in 1906 long before he acquired his first degree from the University of Montpellier in 1911. While based in that city, he served as assistant secretary of the Societe Languedocienne de Geographic from 1906 to 1914 and published in its journal (Sorre 1912). In 1911 he married Marguerite Soulas who lived in the city. The couple remained deeply attached to Montpellier and, in later life, would spend a fortnight there in September before the start of each academic year. While at Montpellier, Sorre also researched his doctorate on the eastern Pyrenees that he defended successfully at the Sorbonne in 1913. His main thesis was a classic, integrative monograph that fully lived up to Vidal's expectations but, unlike his contemporaries, Sorre chose to highlight the biogeography and ecology of his chosen region (Claval 1998, 263). This distinctive orientation reflected the influence of Charles Flahault, professor of botany at Montpellier and pioneer of vegetation mapping and plant geography. Sorre's teacher and colleague, Emmanuel de Martonne, stressed that Les Pyrenees mediterranneenes was 'a genuinely innovative work' and wondered whether the author might be encouraged 'to apply his method to another Mediterranean region' (De Martonne 1914—15, 168). Sorre would place ecology, in its various forms, at the heart of his work throughout his life. Freshly equipped with a doctorate, Max Sorre was again called to military service and joined the Montpellier regiment of the 81st Infantry in August 1914 at the start of World War I. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and displayed great concern for the men in his battalion and remarkable courage under fire. He was gravely wounded during the second Artois campaign of the following year and received the croix de guerre for valour. This was awarded in his hospital bed since the army doctors doubted that he would survive his wounds. In fact, his robust constitution helped him pull through but his war wounds would cause him considerable pain for over a decade (Galtier 1962, 368). Eighteen months were spent in various military hospitals but in March 1917 Sorre was sufficiently recovered to give geography classes at the University of Grenoble, moving in September of that year to the University of Bordeaux where he held a two-year position covering for Pierre Camena d'Almeida until he was demobilized in 1919. He managed to write a short article on the Landes and undertook fieldwork in the central and western Pyrenees in those months (Sorre 1918). Sorre then taught for a brief time at Toulouse before moving to the University of Strasbourg that was being re-established as a showcase of French higher education in Alsace after half a century of German occupation. Once again, that was simply a temporary position to cover for Professor Pierre Denis who was on secondment to the Societe des Nations in Geneva. In fact, Sorre spent only two months in Alsace before returning
Max Sorre
95
to Bordeaux in January 1920 to replace Henri Lorin who had been elected a depute. During the subsequent three years, Sorre responded to a request from his friend Albert Demangeon to draft a volume on the Pyrenees for Armand Colin, the favoured publishing house of the Vidalians. This book drew on his thesis and also included detailed information obtained from fieldwork in the central and western parts of the mountain range that had been arranged from Bordeaux. Sorre's academic qualities and productivity were rewarded by membership of the Comite National de Geographic. After this rapid succession of posts, Max Sorre moved to the University of Lille in 1922 where the sole teaching position in geography had not been filled on a permanent basis following the premature death of Vidalian Antoine Vacher in 1919 (Bruyelle 1998, 65). Initially holding a lectureship, Sorre remained in Lille for almost a decade. In 1923 he received the title of professor and two years later was appointed to the re-established chair of regional geography. In November 1929 he was elected Dean of the Faculte des Lettres. The years in northern France were highly productive. As a fluent Spanish speaker, Sorre completed the volume on Mexique: Amerique Centrale for the great Geographic Universelle that had been devised as early as 1908 by Vidal and Max Leclerc, managing director of Armand Colin (Sorre 1928a). Initially, this volume had been entrusted to Vacher. Sorre took a highly active role in the powerful Societe de Geographic de Lille that brought together industrialists and bankers as well as academics and schoolteachers. He gave many lectures in its annual programmes and edited its Bulletin in whose pages he presented much of his early work on the relationship between mankind and the natural world, on urban geography, and on the economic geography of northern France, especially its coal mining activities (Sorre 1925, 1926, 1928a, 1928b, 1928c, 1930a). In the latter context, he worked closely with local chambers of commerce in Lille and other towns. He took his developing ideas on Tecologie de Phomme' to the International Geographical Congress at Cambridge in 1928, and would organize the biogeography section of the IGC in Paris three years later (Sorre 1930b). The reputation of Max Sorre as Dean of Faculte des Lettres at Lille became known to Chevalier, director of Higher Education throughout France, who approached him in 1931 to occupy the administrative post of Recteur of the academie of Clermont-Ferrand with responsibility for all levels of state education (Broc 1993, 246). His former colleagues at Lille ensured that he retained an honorary position in their university. Sorre's energy and tact enabled considerable progress to be achieved in the Auvergne in a short time. In spare moments, he was able to publish his early thoughts on medical geography and to complete a second volume for the Geographie Universelle dealing with the Mediterranean world (Sorre 1933, 1934). This region had been allocated initially to Jean Brunhes (Geographers Vol. 25) but his commitments developed in other ways. Sorre worked on this text with Jules Sion, his friend at Montpellier, but was solely responsible for covering the physical geography of Mediterranean Europe and the regional geography of Spain and Portugal. Inclusion of photographs from Sorre's own camera reveals that he had considerable field experience of Iberia. This had been enhanced during the summer of 1930 and enabled him to write with greater insight and authority than had been the case for Mexique: Amerique Centrale. Sorre's renewed exposure to the Mediterranean world led him to contemplate moving to a southern academie. The post of Recteur of Montpellier that he would have preferred was not vacant in 1934 so he opted for Aix-Marseille where he remained for three very successful years. In 1937 he was appointed Directeur de I'Enseignement du Premier Degrevn. the Ministry of Education. This post in Paris gave
96
Max Sorre
him responsibility for aspects of schooling throughout France and brought him into close contact with ministers Anatole de Monzie and Jean Zay. His drive and energy soon enabled him to bring about improvements in staffing and to initiate a programme of school building. Sorre's political sympathies with the Popular Front rendered him unacceptable to the Vichy Regime following the fall of France and he was relieved of his position. On 29 July 1940, at the age of sixty, he was placed back in the ranks of university professors. Academics at Montpellier urged him to apply for the chair that had fallen vacant three weeks earlier following the sudden death of Jules Sion on 8 July and he returned to the city for a few weeks, but political difficulties made a move to the south impossible at this time (Undated draft of an obituary by Arthur Geddes in the Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2) (On Arthur Geddes, see Geographers Vol. 2). There was also, however, a more accessible and perhaps more attractive vacancy in the form of the chair of human geography at the Sorbonne freed by the death of Albert Demangeon on 25 July (Gottmann 1963, 465). Members of the Faculte des Lettres in Paris actively sought his appointment and he joined their number, throwing himself wholeheartedly into teaching and writing at an age when many scholars would think of slowing down. These new circumstances enabled Sorre to consolidate decades of reading into a three-part magnum opus on human geography. Bearing the title, Les Fondements biologiques de la geographie humaine: essai d'une ecologie de I'homme, the first volume appeared from Armand Colin in 1943, having been delayed by wartime paper shortages. Following the Liberation of France, the declaration by Marshal Petain that had deprived Sorre of his position in the Ministry of National Education was revoked, enabling him to seek reinstatement to his former post (George 1962, 477). In fact, he chose to remain at the Sorbonne; De Gaulle awarded him the title of directeur honoraire de I'enseignement du premier degre. Even so, Sorre's future was far from secure since one of the early decrees of the provisional government of the Republic was to reduce the retirement age of university professors from 73 to 67, thereby requiring him to vacate his chair at the Sorbonne in October 1948. In that year, the second part of his great treatise appeared: Les Fondements de la geographie humaine: les fondements techniques. In December 1950, the Council of State revoked the problematic decree on retirement but Sorre chose not to return to the Sorbonne even though he was now entitled to teach there until October 1953. He continued to work on his third volume that appeared in 1952 as Les Fondements de la geographie humaine: I'habitation, conclusion generale, once again delayed by paper shortages (Letter from Sorre to Arthur Geddes, dated 28 June 1951. Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2). In all, Sorre produced almost 2,000 printed pages that distilled over two decades of reading in several languages and embraced evidence from many disciplines. After retirement from the Sorbonne in October 1948, Sorre remained remarkably active. He headed the French delegation to the International Geographical Congress in Washington in 1952 and presided over the Comite National Francais de Geographie from 1953 to 1960. He taught at the Institut Superieur d'Urbanisme of the University of Paris where he presented not only his own conception of 'human ecology' but also the brand of urban ecology that had been developed between the wars by sociologists at the University of Chicago. At the invitation of the Ministry of National Education, he headed the Centre de Sociologie at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. He wrote to Arthur Geddes that he accepted this position because the sociologists wanted someone who could arbitrate between them (Letter from Sorre to Geddes, dated 28 June 1951). Drawing interdisciplinary inspiration from these responsibilities he wrote two
Max Sorre
97
completely new books: Les Migrations des peuples: essai sur la mobilite geographique (1955) and Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie (1957). His final work, a 365page textbook, L'Homme sur la Terre (1962), condensed a lifetime's array of evidence and ideas. Despite his ordeal during World War I, he enjoyed robust good health to the end of his life, his energetic enthusiasm delighting participants at a conference in June 1962 on geographical methodology at the Ecole Normale Superieure. He died, aged 82, on 10 August while staying with relatives just outside Dijon, prior to travelling south for his regular summer holiday in Provence (Galtier 1962, 365). Arthur Geddes, his Edinburgh colleague on the Commission for Medical Geography of the International Geographical Union, captured Sorre's fundamental humanity in the following text: 'Max Sorre was marked by a vivid sympathy, a free spirit, a comprehension that was both intellectual and quite personal, and by a direct and simple honesty. To know him as a fellow worker was to appreciate his quick choice of essentials, of what should and what could be done. Even those who had known him for only relatively few hours in conference and privately, find themselves remembering, almost with astonishment, that here was a friend on whom they counted with complete assurance, as one does with one's friends. A short, sturdy man, alert and bright-eyed and with a vigorous hand-clasp, Max Sorre might have passed in France for a first-rate village mayor rather than as a citizen who had risen to highest academic and executive rank. He remained a man of the people and was never a mere bureaucrat; no mere theorist or compiler, he was a keen observer, a disciplined thinker' (Undated draft obituary by Arthur Geddes in the Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2).
Scientific Ideas and Geographical Thought Like other French geographers who obtained their doctorates in the first half of the twentieth century, Max Sorre was competent in both physical and human geography. His major thesis, Les Pyrennees mediterraneennes, adopted a holistic approach to comprehend the geography of the departement of the PyreneesOrientales with consideration of conditions in adjacent areas across the Spanish border (Sorre 1913a). The distinctive feature of that work was his detailed understanding of plant geography and of biogeography more generally. Later, he shared this expertise with other colleagues on a major field excursion to the eastern Pyrenees (Sorre 1923). His fascination with biogeography remained vibrant throughout his life; for example, it was Sorre who wrote about vegetation and soils after the 22nd inter-university geographical excursion to Yugoslavia in 1930, who organized the biogeography section of the IGC in Paris in the following year, and who founded the Societe de Biogeographie (Sorre 1930c). Sorre was also experienced in archival and historical work as his secondary thesis on source materials for the study of viticulture and the wine trade in eighteeenth-century Languedoc amply demonstrated (Sorre 1913b). During the 1920s and 1930s he absorbed ideas from medical science, undoubtedly as part of his administrative activity in various universities, but possibly also in response to his close encounter with death in 1915. The notion of'ecology' occupied a central part in his thinking. This had begun during botanical excursions with Charles Flahault but later embraced such matters as the availability of rainfall, the role of climatic factors in conditioning human activity, the production of staple foodstuffs, the impact of diseases, and then various expressions of 'human ecology' and 'urban ecology'
98
Max Sorre
whereby human beings conceived and operated survival strategies (Sorre 1934b, 1950, 1952b). Without rejecting its botanical roots, Sorre finally embraced the methods and substance of sociology into his brand of ecology. Sorre's conceptual enrichment emerges from his three-volume magnum opus, Les Fondements de la geographic humaine, and from subsequent books. His introduction to Les Fondements biologiques: essai d'une ecologie de I'homme, dated 27 December 1940 but not published until 1943, acknowledges indebtedness to Vidal and Flahault and to Sorre's initial inspiration and now close colleague at the Sorbonne, Emmanuel de Martonne. After reference to Humboldt, Lamarck and Charles Darwin (Geographers Vol. 9), Sorre conveys his thanks to climatologists, botanists and medical scientists at Montpellier, Bordeaux, Lille, Clermont-Ferrand and Marseilles. Indeed, he devoted part of his annual visits to Montpellier to consulting recent publications in the medical library of the university (Picheral 1990, 300). In his introduction, Sorre also expresses his intellectual debt to Jules Sion, his friend and co-author whose 'understanding was precious to me, and who approved my writing plan and supported its completion' (Sorre 1943, 11). Just a few months after the fall of France and his removal from the Ministry, Sorre confessed to 'finishing the book in the midst of public grieving against which personal bitterness scarcely counts. It has been a refuge for me and a consolation' (Sorre 1943, 11). Drawing on ideas that he had contributed to a Traite de climatologie biologique et medicale, edited by M. Piery in 1934, Sorre focuses not only on broad climatic regions and the impact of temperature, humidity and wind on the human body but also on the significance of'artificial micro-climates' produced as a result of human activity (Sorre 1934b, 1943, 37). He soon introduces the notion of the 'ecumene' that figures almost as consistently as that of'ecology' in his subsequent work. As he showed in earlier articles, human survival requires food supplies generated in countless ways across the globe but also occurs in the face of diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, tuberculosis and syphilis whose distribution through space and time geographers must seek to understand. With impressive maps, including those showing the occurrence of tuberculosis in France in the 1930s and disease conditions around the Mediterranean basin, Sorre reveals himself as a pioneer in medical geography (Sorre 1943, 376, 386). Les Fondements biologiques ends with acknowledgement to Lavoisier, Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur. The second volume examines Les Fondements techniques and presents human geography on a wider canvas. Sorre stresses that he uses 'the word "technique" in the widest sense, and not in its narrow meaning of mechanical application. It covers all aspects of human industry and art in every domain of activity in space' (Sorre 1948a, 5). This is done in full recognition of the acceleration of social and economic changes that occurred in the wake of World War II. After brief reference to the impact of human warfare throughout history, Sorre draws on anthropology and political science to classify human groups, nations, empires and economic structures, ranging from slavery and castes to the current capitalist world. His focus then shifts to the evolution of energy supplies from human muscle to coal and natural gas, with due acknowledgement of the potential 'use of atomic energy. We are on the brink of the unknown' (Sorre 1948a, 390). The conquest of terrestrial space by means of transport and communication occupies the final third of this 600page book. Alongside conventional coverage of roads and railways, of water and air, there is an intriguing chapter devoted to transmission of ideas ('le transport de la pensee') and a map showing the variable geometry of France caused by transport changes from the early seventeenth century to 1887 is an early demonstration of space/time compression (Sorre 1948a, 597). Completing his magnum opus in February 1951, Sorre explained that he had
Max Sorre
99
written the three volumes 'during a troubled period, full of uncertainty. Started in the bitterness of a great disaster, it has been completed in the anguish of its aftermath. Our only consolation is in the effort we have made to enable [readers] to understand what is going on around us. I hope that this book assists those who read it in the quest for their own serenity' (Sorre 1952, 10). The initial chapter discusses the Vidalian concept of genre de vie (lifestyle) that had been applied to traditional, rural, pre-industrial contexts in which human groups were in close contact with the natural world but which recent scholars were rejecting as inappropriate for analyzing the industrializing, post-war world (Sorre 1948b). Sorre insists that the concept may be revitalized through the injection of ideas from urban sociology; however subsequent chapters present rather static discussions of rural settlement and of urban morphology and function, ranging from small towns to metropolitan centres and urban regions. Inclusion of many detailed maps of individual settlements, first published in volumes of the Geographic Universelle between the wars, reinforces the impression of stasis. Nonetheless, Sorre incorporates evidence and concepts from the 'Chicago School', as translated into the French context in the 1930s by Maurice Halbwachs, and mentions highly contemporary themes such as urban climates and the advantages of cremation over burial given the shortage of space in many of the world's cities (Sorre 1948b, 361). Sorre's remaining books, written in retirement, embrace ecology, the ecumene and many of his earlier discussions but they also inject new elements. Les Migrations des peuples, for Flammarion's 'Bibliotheque de Philosophic Scientifique', testifies to the increasing volume of human mobility over short and long distances in recent years to meet immediate and more lasting objectives (Sorre 1955). As well as pioneering work, such as that by E. G. Ravenstein (Geographers Vol. 1), Sorre acknowledges pioneering theoretical work by Bertil Wendel, Edgar Kant (Geographers Vol. 11) and Torsten Hagerstrand (Geographers Vol. 26) from the University of Lund in the 1950s (Sorre 1955, 8). Alongside discussion of European colonization and 'pioneer fringes' attention is paid to 'the bums, tramps and hobos' who figure in North American sociological work (Sorre 1955, 29). Sorre stressed that while mobility can enhance human well-being, the process is inescapably surrounded by tension, drama and trauma (Sorre 1955, 260). Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie, written for the 'Petite Bibliotheque Sociologique Internationale' published by Marcel Riviere, draws on Sorre's retirement experience as director of the Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (1957a). He recalls the bitter turf war between practitioners of Vidal's ge'ographie humaine and Durkheim's sociologists at the start of the twentieth century, arguing that 'all that row has quietened down and new directions have made themselves felt' (Sorre 1957a, 7). In studying human issues, he 'would like to believe' that geographers bring a sense of the 'total environment' and experience of direct observation, while sociologists bring 'internal enlightenment' through concepts and principles. He added, with telling prescience for January 1957, 'As a discipline of synthesis, geography lives under the perpetual threat of splitting apart' (Sorre 1957a, 9, 10). After a review of classic writers in both disciplines, Sorre focuses on differing conceptions of'space' by geographers and sociologists, paying attention to the work of sociologist Paul Chombart de Lauwe (1956) on the everyday life of working class families. He argues that 'objective space' needs to be matched by recognition of the 'social space' constructed by individuals and groups in society, and articulated around such 'poles' as schools, churches, workplaces, theatres, cinema and sports grounds (Sorre 1957, 111; Buttimer 1969, 419). Ecological interaction, albeit filtered in differing ways, is central to both disciplines, with geographers examining
100
Max Sorre
human presence in the 'total environment' and sociologists stressing interactions among individuals and social groups. 'Succession' and 'community' are shown to be valued concepts for geographers and sociologists, as well as for botanists. Geographers use statistics to generate maps (for example, of religious observance or of electoral behaviour) since 'that is their trade', while sociologists 'build their doctrines' from such numerical information (Sorre 1958). Sorre issues a clarion call to his fellow geographers to wake up to the dynamics of socio-economic change taking place around them. 'A geographer is not a collector of fossil shells that no longer contain living beings. Let us put people back into human geography. Then let us turn more and more toward the sociologists and follow their attempts to adapt to the conditions of the present world' (Sorre 1958, 199). This is a remarkable challenge from a 77-year-old! Sorre's last work, L'Homme sur la Terre, was completed in July 1961, just a year before the author's death (Sorre 1962). Appearing in Hachette's 'Les Cinq Parties du Monde' series, it is a substantial textbook that digested much of his earlier work. After a predictable dedication to Vidal, Flahault and De Martonne, Max Sorre evokes the present 'revolution whose like humanity has not known since the Neolithic' and stresses that the book has been written 'for readers in the 1960s, witnesses of the conquest of space \l'espace aerien\ and of the splitting of the atom' (Sorre 1961, 1). Nonetheless, his specification of geography is conventional: 'Giving priority to the location of phenomena [geography] is the discipline of space on earth . . . The geographer makes, comments upon, and compares maps. Secondly, he is the man who understands inter-relationships' (Sorre 1962, 2). Echoing earlier concerns, he continues: 'Respect for the essential unity of human geography requires all tendencies toward dispersion to be rejected' (Sorre 1962, 8). The seven long chapters of the book introduce notions of 'intelligence' and 'sociability' to encapsulate familiar ideas, while presentations of the ecumene, the conquest of distance and of humanized regions both revise and consolidate earlier statements. A remarkable frequency of sub-headings certainly assists the student reader and perhaps reveals how Sorre compacted and reassembled his earlier work. Certainly, he claimed that not a day went by without putting pen to paper on one geographical work or another (Galtier 1962, 369).
Influence and Spread of Ideas Max Sorre was almost the last of the Vidalians — only to be outlived by Rene Musset (1881—1977) — that cohort of men who experienced the teaching of the master at first hand. Despite his unconventional route through Saint-Cloud and the lack of a qualification (the agregation) to teach in a lycee, his doctorate was awarded by the Sorbonne and was published by Armand Colin. These were unquestionable expressions of Vidal's approval. Following the death of Vidal in 1918, Lucien Gallois (Geographers Vol. 24) entrusted two volumes of the Geographic Universelle to Sorre, albeit as author of second choice. As a further mark of approval, Armand Colin published his three-volume treatise that went through several editions, although some difficult negotiations were conducted between the author and the editorial staff (Undated draft of obituary by Arthur Geddes, held in the Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2). Despite his productivity and familiarity with half a dozen foreign languages, Sorre did not exert the degree of influence that one might expect. His career was fragmented between that of professor and of administrator, and involved many institutions in
Max Sorre
101
different parts of France. A decade spent lecturing at Lille when he was in his forties was counterpoised by only seven years at the Sorbonne after he had turned sixty. Arguably his most innovative volume, Les Fondements biologiques, appeared in the depths of wartime. With the exception of his book on Mexico and Central America that was translated into Spanish (plus a handful of articles in Dutch, English and Italian), none of his works appeared outside the francophone realm. Nonetheless, Max Sorre was a member of a range of European geographical societies and was awarded a gold medal by the geographical society of Madrid for his book on Iberia. He was a founder member of the International Geographical Union in 1920 and his linguistic competence made him a regular participant at International Geographical Congresses, notably at Cambridge, Paris, Warsaw, Lisbon, Washington, Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm. He headed the French delegation to the latter Congress in Sweden in 1960. He routinely reported these international meetings in the pages of the Annales de Geographic on whose editorial board he served from 1947 to his death. As well as submitting a regular flow of articles, notes and book reviews, he took an active role in helping young scholars to redraft their work for publication in the Annales (Galtier 1962, 372). At earlier stages of his career he displayed strong commitment to the bulletins of the geographical societies of the Languedoc and of Lille, and contributed material to the inaugural issue of Morois (Sorre 1954). Unlike Vidal and his immediate disciples, De Martonne, Demangeon and Raoul Blanchard, Max Sorre did not establish a school of researchers, although turned sixty he was still able to inspire students at the Sorbonne. Andre Fel described a rather stooped figure who lectured in a worn suit that had a curious green sheen that was perhaps not surprising given the clothing shortages during and after the war. Pierre Brunei recalls that during 1946 Sorre delivered a course whose content would later appear as part of Les Fondements techniques. He would arrive at the lectern at the heart of the amphitheatre, a stocky little silhouette, holding his notes in his hand. After several minutes he abandoned them and improvised, ranging far and wide. His presentation became less coherent but it was delivered in a warm voice that rolled the letter V and it remained passionate and inspiring. Above all, I remember that he offered a wide perspective of how societies changed, and also that he treated economic problems at the global scale. By chance, in June 1954, I heard him deliver the introductory address at the international conference on the ecological divisions of the world. I was greatly impressed by its quality and by the elegance with which he expressed changing ideas and views held by different schools of thought (Letter from Pierre Brunei, 10/11/2005). Bernard Dezert sludied under Max Sorre from 1944 lo 1947. He heard his brillianl Salurday leclures in which he discussed wilh greal conviction many aspecls of human and economic geography. Better lhan anyone, he understood ihe need lo undersland humanity and ihe ecumene. Before olhers became interested, he was concerned wilh ecology, ihe protection of nalure, international relations, and ihe geography of commerce. He was a passionate and inspiring teacher who had a very appealing personality and so sludenls appreciated him greally [II is remarkable lhal Bernard Dezerl used precisely ihe same adjectives as Pierre Brunei in his letter 'passionne el passionanl']. Thanks lo Professor Sorre, I became aware of economic inequalities and of ihe social consequences of ihese
102
Max Sorre
inequalities with respect to transport and commerce. He came across as a great humanist, as a man capable of broad syntheses, but he showed modesty and great human warmth in his choice of words, liking to discuss matters with students at the end of his lectures in a way that they could really understand. It is not without a certain emotion that I send these recollections of a great geographer who honoured the Institut de Geographic of the Sorbonne, occupying the chair of human geography that had been held by Professor Albert Demangeon (Letter from Bernard Dezert, 10/11/2005). Looking back to his time as an advanced student in Paris in 1948, Andre Vigarie recalled two main things about Max Sorre. When visiting his office, 'The contacts were always as brief as possible. There was a small clock on his desk whose face was turned toward the visitor to ensure that the passage of time was not forgotten and that conversation would be kept short. Problems were sorted out as quickly as possible'. The second point was Sorre's ability to be available to students and also, within a matter of minutes, to be dressed in his yellow academic robes, worn by those of professorial rank, and processing along the Boulevard Saint Germain. To Vigarie, this was 'a curious contrast in the psychology of the man: he was at the disposal of his students, but he recognized the need to demonstrate the quality of intellectual life in the street, to be seen and acknowledged by society at large' (Letter from Andre Vigarie, 23/11/2005). Despite Sorre's repeated defence of geography as a discipline of synthesis in which spatial representation played a fundamental role, some members of the geographical establishment in France were cautious about his openness to dialogue with members of other disciplines from botany to sociology and from medicine to psychology (Buttimer 1971, 124). As Anne Buttimer discovered, these colleagues complained that Sorre wandered away from his disciplinary base (Buttimer 1971, 126). Nonetheless, he insisted that the geographer's role was to analyse and synthesize but not to engage in planning or policy making (Meynier 1969, 185). While welcoming his openness to sociology, younger colleagues afforded him the respect that his age commanded but did not find his work particularly interesting (Buttimer 1971, 127; message from Francois Gay, November 2005). Yet without doubt, Sorre's pioneering role in adopting an ecological perspective deserves to be remembered. For him, all geography was fundamentally a matter of ecology (Sorre 1943, 6). Paul Claval is unstinting in his praise: 'Among French geographers active during the period 1910—60, Sorre is certainly the most original and the most profound' (Claval 1998, 267).
Acknowledgements I am grateful to Charles Withers for drawing my attention to the three documents relating to Sorre in the Geography departmental archives at the University of Edinburgh, and to Professors Andre Fel, Pierre Brunei, Bernard Dezert, Andre Vigarie and Francois Gay for their observations in the section on Sorre in the Sorbonne. Marc Galochet's scholarly interest in Sorre is also acknowledged.
Max Sorre
103
Bibliography and Sources 1. OBITUARIES AND OTHER ACCOUNTS RELATING TO MAX SORRE Broc, N. (1993), 'Homo Geographicus: Radioscopie des Geographes Francais de 1'entre-deux-guerres, 1918—1939', Annales de Geographic 102, 225—254. Bruyelle, P. (1998), 'L'Institut de Geographic de Lille: cent ans d'evolution', Hommes et Terres du Mord (2), 63—70. Buttimer, A. (1969), 'Social Space in Interdisciplinary Perspective', Geographical Review 59, 417-426. —
(1971), Society and Milieu in the French Geographical Tradition, Chicago: Rand McNally.
Chevalier, M. (1996), 'Les Geographes Francais dans 1'entre-deux-guerres', in P. Claval and A-L. Sanguin, eds., La Geographic franpaise a I'epoque classique, 1918— 1968, Paris, L'Harmattan, 15-26. Claval, P. (1998), Histoire de la geographic franpaise de 1870 a nos jours, Paris: Nathan. Condette, J-F. (2001), 'Les Enseignants d'Histoire et de Geographic a la Faculte des Lettres a Lille sous la Troisieme Republique, 1887—1940, Revue du Nord83, 65-100. De Martonne, E. (1914—15), 'Les Pyrenees mediterranneenes par Maximilien Sorre', Annales de Geographic 23-24, 164-168. Galtier, G. (1962), 'Max Sorre, 1880-1962', Bulletin de la Societe Languedocienne de Geographic 33, 363—377. George, P. (1962), 'Necrologie : Maximilien Sorre, 1880-1962', Annales de I'Universite de Paris, 475-479. —
(1962), 'Max Sorre', Annales de Geographic 71, 449-459.
—
(1975), 'Max Sorre: 1880—1962', in Les Geographes franfais, Comite des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, Bulletin de la Section de Geographie 81, 185—195.
Gottmann, J. (1963), 'Maximilien Sorre', Geographical Review 53, 464—465. Grivot, F. (1963), 'Bibliographic des oeuvres de Max Sorre', Annales de Geographie 72, 186-191. Levy, J. and Lussault, M. (2003), Dictionnaire de la geographic, Paris: Belin, p. 864. Meynier, A. (1969), Histoire de la pensee geographique en France, 1872—1969, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Picheral, H. (1990), 'Milieu, Maladies et sante a travers cent ans du Bulletin de la Societe Languedocienne de Geographic', Bulletin de la Societe Languedocienne de Geographie 113, 291-306.
2. SELECTED WORKS BY MAX SORRE 1907 'La plaine du Bas-Languedoc', Annales de Geographie 16, 414—429. 1912
'Etude sur la transhumance dans la region montpellieraine', Bulletin
104
Max Sorre la Societe Languedocienne de Geographic 25, 1—40.
1913a
Les Pyrenees mediterraneennes. Essai de geographic biologique, Paris: Armand Colin.
1913b
Etude critique des sources de I'histoire de la viticulture et du commerce des vins et eaux-de-vie en Bas-Languedoc au XVIHe siecle, Montpellier: Roumegous Dehan.
1918
'L'avenir economique des Landes', Annales de Geographic 27, 188—195.
1922
Les Pyrenees, Paris: Armand Colin.
1923
'La XIVe excursion geographique interuniversitaire', Annales de Geographic 32, 58-59.
1925
L'extraction de la houille et les courants charbonniers, de 1913 a 1924', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 67, 60—72.
1926
'L'organisme humain et le milieu nature!', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 68, 105-113 & 146-161.
1928a
Mexique: Amerique Centrale (tome XIV, Geographic Universelle), Paris: Armand Colin.
1928b
'L'organisme humain et le milieu geographique. Introduction a 1'etude de leurs rapports', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 70, 108—122.
1928c
'Paysages mediterraneens francais', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 70, 172-195.
1929a
'L'organisme humain et le milieu geographique', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 71, 37-56, 97-117.
1929b
'Le role des influences historiques en geographic urbaine', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 71, 157—173.
1929c
'Les conditions generales du developpement urbain', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 71, 192-207.
1930a
'Les conditions geographiques generales du developpement urbain', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 72, 149—169.
1930b
'L'ecologie de 1'homme', in Report of the Proceedings, International Geographical Congress, Cambridge, 1928, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 325-328.
1930c
'Les aspects de la vegetation et des sols en Yougoslavie', Annales de Geographic 39, 311-316.
1933
'Complexes pathogenes et geographic medicale', Annales de Geographic 42, 1-18.
1934a
Mediterranee. Peninsules mediterraneennes. Generalites. Espagne-Portugal (tome VII, Geographic Universelle], Paris: Armand Colin.
1934b
'Les climats de la terre moins PEurope', in Traite de climatologie biologique et medicale, 3 vols, ed., M. Piery, Paris: Masson, 2, 438—77.
1943
Les Fondements biologiques de la geographic humaine. Essai d'une ecologie de I'homme, Paris: Armand Colin.
Max Sorre
105
1948a
Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: les fondements techniques, Paris: Armand Colin. (Second part of volume appeared in 1950).
1948b
'La notion de genre de vie et sa valeur actuelle', Annales de Geographic 57, 97-108, 193-204.
1950
'La Geographic des matieres grasses', Annales de Geographic 59, 93—108.
1952a
Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: I'habitat, conclusion generale, Paris: Armand Colin.
1952b
'La Geographic de Palimentation', Annales de Geographic 61, 184—199.
1954a
'L'orientation de la Geographic Humaine', Morois 1, 113—127.
1954b
'La conference mondiale de la population, Rome, Septembre 1954', Annales de Geographic 63, 401—415.
1955
Les Migrations des peuples. Essai sur la mobilite geographique, Paris: Flammarion.
1957a
Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie, Paris: Riviere.
1957b
'La Geographic Francaise', in La Geographic Francaise au milieu du XXe siecle, des. G. Chabot, R. Clozier & J. Beaujeu-Garnier, Paris: Bailliere, 7-12.
1958
'Connaissance du paysage humain', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille, new series 1, 5—14.
1962
L'Homme sur la Terre, Paris: Hachette.
Chronology 1880
Born 16 July at Rennes, son of a railway worker
1885-99
Educated in Rennes
1899—1901 Trained at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Saint-Cloud 1901—02
Taught at the Ecole Normale, La Roche-sur-Yon
1903
Taught at the Ecole Normale, Perpignan
1904-17
Taught at the Ecole Normale, Montpellier
1911
Received first degree (licence-es-lettres], University of Montpellier; married Marguerite Soulas
1913
Received doctorate, University of Paris, Sorbonne; publication of Les Pyrenees mediterrannennes
1915
Awarded the Groix de guerre, and the Croix de chevalier de la legion d'honneur
1917
Lectured at the University of Grenoble (March-July)
1917—19
Lectured at the University of Bordeaux
1919
Lectured at the University of Strasbourg (November-December)
1919—22
Lectured at the University of Bordeaux
106
Max Sorre
1922
Publication of Les Pyrenees
1922-25
Lectured at the University of Lille
1925—31
Professor of regional geography, University of Lille
1928
Publication of Mexique: Amerique Centrale
1929-31
Elected Dean of the Faculte des Lettres, University of Lille
1931—34
Recteur of the Academie of Clermont-Ferrand
1934
Publication of Mediterrannee
1934—37
Recteur of the Academie of Aix-Marseille
1936
Made Officier of the legion d'honneur
1937—40
Directeur de I'Enseignement du Premier Degre, at the Ministere de I'Education
1940—48
Professor of human geography, University of Paris, Sorbonne
1943
Publication of Les fondements biologiques de la geographic humaine
1946
Promoted to Commandeur de la legion d'honneur
1947—62
Served on the editorial committee of the Annales de Geographic
1948
Publication of Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: les fondements techniques
1951—55
Director of the Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques
1952
Publication of Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: I'habitat, conclusion generale
1953—60
Chair of the Comite National Francais de Geographic
1955
Publication of Les Migrations des peuples
1957
Publication of Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie
1962
Publication of L'Homme sur la Terre
1962
Died at Messigny (Cote-d'Or) on 10 August
James Morris Blaut 1927-2000
Kent Mathewson
James 'Jim' M. Blaut's contributions to geography and adjacent fields spanned a number of disciplines and resulted in a number of innovative ideas, theoretical advances, and practical paths to making geography in the last half of the twentieth century more socially and politically conscientious as well as conscious, and moving it into new and critical currents. These contributions ranged from soil science (ethnopedology) to political science (theories of nationalism), from micro-regional analysis (tropical farmstead studies) to macro-historical geographic synthesis (Euro-colonialism and Eurocentrism), from philosophy (Marxist/pragmatist critiques of idealism) to psychology (children's spatial cognition), from traditional cultural geography (diffusion studies) to radical cultural geography ((de)constructions of 'race' and ethno-class) to name the most salient. To say that James Blaut was a 'man of many hats' is not quite right. Rather, his figurative headwear was more like an expansive tent under which multiple enthusiasms and enterprises were developed, debated, and often adopted into geography's different arenas. Moreover, this diversity found more than a measure of unity in Blaut's principled campaigns for social justice and his conviction that geography and geographers could make a radical difference. Future biographers are apt to locate James Blaut and his contributions at several differing sub-disciplinary sites within mid-to-late twentieth century geography. The larger and longer view will place him solidly within geography's radical-progressive current — a stream whose main channel flows through the left libertarian thought and work of Peter Kropotkin and Elisee Reclus (Geographers Vols 7 and 3, respectively), but includes many other political tendencies and lesser figures of geography's dissenting present and past. Blaut's complexities put his oeuvre and positions in several different channels at different times, but always with distinctive originality.
108
James Morris Blaut
Education, Life, and Work James Morris Blaut was born October 20, 1927 in New York City, some two months after the Italian-American anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in Massachusetts and two years and a few days before the New York Stock Market crashed. For much of his life, Blaut would not only bear witness to tumultuous political and economic events that defined times, but along with thousands of other like-minded Americans, he played significant roles in organizing and protesting against the institutional structures and practices of racism, militarism, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The milieu that he was born into was that of New York's immigrant intellectuals and political activist community. His father, Samuel Blaut, had been a youthful member of the Socialist Party. Among his politically active relatives, he could claim kinship to the famous feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman. His elementary schooling was at the Little Red School House in lower Manhattan founded by the progressive educator Elisabeth Irwin. Started in 1921 as an experimental public school following the principles of John Dewey, it was forced to become a private venture in 1932 during the Great Depression. Blaut enrolled soon after this, and continued on through what was to become the Elisabeth Irwin High School after Irwin's death in 1941. The schools put a premium on civic engagement and education for democracy amid the curriculum that promoted independent thinking and exploration. Blaut often attributed his Deweyian outlook to his formative years in the LR-EI system, but was quick to point out that this was reinforced in his undergraduate days at the University of Chicago. He enrolled at Chicago in 1944 at the age of 16. Blaut was part of President Robert M. Hutchins' programme for gifted high school students. Other post-WWII students in the programme included future luminaries such as the pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty and the astronomer Carl Sagan. Deweyian educational models and methods influenced the undergraduate programmeme, coexisting in creative tension with Robert Hutchins' and Mortimer Adler's Great Books crusade and curriculum. It is unclear whether Blaut entered Chicago with a particular interest in geography, but he left with a solid grounding in it. In the late 1940s the University of Chicago's Department of Geography was still considered to be among the top two or three graduate programmemes in US geography. The Department also apparently catered to the smaller undergraduate cohort. Blaut spoke fondly of studying with Robert S. Platt (Geographers Vol. 3), and also acknowledged the influence of Edward Ackerman. Regarding other faculty in the late forties, he was less sanguine. Decades later he (1993: 351) judged the Chicago department as a whole as 'stodgy,' 'Hettnerian,' and more given to description than explanation. He remembered listening to Derwent Whittlesey (Geographers Vol. 25) lecturing on 'geography as a science of space' and thinking as 'a pragmatist, I was well aware that space does not exist apart from time.' He quickly decided that 'this spatial metaphysicalism was plain nonsense.' During his summers in high school and college his out-of-doors jobs included working on farms in Vermont and Rhode Island and the US Forest Service in South Dakota. His office jobs included market research firms in New York and a railroad in Chicago. Like some US geographers of an earlier era, he 'rode the rods' hobo style on freight trains all around the United States. His jobs at the University of Chicago included working in a zoology laboratory and a biology library. One must assume that his farm experiences were positive ones. Agricultural geography became his first calling. His indoor biological jobs also had a field counterpart.
James Morris Blaut
109
Blaut was an avid amateur ornithologist. He often organized academic conference trips and even fieldwork around the possibilities of bird watching. At opportune (and sometimes inopportune) times he would break away for stints of bird watching. His standard excuse and quip was 'the birds need watching.' Rivalling his devotion to bird watching, political activism consumed a good deal of his time and energies. By the late 1940s, the Cold War was congealing into rigidities that Blaut was to oppose for the next half century. Henry Wallace's Progressive Party offered a place for domestic opposition to counter Cold War policies abroad, and resist the renewed cycle of political repression at home. Blaut joined the Progressive Party and spent a college summer in Georgia organizing. By the time he finished his undergraduate career in 1950, his political formation had been in motion for a decade or more, with the general direction well established. These early experiences laid the foundation for his later activism, particularly his opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and his support for the Puerto Rican independence movement in the 1970s and 1980s. The foundations for some of his later work in geography were also laid at the University of Chicago, but much was the product of the contingencies and contexts of subsequent times and issues. Perhaps the main lessons that he learned at Chicago, beyond strengthening his pragmatist outlook, were the ones that Robert Platt offered. Platt (1891-1964) was also a product of Chicago's graduate programme in geography. He became Chair of Geography (1949—57) at the end of Blaut's undergraduate studies. He edited the Annals of the AAG (1961—64) at a time when Blaut had left his first regular appointment at Yale University and was teaching in Puerto Rico, distancing himself somewhat from the mainland concerns of the North American geography community. Platt also held various national positions both inside and outside of geography. How instrumental Platt was in helping Blaut secure his Instructorship at Yale, and to what degree he considered Blaut to be a protege, merits further inquiry. Like many of US geography's second generation, Platt had a midwestern background (Columbus, Ohio), but unlike most geographers, he was a member of the regional elite. He attended top-tier Eastern preparatory schools — St. George's and Hotchkiss, and went on to Yale for undergraduate studies in philosophy and history. Upon graduation, he toured Europe and Russia. From there he travelled to China and spent a year teaching geography in advance of his graduate studies at Chicago in geography (Hartshorne 1964). During the heyday of regionalism, Platt became the principle advocate of microgeographic fieldwork (Platt 1959). Although the midwestern US was the primary arena for microregional studies, especially as embodied in geography theses and dissertations, Platt's own efforts took him to Latin America where he travelled widely through much of the realm. His Latin America: Countrysides and United Regions (1942) recorded his microgeographic surveys of all the Latin American nations and most of the European colonies. Through his extensive travel, study, and reportage, he demonstrated that detailed chorological work could not only test field methods, but could contribute to theory building. Blaut, perhaps more than anyone, put much of Platt's programmeme to empirical test in his dissertation study of Singapore market gardening. During World War II Platt served in various capacities in Washington, DC. Through this war effort work he seems to have added political geography to his multiple interests. This he may have transmitted to Blaut, though Blaut's own contributions to political geography took quite different directions. In the immediate post-World War II period, Platt published two articles attacking environmentalism and determinism in geography (Platt 1948a, 1948b). While Platt (1948a, 126) averred that 'extreme determinism' in geography had
110
James Morris Blaut
been effectively exposed and discredited, lesser forms still had purchase. He offered examples of a 'complex kind of determinism' that held that a 'combination of environmental and cultural factors is taken into account for geographic phenomena in a cause and effect relation.' As an alternative, he proposed an indeterminism advocated by pragmatists such as William James. Given Blaut's outlook formed in part by his own pragmatist schooling and predilections, Platt's philosophical leanings were no doubt well received. One might point out, however, the subtext and context of Platt's anti-determinism was presumably more in tune with early Cold War liberalism's campaign against economic and historical determinisms than with pragmatism's more radical visions. Platt's critiques of determinism were followed by an appraisal and appreciation of 'The Rise of Cultural Geography in America' (Platt 1952). Platt praised the contributions of Sauer's Berkeley culturalhistorical school, suggesting that the midwestern school's functional approach might profit from a move more toward the model and methods pursued by geography's culture historians. These were some of the concerns and issues that constituted the institutional and intellectual setting for James Blaut's introduction to academic geography. Blaut completed his studies at the University of Chicago in 1948 and was awarded a Bachelor of Philosophy in Geography. Two years later he received (in absentia) a Bachelor of Science in Geography with a minor in Economics. In the interim he studied at the New School for Social Research (1948—49). The New School was founded in 1919 by dissent Columbia University faculty. These included prominent academic and anti-war figures such as Charles Beard, John Dewey, and Thorstein Veblen. By the late 1940s the New School was an exile haven for European intellectuals and scholars. They brought an infusion of Continental critical theory in both the humanities and social sciences to both American academia and the public sphere. Blaut seems to have not been overly taken by these social theoretical imports. Instead, Blaut seems to have been more committed to Platt's call for study of agricultural landscapes, particularly at the individual farm scale. To do this credibly, Blaut realized that he needed training in tropical agronomy and related fields. Casting about for the logical place to do this, he decided that one of the British colonial agricultural colleges would best serve his needs. Although Blaut found Platt's commitments to pragmatism, microregional work, and Latin American interests congenial, his doubts about American geography's lingering, and largely unexamined alignment with neo-Kantian chorology, led him to consider moving into another discipline — perhaps anthropology — after his training in tropical agriculture. A chance encounter with Andrew H. Clark, then at Rutgers, apparently opened up another option (on Clark, see Geographers Vol. 14). Clark told Blaut that Louisiana State University's geography programme, modelled on the ideal Sauerian construct of conjoined geography and anthropology departments in close association with the earth sciences, would meet his needs. Overseen by Richard J. Russell (Geographers Vol. 14) and Fred B. Kniffen, former associate and student of Sauer respectively, and assisted by a staff with either Berkeley or LSU training (or both), Clark assured Blaut that he would get first-rate instruction and advising in geography in combination with anthropology. Moreover, at LSU he could take advantage of their offerings in tropical agriculture, given Louisiana's quasi-colonial and semi-tropical location and orientation. Blaut took Clark's advice seriously, but he was determined to study tropical agriculture in the actual tropics. Thus, he enrolled in postgraduate courses at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad during 1949—50. The courses he took, particularly on tropical soils, served him well in his future work on
James Morris Blaut
111
small-scale agriculture in both the East and West Indies, and his studies of shifting cultivation in Latin America. This knowledge was instrumental in one of his best known early studies — on the cultural determinants of soil erosion and conservation in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica (Blaut et al. 1959). In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Imperial College was like the British Empire — in full form, but ripe for change. No doubt technical lessons were unavoidably tinged with the anticipations of the social and political changes on the way. Blaut was able to witness first-hand both the twilight of the colonial era and the run-up to independence. It is unclear to what extent Blaut had contact with the local intellectuals and activists during his year in Trinidad. Two of the major figures of critical Caribbean scholarship — Eric Williams (Capitalism and Slavery 1944) and C. L. R. James (The Black Jacobins 1938) — hailed from Trinidad, but were living in the US and Britain when Blaut was there. Their novel and controversial positions on the economics of slavery and on the salience of Third World revolts and revolutions in capitalism's formation and potential demise were in concordance with Blaut's later critiques of Eurocentric thought and historiography. James' work especially helped pave the way for the Third Worldist outlook that Blaut came to embody and elaborate in geography from the 1960s on. In any case, Blaut's initial introduction to the Caribbean world provided the basis for a lifetime of subsequent visits, residencies, and commitments to the region and its peoples. This was particularly evident in his long-term support and activism on behalf of the Puerto Rican independence movement. His first tropical interlude under his belt, Blaut took Clark's advice and entered LSU in the autumn of 1950. The formal geography programme had been launched in 1928 with the arrival of Richard J. Russell. Russell's Berkeley doctorate was in geology, but taught physiography in the Geography department after Sauer assumed the chairship in 1923. Russell invited Fred B. Kniffen, Berkeley doctorate candidate under Sauer, to join him at LSU in 1929. Kniffen, like Russell, had his initial training in geology, but had become a cultural geographer with strong grounding in anthropology while at Berkeley. He was hired to develop the anthropology as well as human geography programmeme at LSU. Over the next several decades the two Berkeleyans built a joint department that became the premier geography programme in the American South (Mathewson and Shoemaker 2004). The traditional strengths of the LSU programme from the inception to the present have been in physical geography, primarily coastal and fluvial geomorphology, and in cultural and historical geography. The regional focus has been on Latin America and the American South. When Blaut entered LSU, the geography faculty included Kniffen as chair, Russell (Dean of the Graduate School), Robert C. West (Ph.D. Berkeley), and Benjamin A. Tator (Ph.D. LSU). A. C. Albrecht (Berkeley B.A., Vienna Ph.D.) was the sole anthropologist. William Haag, a University of Michigan trained ethnozoologist and archeologist, replaced Albrecht in 1952. At Michigan, Haag had come under the influence of Leslie White's materialist 'culturologic' approach to anthropology. No doubt Blaut found this approach conformal with his own evolving materialist outlook. Blaut's interests in tropical agriculture and Latin America coincided with some of West's own concerns, though his main interactions seem to have been with Kniffen. Presumably Blaut's strong progressivism was not fully shared by his mentors or cohorts, but it doesn't seem to have put him at odds with them either. Decades later both Kniffen and Blaut enjoyed recounting how Kniffen had joined the anarchosyndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or 'wobblies') while working
112
James Morris Blaut
and travelling in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska before answering Sauer's and Leighly's call to come join them in Berkeley. Like Blaut, KnifFen found hopping freight trains to be a free and effective way of getting around and seeing landscapes first-hand. In the 1920s, however, flashing the wobblies' 'little red book' (union card) often provided 'rights of passage' among the confraternity of itinerant workers and radical organizers that rode the rods throughout the West. After only a year of coursework at LSU, Blaut was ready to return to the tropics. Apparently his preparation was advanced enough that he left for dissertation fieldwork in the fall of 1951. Once again he headed to a British Colony, but this time in the East rather than West Indies. He secured a two-year appointment as Assistant Lecturer of Geography at the University of Malaya. The former Raffles College had recently been upgraded to university status with two campuses, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Blaut was at the Singapore campus. It served as a key technical and intellectual outpost of the British Empire. The geography department predated World War II, and in turn played key roles in various university and imperial missions. Blaut was in able company; his colleagues included Paul Wheatley (Geographers Vol. 24). Wheatley had recently arrived from University College, London, where he completed his MA as part of the Domesday project under Clifford Darby (Geographers Vol. 26). To Blaut, Singapore and Port-of-Spain must have offered a stimulating study in comparisons and contrasts. Both were entrepot ports and colonial administrative centres at the edges of tropical landmasses. Both contained complex patterns of ethno-cultural diversity including Indo, Sino, Euro, and indigenous (Malay for Singapore and Afro and a residue of Arawak for Trinidad) elements. Singapore, however, was poised for explosive growth, while Port-of-Spain was heading for a less dynamic future. Wheatley's and Blaut's trajectories also had parallels as well as contrasts. Both took dissertation topics close at hand. Wheatley dug into the region's historical and pre-colonial past (Wheatley [1958] 1961) whereas Blaut opted for a study of Singapore's agro-cultural and colonial present (Blaut 1958). In terms of methodology and epistemology, both rejected the reigning paradigmatic consensus and their chief advocates. Coming from Britain, Wheatley found Wooldridge's regionalism wanting, which Stoddart (1989) suggests was derivative of Hartshorne. Blaut was more direct. He countered Hartshorne's Hettnerian-derived chorology straight on. Even as an undergraduate at Chicago he had been unimpressed by Hartshorne's exegesis of Kant via Hettner. To Blaut's mind, narrow functionalism begat static, idealist chorology. Blaut's processual critique of the Hartshornean programme was advanced in his dissertation (1958) and elaborated in a series of articles (1953; 1961; 1962; 1993). Blaut's initial dissertation plan was designed to study a sample of smallholder farms in Singapore. He wanted to test Platt's micro-geographic methods and theory. But once underway, local officials were so impressed with Blaut's design and work that they provided him with enough funding and assistants to greatly expand the study. He ultimately carried out a 10 per cent sample, or some 400 farmsteads. Between December 1951 and June 1953 several dozen students and a number of government workers participated in Blaut's 'micro-geography corps.' On the whole, his time in Singapore was productive and successful. It also confirmed for Blaut what was to become a truism of his later theoretical work — that the loci of creativity and innovation, as well as opportunity, are often to be found in the provinces or on the peripheries rather than in the metropolitan cores. Singapore, Port-of-Spain, or Baton Rouge for that matter, were hardly abject backwaters, but neither were they first-order nodes in the highly-centred world that was the 1950s. On July 7, 1953 Blaut departed Singapore for his return to the US. He resumed
James Morris Blaut
113
residence in Baton Rouge that autumn to finish his course work, and to begin writing his dissertation. Like most graduate students, Blaut had enjoyed deferments during the Korean War (1950—1953), but with the truce and stalemate in place in July 1953, he was eligible for 'peace time' service. In 1954 Blaut was drafted for a tour of duty in the US Army, effectively putting him into dissertation limbo for more two years. In a wry aside, he noted in his dissertation c.v. (Blaut 1958, 402) that 'between 1954 and 1956 .. . [he rose] to the rank of Private First Class.' Though Blaut was not tapped for officer candidacy, his tour was not without distinction. At Camp Gordon, Georgia, during basic training, Blaut and several trainees were singled out for extreme hazing. As fellow LSU geography graduate Gary Dunbar (personal communication) recalls it: 'Len Kuntz [LSU geography graduate student] had come into a classroom at LSU waving a newspaper and said, 'Blaut has done it again!" Apparently Blaut's lieutenant had forced him to dig a hole and bury a fellow trainee neck high, and then stuff a crucifix in his mouth. The victim had allegedly made a mistake that could have cost lives in combat. The burial and benediction was meted out as punishment. But the punishment didn't stop there. Subsequently the lieutenant was court-martialled and the camp's commandant dismissed. Private Rodney Steel of Lowndesboro, Alabama testified that his treatment amounted to 'terrorism.' That Blaut helped expose and interpret the events seems likely. Less dramatically, his other service duties involved work in the Army Map Service and research on Middle American climates as Physical Geographer with the Environmental Protection Division of the Quartermaster Corps. At Kniffen's intervention, Blaut was discharged two months early. This allowed him to return to LSU an Instructor in Geography for the summer term of 1956. Blaut's early release from the Army and his summer teaching in Baton Rouge helped him to prepare for his next move. That autumn Blaut was 'called up' to the Ivy League as Instructor in the Geography Department at Yale University. Upon finishing and defending his dissertation in 1958, he was put on tenure track and promoted to Assistant Professor. Blaut was hired by Stephen Jones, Yale's political geographer, and acting chair at the time (see Kniffen Papers, box 5, folder 12, letter of 10/3/61, for exchanges between Kniffen and Jones concerning Blaut's hiring). Yale's other geographers were Karl Peltzer, southeast Asian specialist, and Herold Wiens, an Oceanian specialist. Eric Bordne was the physical geographer, and two cartographers were on staff. Blaut's southeast Asian and Caribbean experience was seen as an asset to both the geography and area studies programmes at Yale. Peltzer, Weins and Blaut shared interests in tropical people-environment relations. Peltzer's and Wiens' main focus was on land-use and migration in southeast Asia in the wake of the Japanese occupation period. Although Peltzer had studied traditional farming systems in the East Indies, Blaut looked more to the Yale anthropologists, particularly Sidney Mintz for colleagial interaction. Sidney Mintz, Marxist anthropologist and later doyen of Caribbeanist cultural scholars, proved to be a congenial contact with anthropology and anthropologists then, and subsequently. In addition, Blaut's first wife, Ruth Pulwers Blaut graduated in anthropology at LSU and went on to do graduate work in anthropology at Yale. She worked on projects with Blaut during these years, and provided additional links to anthropology and anthropologists. Blaut's time at Yale was relatively short (1956—1961). He was in a tenure-track position for only three years. He left in 1961 and returned to the Caribbean for the next five years. Several things seem to account for his truncated Yale time. First, by the 1960s Yale, Harvard, and other top-tier private research universities had begun to routinely deny tenure to junior faculty in favour of recruiting mid-level and
114
James Morris Blaut
senior faculty from outside. Blaut, no doubt, saw the handwriting on Yale's ivied walls. Second, geography at Yale was itself on uncertain footing. The lesson of James Conant's closing Harvard's geography department a decade earlier was still resonating within peer institutions. Yale's department had been started by Stephen Jones in 1945 in the first flush of the post-World War II perceived need of political geographers and area specialists. By 1960 it was clear that the department was not destined to grow into a major entity. It was terminated in 1967. Third, Jones was a conventional political geographer who shared much of Hartshorne's orientations and outlook. He did not find Blaut's epistemological probings or philosophical positions of much value. Nevertheless, despite the institutional climate at Yale, Blaut managed to establish himself as an up-and-coming figure in the area of human-environment relations in the tropics. In 1957 he was invited to be a participant in the Pan American Union's symposium on 'Plantation Systems of the New World' held in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Rubin 1959). Blaut was the only geographer in the company of a distinguished cast of social scientists, including Richard N. Adams, Sidney Mintz, T. Lynn Smith, Julian Steward, and Eric Wolf. In a real sense, this was Blaut's international debut. As on this occasion, he was often invited to represent geography and the geographical perspective in future multidisciplinary fora. During the summers of 1957—58 Blaut and several Yale graduate students (his wife Ruth Pulwers Blaut and Michael Moerman in anthropology, and Nan Harman in conservation) conducted a study of soil erosion and conservation in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. They (Blaut et al. 1959) published their 'preliminary' results. The article has become something of a classic in the literature of cultural and political ecology and development studies. In 1960 Blaut followed up this research with fieldwork on shifting cultivation in Costa Rica and went to Cornell as a visiting professor in agricultural economics. After Blaut left Yale in 1961, he still maintained contact with its anthropologists. Perhaps closest to his interests during this period was Harold Conklin. Conklin, a Yale Ph.D. in anthropology, joined the Yale faculty in 1962. Conklin was one of the pioneers of ethnoscientific study. His (1954) Hanunoo project on shifting cultivation in the Philippines is one of the founding works. Starting in 1961 and continuing into the 1970s he conducted a now legendary study of intensive agricultural landscapes, also in the Philippines. The results were published as the Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao (Conklin 1980). It stands as a monument to microgeographical mapping. Conklin and his assistants mapped individual parcels and plots at scales between 1:5000 and 1:3000, putting the district's famed terraced and irrigated rice landscapes doubly 'on the map.' How much Blaut's efforts at microgeographic mapping and survey may have played in Conklin's design and implementation is unclear. It is clear that Blaut's later elaborations on ethnogeography key in part on Conklin's concepts of ethnoscience (Blaut 1979). With geography in decline at Yale and his own prospects there uncertain, Blaut returned to the Caribbean. It seems that Blaut himself had begun to follow the classic Caribbean pattern of transnational migration, residency, and return. His return took him to Puerto Rico first, then Venezuela, and finally the US Virgin Islands. In San Juan he directed the Pan American Union and its graduate studies in Caribbean social sciences at the University of Puerto Rico from 1961—63. While in San Juan, he met and later married America ('Meca') Sorrentini, a developmental psychologist. They jointly became involved in the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and the Puerto Rican independence movement in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1963-64 Blaut worked on the Guyana Project as a UNESCO agricultural
James Morris Blaut
115
consultant to the Venezuelan government. From 1964—66 he directed the Caribbean Research Institute at the College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. These five years outside of the US, articulating with a variety of Caribbean institutions and contexts, gave Blaut a solid standing as one of the foremost experts on the region in geography. He was ready for a return to the US by the autumn of 1966. During the academic year 1966—67 Blaut was a visiting professor of Geography at the University of Connecticut. In the autumn of 1967, he moved to a similar position at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts at the invitation of Saul Cohen, Director of the Department of Geography. He was subsequently promoted to the rank of Full Professor. Blaut's years at Clark (1967—1971) coincided with the height of the 1960s insurgencies and contestations both within US academia and a society-at-large. Not surprisingly, Blaut was an avid and active participant in both spheres. Although the epicenters of the student radical and campus countercultural movements were at universities such as UC-Berkeley and UW-Madison, Clark University became the fountainhead of radical politics and activism in US geography. In no small measure, Blaut was a key factor in this development. Faculty members Richard Peet and David Stea, and a number of students, joined him in various radical initiatives. Blaut served as a minority student advocate, worked with Meca Sorrentini (de Blaut) in Worcester's Puerto Rican community, organized anti-war activities, and most enduringly, helped found Antipode, 'a journal of radical geography.' Graduate student Ben Wisner edited the first number in 1969, with contributions by Blaut, Peet, Stea, as well as more establishment figures such as Richard Morrill and Robert Kates. Blaut's (1969) article was entitled 'Jingo Geography: Part I'. He went on to publish a dozen articles in Antipode between 1969 and 1994. He was also an early member of the Union of Socialist Geographers, which was founded in Canada in 1974, and which quickly spread to other national geographic communities. The USG organized their own conferences, sponsored sessions at other professional meetings, and edited a newsletter. Although Blaut probably will be best remembered for his writings on nationalism, imperialism, and Eurocentrism, that begin to appear during his Clark days, he also began there an ambitious decades-long research programme on children's spatial cognition and what Blaut came to call the human 'universal mapping' trait. Meca Sorrentini (de Blaut) was trained as a developmental psychologist with a MS in psychology from the University of Puerto Rico. Continuing work they had begun in Puerto Rico with children's map reading abilities, she and Blaut began experiments with kindergarteners in Worcester. They wanted to find out if teaching children to read aerial photographs would prepare them for map reading. What they found out is that children seem to possess innate capacities for both map reading and reading aerial photographs. This contradicted the established wisdom and theories at the time. Blaut in collaboration with David Stea and other psychologists received funding from a number of sources over the next three decades, including the US Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to carry research on children's mapping and map reading abilities. Their findings were published in numerous articles and book chapters, and opened up a new research field for geographers and psychologists. In addition to Blaut's radical scholarship and activism, and his mapping research, his influence was felt on the Clark campus both in and beyond the classroom. He had a commanding presence — with his large stature (well over six feet tall), resonant voice, earnest concern for communicating his concerns, and a commitment to building alternative communities, he soon had a following among
116
James Morris Blaut
the students. His house, especially his basement that served as a combination study and party locale, became both an adjunct and alternative departmental zone. On weekends he hosted 'anti-parties' featuring generous admixes of rum, Caribbean rhythms, and intellectual ferment. Despite his energetic and innovative record in scholarship, teaching, and service — or perhaps in part because of it — in 1971 Blaut, Stea, and other dissident Clark faculty were 'purged' or were 'let go' depending on one's perspective. His legacy there was intimately and indissolubly linked to the times, but he also mentored a number of graduate students that have gone on to make their marks in geography and other fields. Once again Blaut left New England for a more secure haven in the islands. This time he was invited to serve as Acting Chair of Geography at the University of Puerto Rico. He spent the academic year 1971—72 back in the Caribbean renewing his contacts and continuing his research on spatial learning among children. Within the year, however, he was hired as Professor with tenure at the University of Illinois' Chicago Circle campus. Thus more than two decades after he left the University of Chicago as an undergraduate student he was returning as a full professor in what would be his final relocation. When he left Chicago in the late 1940s, America's vertiginous ascent to world hegemon was at full throttle. Chicago was still 'the Second City,' and manufacturing was still North America's leading economic sector. At the time of his exit, the University of Chicago's geography department was basically marking time after several decades of preeminence. When he returned it was enjoying a revival begun in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s before drifting toward dissolution in the 1980s and 1990s. The University of Illinois-Chicago Circle's geography programme, like many urban campuses within larger systems in the 1960s, seemed poised to become Chicago's second centre of geographical teaching and research. Its graduate programme in geography was established in 1972. It never did succeed in gaining a doctoral programme. Nevertheless, Blaut was content to mentor minority undergraduates and masters candidates. As at Clark, he quickly attracted a student following. In order to maximize his research efforts, he arranged to teach all of his classes in the autumn. This left the spring semester free for research, writing, and travel. This also allowed him to attend without fail the annual AAG meetings held in the spring. Blaut was much in evidence at these meetings, not only on the programme presenting papers and presiding over panels, but promoting various causes and proposing motions to be voted on at the annual business meeting. Blaut in full form at these meetings was memorable. Gary Dunbar (in Mathewson and Stea 2003, 219) recalls one such occasion. It was at the AAG meeting in 1965 in Columbus, Ohio. Fred B. Kniffen, their former mentor at LSU, was about to present the honorary presidential address: Characteristically, Jim arrived late, just before Kniffen's address was to be delivered. The excuse he used for his tardiness was that he flew his own small plane to Columbus from San Juan and there was some sort of mishap en route. One of the first people Jim encountered was his old buddy Phil Wagner, and the two of them leaped on each other and couldn't stop giving each other Latin abraxas and dancing about, much to the dismay of one of the onlookers — a former colleague of Wagner's — who thought that their conduct lacked dignity. In spite of his unselfconscious behaviour and informal attire in the eyes of some, Blaut received awards for scholarship and distinguished service, including the AAG's Distinguished Scholarship Award in 1997. He was much in demand as a
James Morris Blaut
117
visiting speaker. He lectured at some two dozen universities on all the continents. His research was funded by agencies and foundations in a variety of countries. On the home front, Blaut with wife Meca and daughter Gini, put down roots in Chicago for what turned out to be the long haul. They moved into a large two storey brownstone near the Puerto Rican community. Meca set up her office on the first floor. It became a focal point of the Luis Belvis Center, established to promote Puerto Rican cultural and political activity. Blaut claimed their large basement, outfitting it with his extensive library of books, articles, and documents collected through years of research and travel at home and abroad. From this underground base, he mounted his multiple book writing project on nationalism, colonialism, and Eurocentrism. Beyond the basement, Blaut renewed his work with the Puerto Rican independence movement, offering advice and scholarly support. He published two books in the 1980s (1987, 1988). Their impacts were felt mostly in Europe and Latin America. The first examined theories of nationalism. The second dealt with the question of Puerto Rican nationalism. These works, or sections of them, were widely read, often in translation in a number of languages. They fostered debate among both academics and activists, just as post-1989 events had begun recasting nationalism's role in the world. In the last decade of his life, Blaut pursued two main projects. The first was his work on 'natural mapping.' Blaut reconnected with his friend and colleague from his Clark days, the psychologist and geographer David Stea. They, along with colleagues in Mexico and the UK, were awarded two National Science Foundation grants (multi-year) to pick up their early work at Clark on spatial cognition and map-style modelling. Blaut took his radical notion that children were born with innate capacities for 'natural mapping' and elevated it to the principle that all people, at all ages and stages of individual development, and in all cultures through history and prehistory have been possessed of the abilities and powers to do 'maplike modeling.' He advanced these ideas as a theory of universal 'natural mapping.' Inspired in part by linguist Noam Chomsky's postulation of a universal 'language acquisition device' (LAD), Blaut posited a similar 'map acquisition device' (MAD). Blaut sought and received Chomsky's encouragement in developing this line of research. Although the research was continued, and various articles published, the projected books did not materialize. Blaut had other pressing projects competing for his attention. A lifetime of research, reflection, and synthesis was coming together in a projected series of books on the (mis) placing of Europe at the centre of the making of the modern world. He (1992) published a prolegomenon, 1492: The Debate on Colonialism, Eurocentrism, and History as part of the Columbian Quincentennial observations. The next year he published his acclaimed The Coloniser's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History (1993). This was to be the first volume of a planned trilogy devoted to 'decolonizing the past.' The second volume, Eight Eurocentric Historians (2000) came out shortly before he died. It amplified arguments presented in the first volume of the trilogy by analysing the work of a number of historians and social scientists united in their defence of Euro-uniqueness and thereby, European superiority. He judiciously selects a range of work — from Malthusians on the right, to liberals in the centre, and Marxists on the left. All were debunked. The third volume was in the planning stages at the time of his death. In the long run James Blaut will be best remembered for what he contributed to the written record and to the theoretical advances he made — much of it ground breaking. Within the memory spans of those that knew him first-hand, his generosity of spirit and mind, his energetic advocacy and activism, will compete with his publications and his philosophical-political positions for equal recognition.
118
James Morris Blaut
One of his final campaigns (along with his own survival in the face of cancer) was not for one of the causes that he had become associated with. Rather it was for the survival of the geography programme at UIC. The geography department was being merged with the larger anthropology department. The apparent plan was not to replace geographers as they retired, left, or died. As Blaut correctly argued, this meant the dismantling of yet another Chicago area geography department. With the characteristic concern he brought to other causes, he began to organize an outside advisory/advocacy group of prominent geographers to make the case for preserving geography at UIC. Blaut met at least once with Stanley Fish, UIC's high profile deconstructionist scholar and administrator, to see about reconstructing UIC's geography programme. A follow-up meeting was in the planning stages involving members of the support group. This never transpired. Blaut died on November 11, 2000 of heart failure. On the many other fronts that he cared passionately for, he never lost heart. This may be his single clearest legacy.
Scientific Ideas and Geographical Thought Two months before he died, James Blaut reflected on his legacy in geography and the other fields (Mathewson and Wisner 2005: 908) and left an account for those who might be charged with assessing his career. He provided a succinct summary, though indicated that his assessment was 'incomplete and hasty with some redundancy.' He enumerated chronologically what he considered his 'breakthroughs.' His schematic presentation is provided in italics, with annotations by this author. 1.
2.
3.
Pioneered the microgeographic study of peasant farming (1953—8). As discussed in the previous section, Blaut's dissertation on Singapore market gardening was a major undertaking and clear application of Robert Platt's approach to microgeographic fieldwork. As Sluyter (2005) has convincingly demonstrated in a close reading of the dissertation, Blaut goes well beyond Platt's functionalism and Hartshorne's chorology to lay both the theoretical and methodological foundations for a processual approach to the human/environment or society/nature relations that emerged by the 1960s under the rubric of cultural ecology and in the 1980s moved on to a more political-economically informed and inflected political ecology. While largely unstudied today, Blaut's Singapore study must be considered a precursor to both these subdisciplinary developments. Introduced systems analysis into human geography (I960]. In the absence of specific publications that substantiate this claim, one can only infer that Blaut began to introduce systems analysis into human geography through his work in human ecology. By the early 1960s physical geographers such as Richard Chorley and David Stoddart at Cambridge had begun to advocate systems approaches. By the late 1960s a number of human geographers had begun to explore the possibilities of systems analysis in both the urban and economic branches as well as the human or cultural ecology domain. In this latter development, Blaut's coauthored study of soil erosion and conservation in Jamaica had a significant influence. Formulated process philosophy in geography (1958—62). In working through the philosophical and methodological questions raised by his dissertation
James Morris Blaut
4.
5.
6.
7.
119
research and engaging the dominant perspectives of the time, Blaut produced a forceful critique of past and current concepts of space in geography, especially as exemplified by Hartshorne, and elaborated an alternative epistemology based on Russell's and Whitehead's process philosophy together with elements of the American pragmatists. This was put forth in his dissertation (1958) and a pair of papers published in Professional Geography (Blaut 1961, Blaut 1962). As often is the case with innovation, recognition that Blaut's philosophical contributions to geography were ahead of the times, has taken some time to register. Discovered spatial abilities of young children and studies these abilities (1968—74; 1988—2000). In collaboration with geographer-psychologist David Stea and others, Blaut developed radically new approaches to studies of spatial cognitive research. Starting with the assumption that young children are subject to deformation through standard schooling (analogous to the underdevelopment of oppressed and colonial peoples), he sought to counter these conditions through theoretical and experimental work. He set forth a series of objectives and positions (as summarized by Stea 2005, 991). First, he sought to bridge the gap between critical thinking and the positivist mode of research in developmental psychology. Secondly, he rejected the notion of 'the primitive mind' (often posited for indigenous, non-civilized peoples) and its equation with children's minds. Thirdly, he proposed that certain early developmental aspects of spatial cognition were cross-cultural, rather than culturally specific. Fourthly, he similarily rejected the idea that dimensions of spatial ability were gender specific. He rejected out-ofhand theories based in sociobiology. Fifthly, he sought to demonstrate that differences in the access to macrospatial experiences could account for the differential developmental spatial abilities among children of different socio-economic classes. Sixthly, he combined material from different branches of psychology — development, learning, perception — with ideas from geography to found a new theoretical perspective which he named 'universal mapping.' Formulated the theory of natural mapping — that mapping abilities are found in all humans (1968, 'Studies in Developmental Geography,' and later work). As previously recounted, Blaut's elaboration of the concept of 'universal mapping' was in part inspired by Noam Chomsky's work on universal language acquisition. As some may note, the parallels with Chomsky's profile are hard to miss. Like Chomsky's linguistics, Blaut's mapping research was complemented by a vigorous radical political theorization and engagement. For some observers these may seem to be separate, even incommensurate, domains. Like Chomsky, however, Blaut would dispute this, seeing his work with children as simply one aspect of a much larger emancipatory project with roots going back to the Enlightenment. Formulated underdevelopment theory in geography (1969—76). Here Blaut's contributions are indisputable and considerable. He was an early student of, and a geographic contributor to, the development of underdevelopment theory that had its origins in the work of Andre Gunder Frank and other members of the dependency school of economics and politics, especially for Latin America. Introduced non-Eurocentric theory of rise of capitalism (1976—2000). Related to his theoretical work on underdevelopment, Blaut demonstrated that geographers' perspectives on the historical origins and development of
120
James Morris Blaut
8.
9. 10.
11. 12.
13. 14.
capitalism were a valuable corrective to both previous theoretical and empirical work. Formulated Marxist jThird-Worldist theory of minorities, ghettos (1974—76). He brought geographical insights to bear on a question in Marxist theory, and a Marxist perspective on a problematic question in geographical work. Formulated Marxist/ Third- Worldist theory of nationalism (1980-87). Wide circulation outside of geography, but less so within. Introduced theory of external exploitation (1985, and chap. 7 of The National Question. Imaginative and important amendment to prior theories of nationalism. Analysed Puerto Rican national question (1985). Practical applications in Puerto Rico and by extension beyond. Formulated anti-diffusionist, uniformitarian theory (1977—2000). Rigorous, theoretical contribution to cultural geography, but seemingly with little impact or follow-up. Formulated theory of mapping behavior (1987—88). See numbers 4 and 5 here. Introduced non-Eurocentric theory of history (1976—2000). As put forward in the first two volumes of his planned trilogy on Eurocentrism, this may stand as Blaut's most widely-recognized scholarly contribution to both geography and related fields.
Beyond these self-identified contributions to scientific ideas and geographical thought, one might add that he represented a current within cultural geography that was seemingly sui generis but, in important ways, was an outgrowth of cultural geography's traditional and materialist groundings. While a majority of cultural geographers may have continued to see their work and the subfield as 'atheoreticaP well into the 1980s — as some traditionalists persist in doing — Blaut recognized, as any careful reader of Sauer or Kniffen does, that much of so-called traditional cultural geography is inherently theoretical. The processes involved in plant and animal domestication, aboriginal demographics, colonialism and destructive exploitation, material culture diffusions, to mention just a few of the signature themes of the Berkeley school, are all implicitly approached theoretically. Blaut from his earliest interest in academic geography to the end, appreciated traditional cultural geography's engagements with real people in real places, but also its theoretical dimensions and implications. By the 1970s some cultural geographers were considering cultural ecology to be a departure from traditional forms, thus constituting a 'new cultural geography' (Knapp 1980), with its implicit theorization and emphasis on process over form. Blaut was perhaps the first geographer to self-identify with cultural ecology. He is considered one of its pioneers. After he moved away from field study of peasant agriculture in the 1970s, his contacts with the emerging subfield of cultural ecology were less direct. Still, his own emerging Third Worldist political-economic and historical work offered impetus and inputs into sectors of cultural ecology that made transitions toward political ecology in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980 Blaut published an article entitled 'A Radical Critique of Cultural Geography' in Antipode. He had presented it as a paper at the AAG two years earlier. Blaut pointed to tendencies of class elitism and ethnocentrism in research topics that could involve cultural geographers. These included viewing cultures from the 'superorganic' or holistic perspective without acknowledging processes of national or class formation, and the reverse — keying only on individuals and lapsing into various forms of psychologism, voluntarism, and behaviouralism. He
James Morris Blaut
121
pointed to the salutary work of'cultural geographers of Louisiana' in avoiding the first pitfall. He commended cultural geographers in general for their: historical, processual thinking; cross-cultural perspective; emphasis on livelihood modes (noting the similitude between the concepts of genre de vie and mode of production); adversion to psychological reductionism; discipline and tenacity forged through long-term field work. Although Blaut's critique of cultural geography had some currency, another article published in 1980 had a much larger impact. James Duncan's (1980) 'The Superorganic in American Cultural Geography,' took issue with traditional cultural geography's alleged faults and out-of-date attitudes. The crux of the problem was said to be traditional cultural geographers' acceptance of the superorganic concept of culture (derived from Herbert Spencer and transmitted via Alfred Kroeber). In Duncan's estimation, appeal to the superorganic principle led to the negation of the role of human agency in cultures' constructions, and particularly the part played by individuals. Duncan co-authored a similar critique with David Ley (1982), but this time the target was structural Marxism, another agency obfuscating enterprise. At least in the published record, Blaut did not enter into the debate that these two articles enjoined. Had he done so, no doubt he would have responded to Duncan's superorganic imputations from the perspective of his hybrid blend of Third Worldist Marxism, pragmatism, and the materialist, historically informed cultural geography that he learned from Kniffen (and by extension, the Berkeley school). It is highly unlikely that he would have shared Duncan's appraisal then, and he came to reject much of what Duncan's criticisms helped usher in. By the mid-1980s, both post-structuralist revisions and post-modernist projections were preparing grounds for the 1990s 'cultural turn' in human geography. Hardly surprising, cultural geography's precincts was the first place that the culturalist upheaval was set in motion. But unlike with other sectors of human geography, the preserves of the traditionalists (material culture, origins and diffusions, cultural chorology, ethnoscience, indigenous worlds, and so on) were largely bypassed rather than seriously challenged. Cultural geography set about to reinvent itself. Whole new casts of actors with alternative canons and landscapes presented themselves. A plethora of new perspectives, positions, and practices took to the stage, often oblivious to what went on before. Despite the new cultural geography's initial groundings in British cultural Marxism, as exemplified by the work of Denis Cosgrove, Stephen Daniels, and Peter Jackson, Blaut continued to champion cultural geography's older materialist and historical bases. This preference was made clear in Blaut's (1993, 345) response to a conference on 'New Directions in Cultural Geography,' sponsored by the Social Geography Study Group of the IBG in 1987 (Philo 1988). As he relates it: I had been invited to give one of the papers. It developed that I was the only cultural geographer at this conference on 'New Directions in Cultural Geography' who spoke in favor of the main tradition in our field. This is, of course, what most people call the 'Sauer tradition,' although I prefer to call it the 'Sauer-Kniffen tradition.' Almost everyone at the conference was into something very different: 'post-modernism,' 'post-industrialism,' 'post-Fordism,' 'post-Marxism,' post-this-ism, post-that-ism. I was, if anything, a postSauerist, that is, a Kniffenite. He followed this stock-taking and identity reaffirmation with a prospectus for a radical cultural geography drawing on its deepest roots, and deracinating the
122
James Morris Blaut
shallow ones. Manifestations of idealism in general and (neo)Kantian influences specifically are to be weeded out. He provides a lucid statement of his views on cultural geography drawing on forty years of thought and fieldwork — some of it within the subfield's core, but more often within its peripheries. Entering its third decade, geography's 'cultural turn' still appears to be in full swing. It is, however, undergoing a 'rematerialization.' Its ideational, representational, and other less material manifestations seem to be on the out. To what extent Blaut might provide direction or inspiration, one can only speculate. Less speculative would have been Blaut's probable response. He would have welcomed the basic impulse, but would have insisted that this latest twist take seriously those struggles that he devoted his life to: the divisive questions of class, race, ethnicity, age and pedagogy, environmentalism, nationalism, colonialism, and preeminently the manifold conceits of Eurocentrism.
Influence and Spread of Ideas Though now something of a cliche, the catch-phrase 'think global, act local' in the 1980s captured the emerging awareness among environmental and other advocacy groups of the need to negotiate multiple geographical scales. In both his scholarship and activism, Blaut had reached this understanding two or three decades earlier. He began his career highly focused on microgeographic plots and places. He ended his career grandly surveying global historical plots and continental-sized realms. In the interim, he explored evidence and expounded ideas at most intervening scales. Similarly his empirical studies and theoretical formulations found an audience mostly in geography during his first decade of publication (the 1950s). As he moved into the 1960s, and continued fieldwork in the Caribbean and Latin America, his work became known to Latin Americanists and Caribbeanists, especially anthropologists, historians, rural sociologists, and development specialists. He continued to be a known quantity in geography, even though his geographical publications flagged after his two important theoretical statements at the beginning of the decade (Blaut 1961, Blaut 1962). In the 1970s Blaut cemented his reputation as both an innovative researcher and as an original thinker who helped legitimate and expand the purview of critical geography. In collaboration with David Stea, he burst forth with a series of articles on children's mapping behaviour. This introduced Blaut and his research to whole new audiences especially in the fields of developmental psychology and education. At the same time Blaut's series of articles on geographic models of imperialism, Third World development, ghetto formation, and Puerto Rican nationalism established him as one of geography's foremost critical theorists. It also opened up new avenues of scholarly and intellectual exchange not only for Blaut, but for geography in general. During the decade of the 1980s Blaut continued with the topics and approaches he had pioneered in the 1970s. His work with children's mapping continued, but he expanded these interests to include articles on environmental and place perception and a comparative look at ethnoscience. His critical work was focused primarily on questions of nationalism, reflecting his ongoing associations and activities with the Puerto Rican independence movement. His books on nationalism (Blaut 1987) and the Puerto Rican national question (Blaut 1988) put his ideas and influence into larger and more diffuse circuits of scholarly and political exchange. At this point Blaut's critical scholarship was beginning to achieve a global reach, though aspects
James Morris Blaut
123
of his more disciplinary-bounded work in geography and psychology had enjoyed widespread, even global, recognition in select networks earlier. It was not until his final decade, however, that Blaut's research reached the widest audiences. First, his collaborative research on children's mapping abilities resulted in well-funded projects and a number of high profile publications. Had Blaut never ventured beyond this domain (impossible to imagine!), with just his extant publications, he would have established a lasting reputation for creative work on the borderlands between psychology and geography. He also made contributions to cultural geography with critical commentary on idealism and materialism (Blaut 1993a) and on ethnic 'homelands' (Blaut 1993b). His main 'breakthrough,' and almost certainly his most enduring contribution, has been his critique of Eurocentrism. The Colonizer's Model of the World (Blaut 1993a) has won him a global readership, and a place in the curricula of countless courses in modern history, post-colonial studies, anthropology, development studies, as well as geography. With this book, its sequel, and attendant articles, Blaut joined the ranks of the select group of modern geographers (no more than a dozen at any one time, and often less) whose ideas and influence transcend the discipline and circulate widely in broader academic and intellectual discourse. In Blaut's case this happened with segments of both the humanities and social sciences as well as political movements. Of late, it has been mostly critical geographers that can claim this distinction. Even among his fellow radicals, Blaut and his oeuvre were viewed as distinctive, at times wayward, marching always to his own drumming. The tempo was upbeat, with strong Third Worldist phrasing and rhythms. The refrains came from a rich repertoire of Marxist, pragmatist, and cultural geographic themes. As is the case with much news in the current Age of the Internet, word of Blaut's death travelled rapidly and widely. Within a few days there were multiple memorial postings on internet sites that paid tribute to his personal qualities, placed his research and publication in larger contexts, and lamented his passing with so much planned and promising future work before him. A special memorial session was quickly organized for the approaching annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in New York City. The event was well attended, giving some one hundred geographers, among them those who had known him for decades, those that had studied with him, and few that knew him mostly from the written record, ample opportunity to testify to his irrepressible spirit and enthusiasm, his unflagging commitments to various causes, and his devotion to theorizing and practising geography in original and multiple ways. Out of this gathering came plans for a special issue of the journal Antipode (Vol. 37, no. 5, 2005) 'Critical Assessments of James M. Blaut's Life and Work' co-edited by Ben Wisner and Kent Mathewson (see the section below 'Obituaries and References on James Blaut' for a listing of most of the contents). While the special issue was primarily retrospective in orientation, and featured a healthy diversity of viewpoints, it was not without forecasts on the prospects for Blaut's legacy. Here, there was consensus. He was one of a kind; there will never be another Jim Blaut. There will be, however, a continuing interest in many of his publications, particularly his theories on universal mapping abilities, and his challenges to Eurocentric thinking and scholarship.
94
Max Sorre
university. Sorre's remarkable ability allowed him to undergo two years of further training at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Saint-Cloud in the western suburbs of Paris (Chevalier 1996, 19). At this time he was exposed to the teaching of Paul Vidal de La Blache who had moved to a chair of geography at the Sorbonne in 1898, having taught for two decades at the elite Ecole Normale Superieure (rue d'Ulm) in central Paris. In this way, Sorre may be recognized as a Vidalian although his route to the master was very different from that of students coming through the rue d'Ulm, notably Lucien Gallois (Geographers Vol. 24), Emmanuel de Martonne, Albert Demangeon (Geographers Vol. 11), Jules Sion and Antoine Vacher. His career would prove more varied than theirs. After Saint-Cloud, Sorre taught for sixteen years in teacher training colleges, first at La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendee (followed by military service), then for three months at Perpignan, and subsequently at Montpellier where he taught French literature for over a decade. He was undertaking geographical work throughout that period, publishing in the Annales de Geographic in 1906 long before he acquired his first degree from the University of Montpellier in 1911. While based in that city, he served as assistant secretary of the Societe Languedocienne de Geographic from 1906 to 1914 and published in its journal (Sorre 1912). In 1911 he married Marguerite Soulas who lived in the city. The couple remained deeply attached to Montpellier and, in later life, would spend a fortnight there in September before the start of each academic year. While at Montpellier, Sorre also researched his doctorate on the eastern Pyrenees that he defended successfully at the Sorbonne in 1913. His main thesis was a classic, integrative monograph that fully lived up to Vidal's expectations but, unlike his contemporaries, Sorre chose to highlight the biogeography and ecology of his chosen region (Claval 1998, 263). This distinctive orientation reflected the influence of Charles Flahault, professor of botany at Montpellier and pioneer of vegetation mapping and plant geography. Sorre's teacher and colleague, Emmanuel de Martonne, stressed that Les Pyrenees mediterranneenes was 'a genuinely innovative work' and wondered whether the author might be encouraged 'to apply his method to another Mediterranean region' (De Martonne 1914—15, 168). Sorre would place ecology, in its various forms, at the heart of his work throughout his life. Freshly equipped with a doctorate, Max Sorre was again called to military service and joined the Montpellier regiment of the 81st Infantry in August 1914 at the start of World War I. He rose to the rank of lieutenant and displayed great concern for the men in his battalion and remarkable courage under fire. He was gravely wounded during the second Artois campaign of the following year and received the croix de guerre for valour. This was awarded in his hospital bed since the army doctors doubted that he would survive his wounds. In fact, his robust constitution helped him pull through but his war wounds would cause him considerable pain for over a decade (Galtier 1962, 368). Eighteen months were spent in various military hospitals but in March 1917 Sorre was sufficiently recovered to give geography classes at the University of Grenoble, moving in September of that year to the University of Bordeaux where he held a two-year position covering for Pierre Camena d'Almeida until he was demobilized in 1919. He managed to write a short article on the Landes and undertook fieldwork in the central and western Pyrenees in those months (Sorre 1918). Sorre then taught for a brief time at Toulouse before moving to the University of Strasbourg that was being re-established as a showcase of French higher education in Alsace after half a century of German occupation. Once again, that was simply a temporary position to cover for Professor Pierre Denis who was on secondment to the Societe des Nations in Geneva. In fact, Sorre spent only two months in Alsace before returning
Max Sorre
95
to Bordeaux in January 1920 to replace Henri Lorin who had been elected a depute. During the subsequent three years, Sorre responded to a request from his friend Albert Demangeon to draft a volume on the Pyrenees for Armand Colin, the favoured publishing house of the Vidalians. This book drew on his thesis and also included detailed information obtained from fieldwork in the central and western parts of the mountain range that had been arranged from Bordeaux. Sorre's academic qualities and productivity were rewarded by membership of the Comite National de Geographic. After this rapid succession of posts, Max Sorre moved to the University of Lille in 1922 where the sole teaching position in geography had not been filled on a permanent basis following the premature death of Vidalian Antoine Vacher in 1919 (Bruyelle 1998, 65). Initially holding a lectureship, Sorre remained in Lille for almost a decade. In 1923 he received the title of professor and two years later was appointed to the re-established chair of regional geography. In November 1929 he was elected Dean of the Faculte des Lettres. The years in northern France were highly productive. As a fluent Spanish speaker, Sorre completed the volume on Mexique: Amerique Centrale for the great Geographic Universelle that had been devised as early as 1908 by Vidal and Max Leclerc, managing director of Armand Colin (Sorre 1928a). Initially, this volume had been entrusted to Vacher. Sorre took a highly active role in the powerful Societe de Geographic de Lille that brought together industrialists and bankers as well as academics and schoolteachers. He gave many lectures in its annual programmes and edited its Bulletin in whose pages he presented much of his early work on the relationship between mankind and the natural world, on urban geography, and on the economic geography of northern France, especially its coal mining activities (Sorre 1925, 1926, 1928a, 1928b, 1928c, 1930a). In the latter context, he worked closely with local chambers of commerce in Lille and other towns. He took his developing ideas on Tecologie de Phomme' to the International Geographical Congress at Cambridge in 1928, and would organize the biogeography section of the IGC in Paris three years later (Sorre 1930b). The reputation of Max Sorre as Dean of Faculte des Lettres at Lille became known to Chevalier, director of Higher Education throughout France, who approached him in 1931 to occupy the administrative post of Recteur of the academie of Clermont-Ferrand with responsibility for all levels of state education (Broc 1993, 246). His former colleagues at Lille ensured that he retained an honorary position in their university. Sorre's energy and tact enabled considerable progress to be achieved in the Auvergne in a short time. In spare moments, he was able to publish his early thoughts on medical geography and to complete a second volume for the Geographie Universelle dealing with the Mediterranean world (Sorre 1933, 1934). This region had been allocated initially to Jean Brunhes (Geographers Vol. 25) but his commitments developed in other ways. Sorre worked on this text with Jules Sion, his friend at Montpellier, but was solely responsible for covering the physical geography of Mediterranean Europe and the regional geography of Spain and Portugal. Inclusion of photographs from Sorre's own camera reveals that he had considerable field experience of Iberia. This had been enhanced during the summer of 1930 and enabled him to write with greater insight and authority than had been the case for Mexique: Amerique Centrale. Sorre's renewed exposure to the Mediterranean world led him to contemplate moving to a southern academie. The post of Recteur of Montpellier that he would have preferred was not vacant in 1934 so he opted for Aix-Marseille where he remained for three very successful years. In 1937 he was appointed Directeur de I'Enseignement du Premier Degrevn. the Ministry of Education. This post in Paris gave
96
Max Sorre
him responsibility for aspects of schooling throughout France and brought him into close contact with ministers Anatole de Monzie and Jean Zay. His drive and energy soon enabled him to bring about improvements in staffing and to initiate a programme of school building. Sorre's political sympathies with the Popular Front rendered him unacceptable to the Vichy Regime following the fall of France and he was relieved of his position. On 29 July 1940, at the age of sixty, he was placed back in the ranks of university professors. Academics at Montpellier urged him to apply for the chair that had fallen vacant three weeks earlier following the sudden death of Jules Sion on 8 July and he returned to the city for a few weeks, but political difficulties made a move to the south impossible at this time (Undated draft of an obituary by Arthur Geddes in the Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2) (On Arthur Geddes, see Geographers Vol. 2). There was also, however, a more accessible and perhaps more attractive vacancy in the form of the chair of human geography at the Sorbonne freed by the death of Albert Demangeon on 25 July (Gottmann 1963, 465). Members of the Faculte des Lettres in Paris actively sought his appointment and he joined their number, throwing himself wholeheartedly into teaching and writing at an age when many scholars would think of slowing down. These new circumstances enabled Sorre to consolidate decades of reading into a three-part magnum opus on human geography. Bearing the title, Les Fondements biologiques de la geographie humaine: essai d'une ecologie de I'homme, the first volume appeared from Armand Colin in 1943, having been delayed by wartime paper shortages. Following the Liberation of France, the declaration by Marshal Petain that had deprived Sorre of his position in the Ministry of National Education was revoked, enabling him to seek reinstatement to his former post (George 1962, 477). In fact, he chose to remain at the Sorbonne; De Gaulle awarded him the title of directeur honoraire de I'enseignement du premier degre. Even so, Sorre's future was far from secure since one of the early decrees of the provisional government of the Republic was to reduce the retirement age of university professors from 73 to 67, thereby requiring him to vacate his chair at the Sorbonne in October 1948. In that year, the second part of his great treatise appeared: Les Fondements de la geographie humaine: les fondements techniques. In December 1950, the Council of State revoked the problematic decree on retirement but Sorre chose not to return to the Sorbonne even though he was now entitled to teach there until October 1953. He continued to work on his third volume that appeared in 1952 as Les Fondements de la geographie humaine: I'habitation, conclusion generale, once again delayed by paper shortages (Letter from Sorre to Arthur Geddes, dated 28 June 1951. Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2). In all, Sorre produced almost 2,000 printed pages that distilled over two decades of reading in several languages and embraced evidence from many disciplines. After retirement from the Sorbonne in October 1948, Sorre remained remarkably active. He headed the French delegation to the International Geographical Congress in Washington in 1952 and presided over the Comite National Francais de Geographie from 1953 to 1960. He taught at the Institut Superieur d'Urbanisme of the University of Paris where he presented not only his own conception of 'human ecology' but also the brand of urban ecology that had been developed between the wars by sociologists at the University of Chicago. At the invitation of the Ministry of National Education, he headed the Centre de Sociologie at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. He wrote to Arthur Geddes that he accepted this position because the sociologists wanted someone who could arbitrate between them (Letter from Sorre to Geddes, dated 28 June 1951). Drawing interdisciplinary inspiration from these responsibilities he wrote two
Max Sorre
97
completely new books: Les Migrations des peuples: essai sur la mobilite geographique (1955) and Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie (1957). His final work, a 365page textbook, L'Homme sur la Terre (1962), condensed a lifetime's array of evidence and ideas. Despite his ordeal during World War I, he enjoyed robust good health to the end of his life, his energetic enthusiasm delighting participants at a conference in June 1962 on geographical methodology at the Ecole Normale Superieure. He died, aged 82, on 10 August while staying with relatives just outside Dijon, prior to travelling south for his regular summer holiday in Provence (Galtier 1962, 365). Arthur Geddes, his Edinburgh colleague on the Commission for Medical Geography of the International Geographical Union, captured Sorre's fundamental humanity in the following text: 'Max Sorre was marked by a vivid sympathy, a free spirit, a comprehension that was both intellectual and quite personal, and by a direct and simple honesty. To know him as a fellow worker was to appreciate his quick choice of essentials, of what should and what could be done. Even those who had known him for only relatively few hours in conference and privately, find themselves remembering, almost with astonishment, that here was a friend on whom they counted with complete assurance, as one does with one's friends. A short, sturdy man, alert and bright-eyed and with a vigorous hand-clasp, Max Sorre might have passed in France for a first-rate village mayor rather than as a citizen who had risen to highest academic and executive rank. He remained a man of the people and was never a mere bureaucrat; no mere theorist or compiler, he was a keen observer, a disciplined thinker' (Undated draft obituary by Arthur Geddes in the Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2).
Scientific Ideas and Geographical Thought Like other French geographers who obtained their doctorates in the first half of the twentieth century, Max Sorre was competent in both physical and human geography. His major thesis, Les Pyrennees mediterraneennes, adopted a holistic approach to comprehend the geography of the departement of the PyreneesOrientales with consideration of conditions in adjacent areas across the Spanish border (Sorre 1913a). The distinctive feature of that work was his detailed understanding of plant geography and of biogeography more generally. Later, he shared this expertise with other colleagues on a major field excursion to the eastern Pyrenees (Sorre 1923). His fascination with biogeography remained vibrant throughout his life; for example, it was Sorre who wrote about vegetation and soils after the 22nd inter-university geographical excursion to Yugoslavia in 1930, who organized the biogeography section of the IGC in Paris in the following year, and who founded the Societe de Biogeographie (Sorre 1930c). Sorre was also experienced in archival and historical work as his secondary thesis on source materials for the study of viticulture and the wine trade in eighteeenth-century Languedoc amply demonstrated (Sorre 1913b). During the 1920s and 1930s he absorbed ideas from medical science, undoubtedly as part of his administrative activity in various universities, but possibly also in response to his close encounter with death in 1915. The notion of'ecology' occupied a central part in his thinking. This had begun during botanical excursions with Charles Flahault but later embraced such matters as the availability of rainfall, the role of climatic factors in conditioning human activity, the production of staple foodstuffs, the impact of diseases, and then various expressions of 'human ecology' and 'urban ecology'
98
Max Sorre
whereby human beings conceived and operated survival strategies (Sorre 1934b, 1950, 1952b). Without rejecting its botanical roots, Sorre finally embraced the methods and substance of sociology into his brand of ecology. Sorre's conceptual enrichment emerges from his three-volume magnum opus, Les Fondements de la geographic humaine, and from subsequent books. His introduction to Les Fondements biologiques: essai d'une ecologie de I'homme, dated 27 December 1940 but not published until 1943, acknowledges indebtedness to Vidal and Flahault and to Sorre's initial inspiration and now close colleague at the Sorbonne, Emmanuel de Martonne. After reference to Humboldt, Lamarck and Charles Darwin (Geographers Vol. 9), Sorre conveys his thanks to climatologists, botanists and medical scientists at Montpellier, Bordeaux, Lille, Clermont-Ferrand and Marseilles. Indeed, he devoted part of his annual visits to Montpellier to consulting recent publications in the medical library of the university (Picheral 1990, 300). In his introduction, Sorre also expresses his intellectual debt to Jules Sion, his friend and co-author whose 'understanding was precious to me, and who approved my writing plan and supported its completion' (Sorre 1943, 11). Just a few months after the fall of France and his removal from the Ministry, Sorre confessed to 'finishing the book in the midst of public grieving against which personal bitterness scarcely counts. It has been a refuge for me and a consolation' (Sorre 1943, 11). Drawing on ideas that he had contributed to a Traite de climatologie biologique et medicale, edited by M. Piery in 1934, Sorre focuses not only on broad climatic regions and the impact of temperature, humidity and wind on the human body but also on the significance of'artificial micro-climates' produced as a result of human activity (Sorre 1934b, 1943, 37). He soon introduces the notion of the 'ecumene' that figures almost as consistently as that of'ecology' in his subsequent work. As he showed in earlier articles, human survival requires food supplies generated in countless ways across the globe but also occurs in the face of diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, tuberculosis and syphilis whose distribution through space and time geographers must seek to understand. With impressive maps, including those showing the occurrence of tuberculosis in France in the 1930s and disease conditions around the Mediterranean basin, Sorre reveals himself as a pioneer in medical geography (Sorre 1943, 376, 386). Les Fondements biologiques ends with acknowledgement to Lavoisier, Claude Bernard and Louis Pasteur. The second volume examines Les Fondements techniques and presents human geography on a wider canvas. Sorre stresses that he uses 'the word "technique" in the widest sense, and not in its narrow meaning of mechanical application. It covers all aspects of human industry and art in every domain of activity in space' (Sorre 1948a, 5). This is done in full recognition of the acceleration of social and economic changes that occurred in the wake of World War II. After brief reference to the impact of human warfare throughout history, Sorre draws on anthropology and political science to classify human groups, nations, empires and economic structures, ranging from slavery and castes to the current capitalist world. His focus then shifts to the evolution of energy supplies from human muscle to coal and natural gas, with due acknowledgement of the potential 'use of atomic energy. We are on the brink of the unknown' (Sorre 1948a, 390). The conquest of terrestrial space by means of transport and communication occupies the final third of this 600page book. Alongside conventional coverage of roads and railways, of water and air, there is an intriguing chapter devoted to transmission of ideas ('le transport de la pensee') and a map showing the variable geometry of France caused by transport changes from the early seventeenth century to 1887 is an early demonstration of space/time compression (Sorre 1948a, 597). Completing his magnum opus in February 1951, Sorre explained that he had
Max Sorre
99
written the three volumes 'during a troubled period, full of uncertainty. Started in the bitterness of a great disaster, it has been completed in the anguish of its aftermath. Our only consolation is in the effort we have made to enable [readers] to understand what is going on around us. I hope that this book assists those who read it in the quest for their own serenity' (Sorre 1952, 10). The initial chapter discusses the Vidalian concept of genre de vie (lifestyle) that had been applied to traditional, rural, pre-industrial contexts in which human groups were in close contact with the natural world but which recent scholars were rejecting as inappropriate for analyzing the industrializing, post-war world (Sorre 1948b). Sorre insists that the concept may be revitalized through the injection of ideas from urban sociology; however subsequent chapters present rather static discussions of rural settlement and of urban morphology and function, ranging from small towns to metropolitan centres and urban regions. Inclusion of many detailed maps of individual settlements, first published in volumes of the Geographic Universelle between the wars, reinforces the impression of stasis. Nonetheless, Sorre incorporates evidence and concepts from the 'Chicago School', as translated into the French context in the 1930s by Maurice Halbwachs, and mentions highly contemporary themes such as urban climates and the advantages of cremation over burial given the shortage of space in many of the world's cities (Sorre 1948b, 361). Sorre's remaining books, written in retirement, embrace ecology, the ecumene and many of his earlier discussions but they also inject new elements. Les Migrations des peuples, for Flammarion's 'Bibliotheque de Philosophic Scientifique', testifies to the increasing volume of human mobility over short and long distances in recent years to meet immediate and more lasting objectives (Sorre 1955). As well as pioneering work, such as that by E. G. Ravenstein (Geographers Vol. 1), Sorre acknowledges pioneering theoretical work by Bertil Wendel, Edgar Kant (Geographers Vol. 11) and Torsten Hagerstrand (Geographers Vol. 26) from the University of Lund in the 1950s (Sorre 1955, 8). Alongside discussion of European colonization and 'pioneer fringes' attention is paid to 'the bums, tramps and hobos' who figure in North American sociological work (Sorre 1955, 29). Sorre stressed that while mobility can enhance human well-being, the process is inescapably surrounded by tension, drama and trauma (Sorre 1955, 260). Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie, written for the 'Petite Bibliotheque Sociologique Internationale' published by Marcel Riviere, draws on Sorre's retirement experience as director of the Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (1957a). He recalls the bitter turf war between practitioners of Vidal's ge'ographie humaine and Durkheim's sociologists at the start of the twentieth century, arguing that 'all that row has quietened down and new directions have made themselves felt' (Sorre 1957a, 7). In studying human issues, he 'would like to believe' that geographers bring a sense of the 'total environment' and experience of direct observation, while sociologists bring 'internal enlightenment' through concepts and principles. He added, with telling prescience for January 1957, 'As a discipline of synthesis, geography lives under the perpetual threat of splitting apart' (Sorre 1957a, 9, 10). After a review of classic writers in both disciplines, Sorre focuses on differing conceptions of'space' by geographers and sociologists, paying attention to the work of sociologist Paul Chombart de Lauwe (1956) on the everyday life of working class families. He argues that 'objective space' needs to be matched by recognition of the 'social space' constructed by individuals and groups in society, and articulated around such 'poles' as schools, churches, workplaces, theatres, cinema and sports grounds (Sorre 1957, 111; Buttimer 1969, 419). Ecological interaction, albeit filtered in differing ways, is central to both disciplines, with geographers examining
100
Max Sorre
human presence in the 'total environment' and sociologists stressing interactions among individuals and social groups. 'Succession' and 'community' are shown to be valued concepts for geographers and sociologists, as well as for botanists. Geographers use statistics to generate maps (for example, of religious observance or of electoral behaviour) since 'that is their trade', while sociologists 'build their doctrines' from such numerical information (Sorre 1958). Sorre issues a clarion call to his fellow geographers to wake up to the dynamics of socio-economic change taking place around them. 'A geographer is not a collector of fossil shells that no longer contain living beings. Let us put people back into human geography. Then let us turn more and more toward the sociologists and follow their attempts to adapt to the conditions of the present world' (Sorre 1958, 199). This is a remarkable challenge from a 77-year-old! Sorre's last work, L'Homme sur la Terre, was completed in July 1961, just a year before the author's death (Sorre 1962). Appearing in Hachette's 'Les Cinq Parties du Monde' series, it is a substantial textbook that digested much of his earlier work. After a predictable dedication to Vidal, Flahault and De Martonne, Max Sorre evokes the present 'revolution whose like humanity has not known since the Neolithic' and stresses that the book has been written 'for readers in the 1960s, witnesses of the conquest of space \l'espace aerien\ and of the splitting of the atom' (Sorre 1961, 1). Nonetheless, his specification of geography is conventional: 'Giving priority to the location of phenomena [geography] is the discipline of space on earth . . . The geographer makes, comments upon, and compares maps. Secondly, he is the man who understands inter-relationships' (Sorre 1962, 2). Echoing earlier concerns, he continues: 'Respect for the essential unity of human geography requires all tendencies toward dispersion to be rejected' (Sorre 1962, 8). The seven long chapters of the book introduce notions of 'intelligence' and 'sociability' to encapsulate familiar ideas, while presentations of the ecumene, the conquest of distance and of humanized regions both revise and consolidate earlier statements. A remarkable frequency of sub-headings certainly assists the student reader and perhaps reveals how Sorre compacted and reassembled his earlier work. Certainly, he claimed that not a day went by without putting pen to paper on one geographical work or another (Galtier 1962, 369).
Influence and Spread of Ideas Max Sorre was almost the last of the Vidalians — only to be outlived by Rene Musset (1881—1977) — that cohort of men who experienced the teaching of the master at first hand. Despite his unconventional route through Saint-Cloud and the lack of a qualification (the agregation) to teach in a lycee, his doctorate was awarded by the Sorbonne and was published by Armand Colin. These were unquestionable expressions of Vidal's approval. Following the death of Vidal in 1918, Lucien Gallois (Geographers Vol. 24) entrusted two volumes of the Geographic Universelle to Sorre, albeit as author of second choice. As a further mark of approval, Armand Colin published his three-volume treatise that went through several editions, although some difficult negotiations were conducted between the author and the editorial staff (Undated draft of obituary by Arthur Geddes, held in the Geography departmental archive, University of Edinburgh, ref. DG 4/2). Despite his productivity and familiarity with half a dozen foreign languages, Sorre did not exert the degree of influence that one might expect. His career was fragmented between that of professor and of administrator, and involved many institutions in
Max Sorre
101
different parts of France. A decade spent lecturing at Lille when he was in his forties was counterpoised by only seven years at the Sorbonne after he had turned sixty. Arguably his most innovative volume, Les Fondements biologiques, appeared in the depths of wartime. With the exception of his book on Mexico and Central America that was translated into Spanish (plus a handful of articles in Dutch, English and Italian), none of his works appeared outside the francophone realm. Nonetheless, Max Sorre was a member of a range of European geographical societies and was awarded a gold medal by the geographical society of Madrid for his book on Iberia. He was a founder member of the International Geographical Union in 1920 and his linguistic competence made him a regular participant at International Geographical Congresses, notably at Cambridge, Paris, Warsaw, Lisbon, Washington, Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm. He headed the French delegation to the latter Congress in Sweden in 1960. He routinely reported these international meetings in the pages of the Annales de Geographic on whose editorial board he served from 1947 to his death. As well as submitting a regular flow of articles, notes and book reviews, he took an active role in helping young scholars to redraft their work for publication in the Annales (Galtier 1962, 372). At earlier stages of his career he displayed strong commitment to the bulletins of the geographical societies of the Languedoc and of Lille, and contributed material to the inaugural issue of Morois (Sorre 1954). Unlike Vidal and his immediate disciples, De Martonne, Demangeon and Raoul Blanchard, Max Sorre did not establish a school of researchers, although turned sixty he was still able to inspire students at the Sorbonne. Andre Fel described a rather stooped figure who lectured in a worn suit that had a curious green sheen that was perhaps not surprising given the clothing shortages during and after the war. Pierre Brunei recalls that during 1946 Sorre delivered a course whose content would later appear as part of Les Fondements techniques. He would arrive at the lectern at the heart of the amphitheatre, a stocky little silhouette, holding his notes in his hand. After several minutes he abandoned them and improvised, ranging far and wide. His presentation became less coherent but it was delivered in a warm voice that rolled the letter V and it remained passionate and inspiring. Above all, I remember that he offered a wide perspective of how societies changed, and also that he treated economic problems at the global scale. By chance, in June 1954, I heard him deliver the introductory address at the international conference on the ecological divisions of the world. I was greatly impressed by its quality and by the elegance with which he expressed changing ideas and views held by different schools of thought (Letter from Pierre Brunei, 10/11/2005). Bernard Dezert sludied under Max Sorre from 1944 lo 1947. He heard his brillianl Salurday leclures in which he discussed wilh greal conviction many aspecls of human and economic geography. Better lhan anyone, he understood ihe need lo undersland humanity and ihe ecumene. Before olhers became interested, he was concerned wilh ecology, ihe protection of nalure, international relations, and ihe geography of commerce. He was a passionate and inspiring teacher who had a very appealing personality and so sludenls appreciated him greally [II is remarkable lhal Bernard Dezerl used precisely ihe same adjectives as Pierre Brunei in his letter 'passionne el passionanl']. Thanks lo Professor Sorre, I became aware of economic inequalities and of ihe social consequences of ihese
102
Max Sorre
inequalities with respect to transport and commerce. He came across as a great humanist, as a man capable of broad syntheses, but he showed modesty and great human warmth in his choice of words, liking to discuss matters with students at the end of his lectures in a way that they could really understand. It is not without a certain emotion that I send these recollections of a great geographer who honoured the Institut de Geographic of the Sorbonne, occupying the chair of human geography that had been held by Professor Albert Demangeon (Letter from Bernard Dezert, 10/11/2005). Looking back to his time as an advanced student in Paris in 1948, Andre Vigarie recalled two main things about Max Sorre. When visiting his office, 'The contacts were always as brief as possible. There was a small clock on his desk whose face was turned toward the visitor to ensure that the passage of time was not forgotten and that conversation would be kept short. Problems were sorted out as quickly as possible'. The second point was Sorre's ability to be available to students and also, within a matter of minutes, to be dressed in his yellow academic robes, worn by those of professorial rank, and processing along the Boulevard Saint Germain. To Vigarie, this was 'a curious contrast in the psychology of the man: he was at the disposal of his students, but he recognized the need to demonstrate the quality of intellectual life in the street, to be seen and acknowledged by society at large' (Letter from Andre Vigarie, 23/11/2005). Despite Sorre's repeated defence of geography as a discipline of synthesis in which spatial representation played a fundamental role, some members of the geographical establishment in France were cautious about his openness to dialogue with members of other disciplines from botany to sociology and from medicine to psychology (Buttimer 1971, 124). As Anne Buttimer discovered, these colleagues complained that Sorre wandered away from his disciplinary base (Buttimer 1971, 126). Nonetheless, he insisted that the geographer's role was to analyse and synthesize but not to engage in planning or policy making (Meynier 1969, 185). While welcoming his openness to sociology, younger colleagues afforded him the respect that his age commanded but did not find his work particularly interesting (Buttimer 1971, 127; message from Francois Gay, November 2005). Yet without doubt, Sorre's pioneering role in adopting an ecological perspective deserves to be remembered. For him, all geography was fundamentally a matter of ecology (Sorre 1943, 6). Paul Claval is unstinting in his praise: 'Among French geographers active during the period 1910—60, Sorre is certainly the most original and the most profound' (Claval 1998, 267).
Acknowledgements I am grateful to Charles Withers for drawing my attention to the three documents relating to Sorre in the Geography departmental archives at the University of Edinburgh, and to Professors Andre Fel, Pierre Brunei, Bernard Dezert, Andre Vigarie and Francois Gay for their observations in the section on Sorre in the Sorbonne. Marc Galochet's scholarly interest in Sorre is also acknowledged.
Max Sorre
103
Bibliography and Sources 1. OBITUARIES AND OTHER ACCOUNTS RELATING TO MAX SORRE Broc, N. (1993), 'Homo Geographicus: Radioscopie des Geographes Francais de 1'entre-deux-guerres, 1918—1939', Annales de Geographic 102, 225—254. Bruyelle, P. (1998), 'L'Institut de Geographic de Lille: cent ans d'evolution', Hommes et Terres du Mord (2), 63—70. Buttimer, A. (1969), 'Social Space in Interdisciplinary Perspective', Geographical Review 59, 417-426. —
(1971), Society and Milieu in the French Geographical Tradition, Chicago: Rand McNally.
Chevalier, M. (1996), 'Les Geographes Francais dans 1'entre-deux-guerres', in P. Claval and A-L. Sanguin, eds., La Geographic franpaise a I'epoque classique, 1918— 1968, Paris, L'Harmattan, 15-26. Claval, P. (1998), Histoire de la geographic franpaise de 1870 a nos jours, Paris: Nathan. Condette, J-F. (2001), 'Les Enseignants d'Histoire et de Geographic a la Faculte des Lettres a Lille sous la Troisieme Republique, 1887—1940, Revue du Nord83, 65-100. De Martonne, E. (1914—15), 'Les Pyrenees mediterranneenes par Maximilien Sorre', Annales de Geographic 23-24, 164-168. Galtier, G. (1962), 'Max Sorre, 1880-1962', Bulletin de la Societe Languedocienne de Geographic 33, 363—377. George, P. (1962), 'Necrologie : Maximilien Sorre, 1880-1962', Annales de I'Universite de Paris, 475-479. —
(1962), 'Max Sorre', Annales de Geographic 71, 449-459.
—
(1975), 'Max Sorre: 1880—1962', in Les Geographes franfais, Comite des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, Bulletin de la Section de Geographie 81, 185—195.
Gottmann, J. (1963), 'Maximilien Sorre', Geographical Review 53, 464—465. Grivot, F. (1963), 'Bibliographic des oeuvres de Max Sorre', Annales de Geographie 72, 186-191. Levy, J. and Lussault, M. (2003), Dictionnaire de la geographic, Paris: Belin, p. 864. Meynier, A. (1969), Histoire de la pensee geographique en France, 1872—1969, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Picheral, H. (1990), 'Milieu, Maladies et sante a travers cent ans du Bulletin de la Societe Languedocienne de Geographic', Bulletin de la Societe Languedocienne de Geographie 113, 291-306.
2. SELECTED WORKS BY MAX SORRE 1907 'La plaine du Bas-Languedoc', Annales de Geographie 16, 414—429. 1912
'Etude sur la transhumance dans la region montpellieraine', Bulletin
104
Max Sorre la Societe Languedocienne de Geographic 25, 1—40.
1913a
Les Pyrenees mediterraneennes. Essai de geographic biologique, Paris: Armand Colin.
1913b
Etude critique des sources de I'histoire de la viticulture et du commerce des vins et eaux-de-vie en Bas-Languedoc au XVIHe siecle, Montpellier: Roumegous Dehan.
1918
'L'avenir economique des Landes', Annales de Geographic 27, 188—195.
1922
Les Pyrenees, Paris: Armand Colin.
1923
'La XIVe excursion geographique interuniversitaire', Annales de Geographic 32, 58-59.
1925
L'extraction de la houille et les courants charbonniers, de 1913 a 1924', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 67, 60—72.
1926
'L'organisme humain et le milieu nature!', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 68, 105-113 & 146-161.
1928a
Mexique: Amerique Centrale (tome XIV, Geographic Universelle), Paris: Armand Colin.
1928b
'L'organisme humain et le milieu geographique. Introduction a 1'etude de leurs rapports', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 70, 108—122.
1928c
'Paysages mediterraneens francais', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 70, 172-195.
1929a
'L'organisme humain et le milieu geographique', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 71, 37-56, 97-117.
1929b
'Le role des influences historiques en geographic urbaine', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 71, 157—173.
1929c
'Les conditions generales du developpement urbain', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 71, 192-207.
1930a
'Les conditions geographiques generales du developpement urbain', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille 72, 149—169.
1930b
'L'ecologie de 1'homme', in Report of the Proceedings, International Geographical Congress, Cambridge, 1928, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 325-328.
1930c
'Les aspects de la vegetation et des sols en Yougoslavie', Annales de Geographic 39, 311-316.
1933
'Complexes pathogenes et geographic medicale', Annales de Geographic 42, 1-18.
1934a
Mediterranee. Peninsules mediterraneennes. Generalites. Espagne-Portugal (tome VII, Geographic Universelle], Paris: Armand Colin.
1934b
'Les climats de la terre moins PEurope', in Traite de climatologie biologique et medicale, 3 vols, ed., M. Piery, Paris: Masson, 2, 438—77.
1943
Les Fondements biologiques de la geographic humaine. Essai d'une ecologie de I'homme, Paris: Armand Colin.
Max Sorre
105
1948a
Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: les fondements techniques, Paris: Armand Colin. (Second part of volume appeared in 1950).
1948b
'La notion de genre de vie et sa valeur actuelle', Annales de Geographic 57, 97-108, 193-204.
1950
'La Geographic des matieres grasses', Annales de Geographic 59, 93—108.
1952a
Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: I'habitat, conclusion generale, Paris: Armand Colin.
1952b
'La Geographic de Palimentation', Annales de Geographic 61, 184—199.
1954a
'L'orientation de la Geographic Humaine', Morois 1, 113—127.
1954b
'La conference mondiale de la population, Rome, Septembre 1954', Annales de Geographic 63, 401—415.
1955
Les Migrations des peuples. Essai sur la mobilite geographique, Paris: Flammarion.
1957a
Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie, Paris: Riviere.
1957b
'La Geographic Francaise', in La Geographic Francaise au milieu du XXe siecle, des. G. Chabot, R. Clozier & J. Beaujeu-Garnier, Paris: Bailliere, 7-12.
1958
'Connaissance du paysage humain', Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic de Lille, new series 1, 5—14.
1962
L'Homme sur la Terre, Paris: Hachette.
Chronology 1880
Born 16 July at Rennes, son of a railway worker
1885-99
Educated in Rennes
1899—1901 Trained at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Saint-Cloud 1901—02
Taught at the Ecole Normale, La Roche-sur-Yon
1903
Taught at the Ecole Normale, Perpignan
1904-17
Taught at the Ecole Normale, Montpellier
1911
Received first degree (licence-es-lettres], University of Montpellier; married Marguerite Soulas
1913
Received doctorate, University of Paris, Sorbonne; publication of Les Pyrenees mediterrannennes
1915
Awarded the Groix de guerre, and the Croix de chevalier de la legion d'honneur
1917
Lectured at the University of Grenoble (March-July)
1917—19
Lectured at the University of Bordeaux
1919
Lectured at the University of Strasbourg (November-December)
1919—22
Lectured at the University of Bordeaux
106
Max Sorre
1922
Publication of Les Pyrenees
1922-25
Lectured at the University of Lille
1925—31
Professor of regional geography, University of Lille
1928
Publication of Mexique: Amerique Centrale
1929-31
Elected Dean of the Faculte des Lettres, University of Lille
1931—34
Recteur of the Academie of Clermont-Ferrand
1934
Publication of Mediterrannee
1934—37
Recteur of the Academie of Aix-Marseille
1936
Made Officier of the legion d'honneur
1937—40
Directeur de I'Enseignement du Premier Degre, at the Ministere de I'Education
1940—48
Professor of human geography, University of Paris, Sorbonne
1943
Publication of Les fondements biologiques de la geographic humaine
1946
Promoted to Commandeur de la legion d'honneur
1947—62
Served on the editorial committee of the Annales de Geographic
1948
Publication of Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: les fondements techniques
1951—55
Director of the Centre d'Etudes Sociologiques
1952
Publication of Les Fondements de la geographic humaine: I'habitat, conclusion generale
1953—60
Chair of the Comite National Francais de Geographic
1955
Publication of Les Migrations des peuples
1957
Publication of Rencontre de la geographic et de la sociologie
1962
Publication of L'Homme sur la Terre
1962
Died at Messigny (Cote-d'Or) on 10 August
James Morris Blaut 1927-2000
Kent Mathewson
James 'Jim' M. Blaut's contributions to geography and adjacent fields spanned a number of disciplines and resulted in a number of innovative ideas, theoretical advances, and practical paths to making geography in the last half of the twentieth century more socially and politically conscientious as well as conscious, and moving it into new and critical currents. These contributions ranged from soil science (ethnopedology) to political science (theories of nationalism), from micro-regional analysis (tropical farmstead studies) to macro-historical geographic synthesis (Euro-colonialism and Eurocentrism), from philosophy (Marxist/pragmatist critiques of idealism) to psychology (children's spatial cognition), from traditional cultural geography (diffusion studies) to radical cultural geography ((de)constructions of 'race' and ethno-class) to name the most salient. To say that James Blaut was a 'man of many hats' is not quite right. Rather, his figurative headwear was more like an expansive tent under which multiple enthusiasms and enterprises were developed, debated, and often adopted into geography's different arenas. Moreover, this diversity found more than a measure of unity in Blaut's principled campaigns for social justice and his conviction that geography and geographers could make a radical difference. Future biographers are apt to locate James Blaut and his contributions at several differing sub-disciplinary sites within mid-to-late twentieth century geography. The larger and longer view will place him solidly within geography's radical-progressive current — a stream whose main channel flows through the left libertarian thought and work of Peter Kropotkin and Elisee Reclus (Geographers Vols 7 and 3, respectively), but includes many other political tendencies and lesser figures of geography's dissenting present and past. Blaut's complexities put his oeuvre and positions in several different channels at different times, but always with distinctive originality.
108
James Morris Blaut
Education, Life, and Work James Morris Blaut was born October 20, 1927 in New York City, some two months after the Italian-American anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in Massachusetts and two years and a few days before the New York Stock Market crashed. For much of his life, Blaut would not only bear witness to tumultuous political and economic events that defined times, but along with thousands of other like-minded Americans, he played significant roles in organizing and protesting against the institutional structures and practices of racism, militarism, colonialism and neo-colonialism. The milieu that he was born into was that of New York's immigrant intellectuals and political activist community. His father, Samuel Blaut, had been a youthful member of the Socialist Party. Among his politically active relatives, he could claim kinship to the famous feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman. His elementary schooling was at the Little Red School House in lower Manhattan founded by the progressive educator Elisabeth Irwin. Started in 1921 as an experimental public school following the principles of John Dewey, it was forced to become a private venture in 1932 during the Great Depression. Blaut enrolled soon after this, and continued on through what was to become the Elisabeth Irwin High School after Irwin's death in 1941. The schools put a premium on civic engagement and education for democracy amid the curriculum that promoted independent thinking and exploration. Blaut often attributed his Deweyian outlook to his formative years in the LR-EI system, but was quick to point out that this was reinforced in his undergraduate days at the University of Chicago. He enrolled at Chicago in 1944 at the age of 16. Blaut was part of President Robert M. Hutchins' programme for gifted high school students. Other post-WWII students in the programme included future luminaries such as the pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty and the astronomer Carl Sagan. Deweyian educational models and methods influenced the undergraduate programmeme, coexisting in creative tension with Robert Hutchins' and Mortimer Adler's Great Books crusade and curriculum. It is unclear whether Blaut entered Chicago with a particular interest in geography, but he left with a solid grounding in it. In the late 1940s the University of Chicago's Department of Geography was still considered to be among the top two or three graduate programmemes in US geography. The Department also apparently catered to the smaller undergraduate cohort. Blaut spoke fondly of studying with Robert S. Platt (Geographers Vol. 3), and also acknowledged the influence of Edward Ackerman. Regarding other faculty in the late forties, he was less sanguine. Decades later he (1993: 351) judged the Chicago department as a whole as 'stodgy,' 'Hettnerian,' and more given to description than explanation. He remembered listening to Derwent Whittlesey (Geographers Vol. 25) lecturing on 'geography as a science of space' and thinking as 'a pragmatist, I was well aware that space does not exist apart from time.' He quickly decided that 'this spatial metaphysicalism was plain nonsense.' During his summers in high school and college his out-of-doors jobs included working on farms in Vermont and Rhode Island and the US Forest Service in South Dakota. His office jobs included market research firms in New York and a railroad in Chicago. Like some US geographers of an earlier era, he 'rode the rods' hobo style on freight trains all around the United States. His jobs at the University of Chicago included working in a zoology laboratory and a biology library. One must assume that his farm experiences were positive ones. Agricultural geography became his first calling. His indoor biological jobs also had a field counterpart.
James Morris Blaut
109
Blaut was an avid amateur ornithologist. He often organized academic conference trips and even fieldwork around the possibilities of bird watching. At opportune (and sometimes inopportune) times he would break away for stints of bird watching. His standard excuse and quip was 'the birds need watching.' Rivalling his devotion to bird watching, political activism consumed a good deal of his time and energies. By the late 1940s, the Cold War was congealing into rigidities that Blaut was to oppose for the next half century. Henry Wallace's Progressive Party offered a place for domestic opposition to counter Cold War policies abroad, and resist the renewed cycle of political repression at home. Blaut joined the Progressive Party and spent a college summer in Georgia organizing. By the time he finished his undergraduate career in 1950, his political formation had been in motion for a decade or more, with the general direction well established. These early experiences laid the foundation for his later activism, particularly his opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s and his support for the Puerto Rican independence movement in the 1970s and 1980s. The foundations for some of his later work in geography were also laid at the University of Chicago, but much was the product of the contingencies and contexts of subsequent times and issues. Perhaps the main lessons that he learned at Chicago, beyond strengthening his pragmatist outlook, were the ones that Robert Platt offered. Platt (1891-1964) was also a product of Chicago's graduate programme in geography. He became Chair of Geography (1949—57) at the end of Blaut's undergraduate studies. He edited the Annals of the AAG (1961—64) at a time when Blaut had left his first regular appointment at Yale University and was teaching in Puerto Rico, distancing himself somewhat from the mainland concerns of the North American geography community. Platt also held various national positions both inside and outside of geography. How instrumental Platt was in helping Blaut secure his Instructorship at Yale, and to what degree he considered Blaut to be a protege, merits further inquiry. Like many of US geography's second generation, Platt had a midwestern background (Columbus, Ohio), but unlike most geographers, he was a member of the regional elite. He attended top-tier Eastern preparatory schools — St. George's and Hotchkiss, and went on to Yale for undergraduate studies in philosophy and history. Upon graduation, he toured Europe and Russia. From there he travelled to China and spent a year teaching geography in advance of his graduate studies at Chicago in geography (Hartshorne 1964). During the heyday of regionalism, Platt became the principle advocate of microgeographic fieldwork (Platt 1959). Although the midwestern US was the primary arena for microregional studies, especially as embodied in geography theses and dissertations, Platt's own efforts took him to Latin America where he travelled widely through much of the realm. His Latin America: Countrysides and United Regions (1942) recorded his microgeographic surveys of all the Latin American nations and most of the European colonies. Through his extensive travel, study, and reportage, he demonstrated that detailed chorological work could not only test field methods, but could contribute to theory building. Blaut, perhaps more than anyone, put much of Platt's programmeme to empirical test in his dissertation study of Singapore market gardening. During World War II Platt served in various capacities in Washington, DC. Through this war effort work he seems to have added political geography to his multiple interests. This he may have transmitted to Blaut, though Blaut's own contributions to political geography took quite different directions. In the immediate post-World War II period, Platt published two articles attacking environmentalism and determinism in geography (Platt 1948a, 1948b). While Platt (1948a, 126) averred that 'extreme determinism' in geography had
110
James Morris Blaut
been effectively exposed and discredited, lesser forms still had purchase. He offered examples of a 'complex kind of determinism' that held that a 'combination of environmental and cultural factors is taken into account for geographic phenomena in a cause and effect relation.' As an alternative, he proposed an indeterminism advocated by pragmatists such as William James. Given Blaut's outlook formed in part by his own pragmatist schooling and predilections, Platt's philosophical leanings were no doubt well received. One might point out, however, the subtext and context of Platt's anti-determinism was presumably more in tune with early Cold War liberalism's campaign against economic and historical determinisms than with pragmatism's more radical visions. Platt's critiques of determinism were followed by an appraisal and appreciation of 'The Rise of Cultural Geography in America' (Platt 1952). Platt praised the contributions of Sauer's Berkeley culturalhistorical school, suggesting that the midwestern school's functional approach might profit from a move more toward the model and methods pursued by geography's culture historians. These were some of the concerns and issues that constituted the institutional and intellectual setting for James Blaut's introduction to academic geography. Blaut completed his studies at the University of Chicago in 1948 and was awarded a Bachelor of Philosophy in Geography. Two years later he received (in absentia) a Bachelor of Science in Geography with a minor in Economics. In the interim he studied at the New School for Social Research (1948—49). The New School was founded in 1919 by dissent Columbia University faculty. These included prominent academic and anti-war figures such as Charles Beard, John Dewey, and Thorstein Veblen. By the late 1940s the New School was an exile haven for European intellectuals and scholars. They brought an infusion of Continental critical theory in both the humanities and social sciences to both American academia and the public sphere. Blaut seems to have not been overly taken by these social theoretical imports. Instead, Blaut seems to have been more committed to Platt's call for study of agricultural landscapes, particularly at the individual farm scale. To do this credibly, Blaut realized that he needed training in tropical agronomy and related fields. Casting about for the logical place to do this, he decided that one of the British colonial agricultural colleges would best serve his needs. Although Blaut found Platt's commitments to pragmatism, microregional work, and Latin American interests congenial, his doubts about American geography's lingering, and largely unexamined alignment with neo-Kantian chorology, led him to consider moving into another discipline — perhaps anthropology — after his training in tropical agriculture. A chance encounter with Andrew H. Clark, then at Rutgers, apparently opened up another option (on Clark, see Geographers Vol. 14). Clark told Blaut that Louisiana State University's geography programme, modelled on the ideal Sauerian construct of conjoined geography and anthropology departments in close association with the earth sciences, would meet his needs. Overseen by Richard J. Russell (Geographers Vol. 14) and Fred B. Kniffen, former associate and student of Sauer respectively, and assisted by a staff with either Berkeley or LSU training (or both), Clark assured Blaut that he would get first-rate instruction and advising in geography in combination with anthropology. Moreover, at LSU he could take advantage of their offerings in tropical agriculture, given Louisiana's quasi-colonial and semi-tropical location and orientation. Blaut took Clark's advice seriously, but he was determined to study tropical agriculture in the actual tropics. Thus, he enrolled in postgraduate courses at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad during 1949—50. The courses he took, particularly on tropical soils, served him well in his future work on
James Morris Blaut
111
small-scale agriculture in both the East and West Indies, and his studies of shifting cultivation in Latin America. This knowledge was instrumental in one of his best known early studies — on the cultural determinants of soil erosion and conservation in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica (Blaut et al. 1959). In the late 1940s and early 1950s the Imperial College was like the British Empire — in full form, but ripe for change. No doubt technical lessons were unavoidably tinged with the anticipations of the social and political changes on the way. Blaut was able to witness first-hand both the twilight of the colonial era and the run-up to independence. It is unclear to what extent Blaut had contact with the local intellectuals and activists during his year in Trinidad. Two of the major figures of critical Caribbean scholarship — Eric Williams (Capitalism and Slavery 1944) and C. L. R. James (The Black Jacobins 1938) — hailed from Trinidad, but were living in the US and Britain when Blaut was there. Their novel and controversial positions on the economics of slavery and on the salience of Third World revolts and revolutions in capitalism's formation and potential demise were in concordance with Blaut's later critiques of Eurocentric thought and historiography. James' work especially helped pave the way for the Third Worldist outlook that Blaut came to embody and elaborate in geography from the 1960s on. In any case, Blaut's initial introduction to the Caribbean world provided the basis for a lifetime of subsequent visits, residencies, and commitments to the region and its peoples. This was particularly evident in his long-term support and activism on behalf of the Puerto Rican independence movement. His first tropical interlude under his belt, Blaut took Clark's advice and entered LSU in the autumn of 1950. The formal geography programme had been launched in 1928 with the arrival of Richard J. Russell. Russell's Berkeley doctorate was in geology, but taught physiography in the Geography department after Sauer assumed the chairship in 1923. Russell invited Fred B. Kniffen, Berkeley doctorate candidate under Sauer, to join him at LSU in 1929. Kniffen, like Russell, had his initial training in geology, but had become a cultural geographer with strong grounding in anthropology while at Berkeley. He was hired to develop the anthropology as well as human geography programmeme at LSU. Over the next several decades the two Berkeleyans built a joint department that became the premier geography programme in the American South (Mathewson and Shoemaker 2004). The traditional strengths of the LSU programme from the inception to the present have been in physical geography, primarily coastal and fluvial geomorphology, and in cultural and historical geography. The regional focus has been on Latin America and the American South. When Blaut entered LSU, the geography faculty included Kniffen as chair, Russell (Dean of the Graduate School), Robert C. West (Ph.D. Berkeley), and Benjamin A. Tator (Ph.D. LSU). A. C. Albrecht (Berkeley B.A., Vienna Ph.D.) was the sole anthropologist. William Haag, a University of Michigan trained ethnozoologist and archeologist, replaced Albrecht in 1952. At Michigan, Haag had come under the influence of Leslie White's materialist 'culturologic' approach to anthropology. No doubt Blaut found this approach conformal with his own evolving materialist outlook. Blaut's interests in tropical agriculture and Latin America coincided with some of West's own concerns, though his main interactions seem to have been with Kniffen. Presumably Blaut's strong progressivism was not fully shared by his mentors or cohorts, but it doesn't seem to have put him at odds with them either. Decades later both Kniffen and Blaut enjoyed recounting how Kniffen had joined the anarchosyndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W. or 'wobblies') while working
112
James Morris Blaut
and travelling in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska before answering Sauer's and Leighly's call to come join them in Berkeley. Like Blaut, KnifFen found hopping freight trains to be a free and effective way of getting around and seeing landscapes first-hand. In the 1920s, however, flashing the wobblies' 'little red book' (union card) often provided 'rights of passage' among the confraternity of itinerant workers and radical organizers that rode the rods throughout the West. After only a year of coursework at LSU, Blaut was ready to return to the tropics. Apparently his preparation was advanced enough that he left for dissertation fieldwork in the fall of 1951. Once again he headed to a British Colony, but this time in the East rather than West Indies. He secured a two-year appointment as Assistant Lecturer of Geography at the University of Malaya. The former Raffles College had recently been upgraded to university status with two campuses, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Blaut was at the Singapore campus. It served as a key technical and intellectual outpost of the British Empire. The geography department predated World War II, and in turn played key roles in various university and imperial missions. Blaut was in able company; his colleagues included Paul Wheatley (Geographers Vol. 24). Wheatley had recently arrived from University College, London, where he completed his MA as part of the Domesday project under Clifford Darby (Geographers Vol. 26). To Blaut, Singapore and Port-of-Spain must have offered a stimulating study in comparisons and contrasts. Both were entrepot ports and colonial administrative centres at the edges of tropical landmasses. Both contained complex patterns of ethno-cultural diversity including Indo, Sino, Euro, and indigenous (Malay for Singapore and Afro and a residue of Arawak for Trinidad) elements. Singapore, however, was poised for explosive growth, while Port-of-Spain was heading for a less dynamic future. Wheatley's and Blaut's trajectories also had parallels as well as contrasts. Both took dissertation topics close at hand. Wheatley dug into the region's historical and pre-colonial past (Wheatley [1958] 1961) whereas Blaut opted for a study of Singapore's agro-cultural and colonial present (Blaut 1958). In terms of methodology and epistemology, both rejected the reigning paradigmatic consensus and their chief advocates. Coming from Britain, Wheatley found Wooldridge's regionalism wanting, which Stoddart (1989) suggests was derivative of Hartshorne. Blaut was more direct. He countered Hartshorne's Hettnerian-derived chorology straight on. Even as an undergraduate at Chicago he had been unimpressed by Hartshorne's exegesis of Kant via Hettner. To Blaut's mind, narrow functionalism begat static, idealist chorology. Blaut's processual critique of the Hartshornean programme was advanced in his dissertation (1958) and elaborated in a series of articles (1953; 1961; 1962; 1993). Blaut's initial dissertation plan was designed to study a sample of smallholder farms in Singapore. He wanted to test Platt's micro-geographic methods and theory. But once underway, local officials were so impressed with Blaut's design and work that they provided him with enough funding and assistants to greatly expand the study. He ultimately carried out a 10 per cent sample, or some 400 farmsteads. Between December 1951 and June 1953 several dozen students and a number of government workers participated in Blaut's 'micro-geography corps.' On the whole, his time in Singapore was productive and successful. It also confirmed for Blaut what was to become a truism of his later theoretical work — that the loci of creativity and innovation, as well as opportunity, are often to be found in the provinces or on the peripheries rather than in the metropolitan cores. Singapore, Port-of-Spain, or Baton Rouge for that matter, were hardly abject backwaters, but neither were they first-order nodes in the highly-centred world that was the 1950s. On July 7, 1953 Blaut departed Singapore for his return to the US. He resumed
James Morris Blaut
113
residence in Baton Rouge that autumn to finish his course work, and to begin writing his dissertation. Like most graduate students, Blaut had enjoyed deferments during the Korean War (1950—1953), but with the truce and stalemate in place in July 1953, he was eligible for 'peace time' service. In 1954 Blaut was drafted for a tour of duty in the US Army, effectively putting him into dissertation limbo for more two years. In a wry aside, he noted in his dissertation c.v. (Blaut 1958, 402) that 'between 1954 and 1956 .. . [he rose] to the rank of Private First Class.' Though Blaut was not tapped for officer candidacy, his tour was not without distinction. At Camp Gordon, Georgia, during basic training, Blaut and several trainees were singled out for extreme hazing. As fellow LSU geography graduate Gary Dunbar (personal communication) recalls it: 'Len Kuntz [LSU geography graduate student] had come into a classroom at LSU waving a newspaper and said, 'Blaut has done it again!" Apparently Blaut's lieutenant had forced him to dig a hole and bury a fellow trainee neck high, and then stuff a crucifix in his mouth. The victim had allegedly made a mistake that could have cost lives in combat. The burial and benediction was meted out as punishment. But the punishment didn't stop there. Subsequently the lieutenant was court-martialled and the camp's commandant dismissed. Private Rodney Steel of Lowndesboro, Alabama testified that his treatment amounted to 'terrorism.' That Blaut helped expose and interpret the events seems likely. Less dramatically, his other service duties involved work in the Army Map Service and research on Middle American climates as Physical Geographer with the Environmental Protection Division of the Quartermaster Corps. At Kniffen's intervention, Blaut was discharged two months early. This allowed him to return to LSU an Instructor in Geography for the summer term of 1956. Blaut's early release from the Army and his summer teaching in Baton Rouge helped him to prepare for his next move. That autumn Blaut was 'called up' to the Ivy League as Instructor in the Geography Department at Yale University. Upon finishing and defending his dissertation in 1958, he was put on tenure track and promoted to Assistant Professor. Blaut was hired by Stephen Jones, Yale's political geographer, and acting chair at the time (see Kniffen Papers, box 5, folder 12, letter of 10/3/61, for exchanges between Kniffen and Jones concerning Blaut's hiring). Yale's other geographers were Karl Peltzer, southeast Asian specialist, and Herold Wiens, an Oceanian specialist. Eric Bordne was the physical geographer, and two cartographers were on staff. Blaut's southeast Asian and Caribbean experience was seen as an asset to both the geography and area studies programmes at Yale. Peltzer, Weins and Blaut shared interests in tropical people-environment relations. Peltzer's and Wiens' main focus was on land-use and migration in southeast Asia in the wake of the Japanese occupation period. Although Peltzer had studied traditional farming systems in the East Indies, Blaut looked more to the Yale anthropologists, particularly Sidney Mintz for colleagial interaction. Sidney Mintz, Marxist anthropologist and later doyen of Caribbeanist cultural scholars, proved to be a congenial contact with anthropology and anthropologists then, and subsequently. In addition, Blaut's first wife, Ruth Pulwers Blaut graduated in anthropology at LSU and went on to do graduate work in anthropology at Yale. She worked on projects with Blaut during these years, and provided additional links to anthropology and anthropologists. Blaut's time at Yale was relatively short (1956—1961). He was in a tenure-track position for only three years. He left in 1961 and returned to the Caribbean for the next five years. Several things seem to account for his truncated Yale time. First, by the 1960s Yale, Harvard, and other top-tier private research universities had begun to routinely deny tenure to junior faculty in favour of recruiting mid-level and
114
James Morris Blaut
senior faculty from outside. Blaut, no doubt, saw the handwriting on Yale's ivied walls. Second, geography at Yale was itself on uncertain footing. The lesson of James Conant's closing Harvard's geography department a decade earlier was still resonating within peer institutions. Yale's department had been started by Stephen Jones in 1945 in the first flush of the post-World War II perceived need of political geographers and area specialists. By 1960 it was clear that the department was not destined to grow into a major entity. It was terminated in 1967. Third, Jones was a conventional political geographer who shared much of Hartshorne's orientations and outlook. He did not find Blaut's epistemological probings or philosophical positions of much value. Nevertheless, despite the institutional climate at Yale, Blaut managed to establish himself as an up-and-coming figure in the area of human-environment relations in the tropics. In 1957 he was invited to be a participant in the Pan American Union's symposium on 'Plantation Systems of the New World' held in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Rubin 1959). Blaut was the only geographer in the company of a distinguished cast of social scientists, including Richard N. Adams, Sidney Mintz, T. Lynn Smith, Julian Steward, and Eric Wolf. In a real sense, this was Blaut's international debut. As on this occasion, he was often invited to represent geography and the geographical perspective in future multidisciplinary fora. During the summers of 1957—58 Blaut and several Yale graduate students (his wife Ruth Pulwers Blaut and Michael Moerman in anthropology, and Nan Harman in conservation) conducted a study of soil erosion and conservation in Jamaica's Blue Mountains. They (Blaut et al. 1959) published their 'preliminary' results. The article has become something of a classic in the literature of cultural and political ecology and development studies. In 1960 Blaut followed up this research with fieldwork on shifting cultivation in Costa Rica and went to Cornell as a visiting professor in agricultural economics. After Blaut left Yale in 1961, he still maintained contact with its anthropologists. Perhaps closest to his interests during this period was Harold Conklin. Conklin, a Yale Ph.D. in anthropology, joined the Yale faculty in 1962. Conklin was one of the pioneers of ethnoscientific study. His (1954) Hanunoo project on shifting cultivation in the Philippines is one of the founding works. Starting in 1961 and continuing into the 1970s he conducted a now legendary study of intensive agricultural landscapes, also in the Philippines. The results were published as the Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao (Conklin 1980). It stands as a monument to microgeographical mapping. Conklin and his assistants mapped individual parcels and plots at scales between 1:5000 and 1:3000, putting the district's famed terraced and irrigated rice landscapes doubly 'on the map.' How much Blaut's efforts at microgeographic mapping and survey may have played in Conklin's design and implementation is unclear. It is clear that Blaut's later elaborations on ethnogeography key in part on Conklin's concepts of ethnoscience (Blaut 1979). With geography in decline at Yale and his own prospects there uncertain, Blaut returned to the Caribbean. It seems that Blaut himself had begun to follow the classic Caribbean pattern of transnational migration, residency, and return. His return took him to Puerto Rico first, then Venezuela, and finally the US Virgin Islands. In San Juan he directed the Pan American Union and its graduate studies in Caribbean social sciences at the University of Puerto Rico from 1961—63. While in San Juan, he met and later married America ('Meca') Sorrentini, a developmental psychologist. They jointly became involved in the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and the Puerto Rican independence movement in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1963-64 Blaut worked on the Guyana Project as a UNESCO agricultural
James Morris Blaut
115
consultant to the Venezuelan government. From 1964—66 he directed the Caribbean Research Institute at the College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. These five years outside of the US, articulating with a variety of Caribbean institutions and contexts, gave Blaut a solid standing as one of the foremost experts on the region in geography. He was ready for a return to the US by the autumn of 1966. During the academic year 1966—67 Blaut was a visiting professor of Geography at the University of Connecticut. In the autumn of 1967, he moved to a similar position at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts at the invitation of Saul Cohen, Director of the Department of Geography. He was subsequently promoted to the rank of Full Professor. Blaut's years at Clark (1967—1971) coincided with the height of the 1960s insurgencies and contestations both within US academia and a society-at-large. Not surprisingly, Blaut was an avid and active participant in both spheres. Although the epicenters of the student radical and campus countercultural movements were at universities such as UC-Berkeley and UW-Madison, Clark University became the fountainhead of radical politics and activism in US geography. In no small measure, Blaut was a key factor in this development. Faculty members Richard Peet and David Stea, and a number of students, joined him in various radical initiatives. Blaut served as a minority student advocate, worked with Meca Sorrentini (de Blaut) in Worcester's Puerto Rican community, organized anti-war activities, and most enduringly, helped found Antipode, 'a journal of radical geography.' Graduate student Ben Wisner edited the first number in 1969, with contributions by Blaut, Peet, Stea, as well as more establishment figures such as Richard Morrill and Robert Kates. Blaut's (1969) article was entitled 'Jingo Geography: Part I'. He went on to publish a dozen articles in Antipode between 1969 and 1994. He was also an early member of the Union of Socialist Geographers, which was founded in Canada in 1974, and which quickly spread to other national geographic communities. The USG organized their own conferences, sponsored sessions at other professional meetings, and edited a newsletter. Although Blaut probably will be best remembered for his writings on nationalism, imperialism, and Eurocentrism, that begin to appear during his Clark days, he also began there an ambitious decades-long research programme on children's spatial cognition and what Blaut came to call the human 'universal mapping' trait. Meca Sorrentini (de Blaut) was trained as a developmental psychologist with a MS in psychology from the University of Puerto Rico. Continuing work they had begun in Puerto Rico with children's map reading abilities, she and Blaut began experiments with kindergarteners in Worcester. They wanted to find out if teaching children to read aerial photographs would prepare them for map reading. What they found out is that children seem to possess innate capacities for both map reading and reading aerial photographs. This contradicted the established wisdom and theories at the time. Blaut in collaboration with David Stea and other psychologists received funding from a number of sources over the next three decades, including the US Department of Education and the National Science Foundation to carry research on children's mapping and map reading abilities. Their findings were published in numerous articles and book chapters, and opened up a new research field for geographers and psychologists. In addition to Blaut's radical scholarship and activism, and his mapping research, his influence was felt on the Clark campus both in and beyond the classroom. He had a commanding presence — with his large stature (well over six feet tall), resonant voice, earnest concern for communicating his concerns, and a commitment to building alternative communities, he soon had a following among
116
James Morris Blaut
the students. His house, especially his basement that served as a combination study and party locale, became both an adjunct and alternative departmental zone. On weekends he hosted 'anti-parties' featuring generous admixes of rum, Caribbean rhythms, and intellectual ferment. Despite his energetic and innovative record in scholarship, teaching, and service — or perhaps in part because of it — in 1971 Blaut, Stea, and other dissident Clark faculty were 'purged' or were 'let go' depending on one's perspective. His legacy there was intimately and indissolubly linked to the times, but he also mentored a number of graduate students that have gone on to make their marks in geography and other fields. Once again Blaut left New England for a more secure haven in the islands. This time he was invited to serve as Acting Chair of Geography at the University of Puerto Rico. He spent the academic year 1971—72 back in the Caribbean renewing his contacts and continuing his research on spatial learning among children. Within the year, however, he was hired as Professor with tenure at the University of Illinois' Chicago Circle campus. Thus more than two decades after he left the University of Chicago as an undergraduate student he was returning as a full professor in what would be his final relocation. When he left Chicago in the late 1940s, America's vertiginous ascent to world hegemon was at full throttle. Chicago was still 'the Second City,' and manufacturing was still North America's leading economic sector. At the time of his exit, the University of Chicago's geography department was basically marking time after several decades of preeminence. When he returned it was enjoying a revival begun in the 1960s and continuing through the 1970s before drifting toward dissolution in the 1980s and 1990s. The University of Illinois-Chicago Circle's geography programme, like many urban campuses within larger systems in the 1960s, seemed poised to become Chicago's second centre of geographical teaching and research. Its graduate programme in geography was established in 1972. It never did succeed in gaining a doctoral programme. Nevertheless, Blaut was content to mentor minority undergraduates and masters candidates. As at Clark, he quickly attracted a student following. In order to maximize his research efforts, he arranged to teach all of his classes in the autumn. This left the spring semester free for research, writing, and travel. This also allowed him to attend without fail the annual AAG meetings held in the spring. Blaut was much in evidence at these meetings, not only on the programme presenting papers and presiding over panels, but promoting various causes and proposing motions to be voted on at the annual business meeting. Blaut in full form at these meetings was memorable. Gary Dunbar (in Mathewson and Stea 2003, 219) recalls one such occasion. It was at the AAG meeting in 1965 in Columbus, Ohio. Fred B. Kniffen, their former mentor at LSU, was about to present the honorary presidential address: Characteristically, Jim arrived late, just before Kniffen's address was to be delivered. The excuse he used for his tardiness was that he flew his own small plane to Columbus from San Juan and there was some sort of mishap en route. One of the first people Jim encountered was his old buddy Phil Wagner, and the two of them leaped on each other and couldn't stop giving each other Latin abraxas and dancing about, much to the dismay of one of the onlookers — a former colleague of Wagner's — who thought that their conduct lacked dignity. In spite of his unselfconscious behaviour and informal attire in the eyes of some, Blaut received awards for scholarship and distinguished service, including the AAG's Distinguished Scholarship Award in 1997. He was much in demand as a
James Morris Blaut
117
visiting speaker. He lectured at some two dozen universities on all the continents. His research was funded by agencies and foundations in a variety of countries. On the home front, Blaut with wife Meca and daughter Gini, put down roots in Chicago for what turned out to be the long haul. They moved into a large two storey brownstone near the Puerto Rican community. Meca set up her office on the first floor. It became a focal point of the Luis Belvis Center, established to promote Puerto Rican cultural and political activity. Blaut claimed their large basement, outfitting it with his extensive library of books, articles, and documents collected through years of research and travel at home and abroad. From this underground base, he mounted his multiple book writing project on nationalism, colonialism, and Eurocentrism. Beyond the basement, Blaut renewed his work with the Puerto Rican independence movement, offering advice and scholarly support. He published two books in the 1980s (1987, 1988). Their impacts were felt mostly in Europe and Latin America. The first examined theories of nationalism. The second dealt with the question of Puerto Rican nationalism. These works, or sections of them, were widely read, often in translation in a number of languages. They fostered debate among both academics and activists, just as post-1989 events had begun recasting nationalism's role in the world. In the last decade of his life, Blaut pursued two main projects. The first was his work on 'natural mapping.' Blaut reconnected with his friend and colleague from his Clark days, the psychologist and geographer David Stea. They, along with colleagues in Mexico and the UK, were awarded two National Science Foundation grants (multi-year) to pick up their early work at Clark on spatial cognition and map-style modelling. Blaut took his radical notion that children were born with innate capacities for 'natural mapping' and elevated it to the principle that all people, at all ages and stages of individual development, and in all cultures through history and prehistory have been possessed of the abilities and powers to do 'maplike modeling.' He advanced these ideas as a theory of universal 'natural mapping.' Inspired in part by linguist Noam Chomsky's postulation of a universal 'language acquisition device' (LAD), Blaut posited a similar 'map acquisition device' (MAD). Blaut sought and received Chomsky's encouragement in developing this line of research. Although the research was continued, and various articles published, the projected books did not materialize. Blaut had other pressing projects competing for his attention. A lifetime of research, reflection, and synthesis was coming together in a projected series of books on the (mis) placing of Europe at the centre of the making of the modern world. He (1992) published a prolegomenon, 1492: The Debate on Colonialism, Eurocentrism, and History as part of the Columbian Quincentennial observations. The next year he published his acclaimed The Coloniser's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History (1993). This was to be the first volume of a planned trilogy devoted to 'decolonizing the past.' The second volume, Eight Eurocentric Historians (2000) came out shortly before he died. It amplified arguments presented in the first volume of the trilogy by analysing the work of a number of historians and social scientists united in their defence of Euro-uniqueness and thereby, European superiority. He judiciously selects a range of work — from Malthusians on the right, to liberals in the centre, and Marxists on the left. All were debunked. The third volume was in the planning stages at the time of his death. In the long run James Blaut will be best remembered for what he contributed to the written record and to the theoretical advances he made — much of it ground breaking. Within the memory spans of those that knew him first-hand, his generosity of spirit and mind, his energetic advocacy and activism, will compete with his publications and his philosophical-political positions for equal recognition.
118
James Morris Blaut
One of his final campaigns (along with his own survival in the face of cancer) was not for one of the causes that he had become associated with. Rather it was for the survival of the geography programme at UIC. The geography department was being merged with the larger anthropology department. The apparent plan was not to replace geographers as they retired, left, or died. As Blaut correctly argued, this meant the dismantling of yet another Chicago area geography department. With the characteristic concern he brought to other causes, he began to organize an outside advisory/advocacy group of prominent geographers to make the case for preserving geography at UIC. Blaut met at least once with Stanley Fish, UIC's high profile deconstructionist scholar and administrator, to see about reconstructing UIC's geography programme. A follow-up meeting was in the planning stages involving members of the support group. This never transpired. Blaut died on November 11, 2000 of heart failure. On the many other fronts that he cared passionately for, he never lost heart. This may be his single clearest legacy.
Scientific Ideas and Geographical Thought Two months before he died, James Blaut reflected on his legacy in geography and the other fields (Mathewson and Wisner 2005: 908) and left an account for those who might be charged with assessing his career. He provided a succinct summary, though indicated that his assessment was 'incomplete and hasty with some redundancy.' He enumerated chronologically what he considered his 'breakthroughs.' His schematic presentation is provided in italics, with annotations by this author. 1.
2.
3.
Pioneered the microgeographic study of peasant farming (1953—8). As discussed in the previous section, Blaut's dissertation on Singapore market gardening was a major undertaking and clear application of Robert Platt's approach to microgeographic fieldwork. As Sluyter (2005) has convincingly demonstrated in a close reading of the dissertation, Blaut goes well beyond Platt's functionalism and Hartshorne's chorology to lay both the theoretical and methodological foundations for a processual approach to the human/environment or society/nature relations that emerged by the 1960s under the rubric of cultural ecology and in the 1980s moved on to a more political-economically informed and inflected political ecology. While largely unstudied today, Blaut's Singapore study must be considered a precursor to both these subdisciplinary developments. Introduced systems analysis into human geography (I960]. In the absence of specific publications that substantiate this claim, one can only infer that Blaut began to introduce systems analysis into human geography through his work in human ecology. By the early 1960s physical geographers such as Richard Chorley and David Stoddart at Cambridge had begun to advocate systems approaches. By the late 1960s a number of human geographers had begun to explore the possibilities of systems analysis in both the urban and economic branches as well as the human or cultural ecology domain. In this latter development, Blaut's coauthored study of soil erosion and conservation in Jamaica had a significant influence. Formulated process philosophy in geography (1958—62). In working through the philosophical and methodological questions raised by his dissertation
James Morris Blaut
4.
5.
6.
7.
119
research and engaging the dominant perspectives of the time, Blaut produced a forceful critique of past and current concepts of space in geography, especially as exemplified by Hartshorne, and elaborated an alternative epistemology based on Russell's and Whitehead's process philosophy together with elements of the American pragmatists. This was put forth in his dissertation (1958) and a pair of papers published in Professional Geography (Blaut 1961, Blaut 1962). As often is the case with innovation, recognition that Blaut's philosophical contributions to geography were ahead of the times, has taken some time to register. Discovered spatial abilities of young children and studies these abilities (1968—74; 1988—2000). In collaboration with geographer-psychologist David Stea and others, Blaut developed radically new approaches to studies of spatial cognitive research. Starting with the assumption that young children are subject to deformation through standard schooling (analogous to the underdevelopment of oppressed and colonial peoples), he sought to counter these conditions through theoretical and experimental work. He set forth a series of objectives and positions (as summarized by Stea 2005, 991). First, he sought to bridge the gap between critical thinking and the positivist mode of research in developmental psychology. Secondly, he rejected the notion of 'the primitive mind' (often posited for indigenous, non-civilized peoples) and its equation with children's minds. Thirdly, he proposed that certain early developmental aspects of spatial cognition were cross-cultural, rather than culturally specific. Fourthly, he similarily rejected the idea that dimensions of spatial ability were gender specific. He rejected out-ofhand theories based in sociobiology. Fifthly, he sought to demonstrate that differences in the access to macrospatial experiences could account for the differential developmental spatial abilities among children of different socio-economic classes. Sixthly, he combined material from different branches of psychology — development, learning, perception — with ideas from geography to found a new theoretical perspective which he named 'universal mapping.' Formulated the theory of natural mapping — that mapping abilities are found in all humans (1968, 'Studies in Developmental Geography,' and later work). As previously recounted, Blaut's elaboration of the concept of 'universal mapping' was in part inspired by Noam Chomsky's work on universal language acquisition. As some may note, the parallels with Chomsky's profile are hard to miss. Like Chomsky's linguistics, Blaut's mapping research was complemented by a vigorous radical political theorization and engagement. For some observers these may seem to be separate, even incommensurate, domains. Like Chomsky, however, Blaut would dispute this, seeing his work with children as simply one aspect of a much larger emancipatory project with roots going back to the Enlightenment. Formulated underdevelopment theory in geography (1969—76). Here Blaut's contributions are indisputable and considerable. He was an early student of, and a geographic contributor to, the development of underdevelopment theory that had its origins in the work of Andre Gunder Frank and other members of the dependency school of economics and politics, especially for Latin America. Introduced non-Eurocentric theory of rise of capitalism (1976—2000). Related to his theoretical work on underdevelopment, Blaut demonstrated that geographers' perspectives on the historical origins and development of
120
James Morris Blaut
8.
9. 10.
11. 12.
13. 14.
capitalism were a valuable corrective to both previous theoretical and empirical work. Formulated Marxist jThird-Worldist theory of minorities, ghettos (1974—76). He brought geographical insights to bear on a question in Marxist theory, and a Marxist perspective on a problematic question in geographical work. Formulated Marxist/ Third- Worldist theory of nationalism (1980-87). Wide circulation outside of geography, but less so within. Introduced theory of external exploitation (1985, and chap. 7 of The National Question. Imaginative and important amendment to prior theories of nationalism. Analysed Puerto Rican national question (1985). Practical applications in Puerto Rico and by extension beyond. Formulated anti-diffusionist, uniformitarian theory (1977—2000). Rigorous, theoretical contribution to cultural geography, but seemingly with little impact or follow-up. Formulated theory of mapping behavior (1987—88). See numbers 4 and 5 here. Introduced non-Eurocentric theory of history (1976—2000). As put forward in the first two volumes of his planned trilogy on Eurocentrism, this may stand as Blaut's most widely-recognized scholarly contribution to both geography and related fields.
Beyond these self-identified contributions to scientific ideas and geographical thought, one might add that he represented a current within cultural geography that was seemingly sui generis but, in important ways, was an outgrowth of cultural geography's traditional and materialist groundings. While a majority of cultural geographers may have continued to see their work and the subfield as 'atheoreticaP well into the 1980s — as some traditionalists persist in doing — Blaut recognized, as any careful reader of Sauer or Kniffen does, that much of so-called traditional cultural geography is inherently theoretical. The processes involved in plant and animal domestication, aboriginal demographics, colonialism and destructive exploitation, material culture diffusions, to mention just a few of the signature themes of the Berkeley school, are all implicitly approached theoretically. Blaut from his earliest interest in academic geography to the end, appreciated traditional cultural geography's engagements with real people in real places, but also its theoretical dimensions and implications. By the 1970s some cultural geographers were considering cultural ecology to be a departure from traditional forms, thus constituting a 'new cultural geography' (Knapp 1980), with its implicit theorization and emphasis on process over form. Blaut was perhaps the first geographer to self-identify with cultural ecology. He is considered one of its pioneers. After he moved away from field study of peasant agriculture in the 1970s, his contacts with the emerging subfield of cultural ecology were less direct. Still, his own emerging Third Worldist political-economic and historical work offered impetus and inputs into sectors of cultural ecology that made transitions toward political ecology in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980 Blaut published an article entitled 'A Radical Critique of Cultural Geography' in Antipode. He had presented it as a paper at the AAG two years earlier. Blaut pointed to tendencies of class elitism and ethnocentrism in research topics that could involve cultural geographers. These included viewing cultures from the 'superorganic' or holistic perspective without acknowledging processes of national or class formation, and the reverse — keying only on individuals and lapsing into various forms of psychologism, voluntarism, and behaviouralism. He
James Morris Blaut
121
pointed to the salutary work of'cultural geographers of Louisiana' in avoiding the first pitfall. He commended cultural geographers in general for their: historical, processual thinking; cross-cultural perspective; emphasis on livelihood modes (noting the similitude between the concepts of genre de vie and mode of production); adversion to psychological reductionism; discipline and tenacity forged through long-term field work. Although Blaut's critique of cultural geography had some currency, another article published in 1980 had a much larger impact. James Duncan's (1980) 'The Superorganic in American Cultural Geography,' took issue with traditional cultural geography's alleged faults and out-of-date attitudes. The crux of the problem was said to be traditional cultural geographers' acceptance of the superorganic concept of culture (derived from Herbert Spencer and transmitted via Alfred Kroeber). In Duncan's estimation, appeal to the superorganic principle led to the negation of the role of human agency in cultures' constructions, and particularly the part played by individuals. Duncan co-authored a similar critique with David Ley (1982), but this time the target was structural Marxism, another agency obfuscating enterprise. At least in the published record, Blaut did not enter into the debate that these two articles enjoined. Had he done so, no doubt he would have responded to Duncan's superorganic imputations from the perspective of his hybrid blend of Third Worldist Marxism, pragmatism, and the materialist, historically informed cultural geography that he learned from Kniffen (and by extension, the Berkeley school). It is highly unlikely that he would have shared Duncan's appraisal then, and he came to reject much of what Duncan's criticisms helped usher in. By the mid-1980s, both post-structuralist revisions and post-modernist projections were preparing grounds for the 1990s 'cultural turn' in human geography. Hardly surprising, cultural geography's precincts was the first place that the culturalist upheaval was set in motion. But unlike with other sectors of human geography, the preserves of the traditionalists (material culture, origins and diffusions, cultural chorology, ethnoscience, indigenous worlds, and so on) were largely bypassed rather than seriously challenged. Cultural geography set about to reinvent itself. Whole new casts of actors with alternative canons and landscapes presented themselves. A plethora of new perspectives, positions, and practices took to the stage, often oblivious to what went on before. Despite the new cultural geography's initial groundings in British cultural Marxism, as exemplified by the work of Denis Cosgrove, Stephen Daniels, and Peter Jackson, Blaut continued to champion cultural geography's older materialist and historical bases. This preference was made clear in Blaut's (1993, 345) response to a conference on 'New Directions in Cultural Geography,' sponsored by the Social Geography Study Group of the IBG in 1987 (Philo 1988). As he relates it: I had been invited to give one of the papers. It developed that I was the only cultural geographer at this conference on 'New Directions in Cultural Geography' who spoke in favor of the main tradition in our field. This is, of course, what most people call the 'Sauer tradition,' although I prefer to call it the 'Sauer-Kniffen tradition.' Almost everyone at the conference was into something very different: 'post-modernism,' 'post-industrialism,' 'post-Fordism,' 'post-Marxism,' post-this-ism, post-that-ism. I was, if anything, a postSauerist, that is, a Kniffenite. He followed this stock-taking and identity reaffirmation with a prospectus for a radical cultural geography drawing on its deepest roots, and deracinating the
122
James Morris Blaut
shallow ones. Manifestations of idealism in general and (neo)Kantian influences specifically are to be weeded out. He provides a lucid statement of his views on cultural geography drawing on forty years of thought and fieldwork — some of it within the subfield's core, but more often within its peripheries. Entering its third decade, geography's 'cultural turn' still appears to be in full swing. It is, however, undergoing a 'rematerialization.' Its ideational, representational, and other less material manifestations seem to be on the out. To what extent Blaut might provide direction or inspiration, one can only speculate. Less speculative would have been Blaut's probable response. He would have welcomed the basic impulse, but would have insisted that this latest twist take seriously those struggles that he devoted his life to: the divisive questions of class, race, ethnicity, age and pedagogy, environmentalism, nationalism, colonialism, and preeminently the manifold conceits of Eurocentrism.
Influence and Spread of Ideas Though now something of a cliche, the catch-phrase 'think global, act local' in the 1980s captured the emerging awareness among environmental and other advocacy groups of the need to negotiate multiple geographical scales. In both his scholarship and activism, Blaut had reached this understanding two or three decades earlier. He began his career highly focused on microgeographic plots and places. He ended his career grandly surveying global historical plots and continental-sized realms. In the interim, he explored evidence and expounded ideas at most intervening scales. Similarly his empirical studies and theoretical formulations found an audience mostly in geography during his first decade of publication (the 1950s). As he moved into the 1960s, and continued fieldwork in the Caribbean and Latin America, his work became known to Latin Americanists and Caribbeanists, especially anthropologists, historians, rural sociologists, and development specialists. He continued to be a known quantity in geography, even though his geographical publications flagged after his two important theoretical statements at the beginning of the decade (Blaut 1961, Blaut 1962). In the 1970s Blaut cemented his reputation as both an innovative researcher and as an original thinker who helped legitimate and expand the purview of critical geography. In collaboration with David Stea, he burst forth with a series of articles on children's mapping behaviour. This introduced Blaut and his research to whole new audiences especially in the fields of developmental psychology and education. At the same time Blaut's series of articles on geographic models of imperialism, Third World development, ghetto formation, and Puerto Rican nationalism established him as one of geography's foremost critical theorists. It also opened up new avenues of scholarly and intellectual exchange not only for Blaut, but for geography in general. During the decade of the 1980s Blaut continued with the topics and approaches he had pioneered in the 1970s. His work with children's mapping continued, but he expanded these interests to include articles on environmental and place perception and a comparative look at ethnoscience. His critical work was focused primarily on questions of nationalism, reflecting his ongoing associations and activities with the Puerto Rican independence movement. His books on nationalism (Blaut 1987) and the Puerto Rican national question (Blaut 1988) put his ideas and influence into larger and more diffuse circuits of scholarly and political exchange. At this point Blaut's critical scholarship was beginning to achieve a global reach, though aspects
James Morris Blaut
123
of his more disciplinary-bounded work in geography and psychology had enjoyed widespread, even global, recognition in select networks earlier. It was not until his final decade, however, that Blaut's research reached the widest audiences. First, his collaborative research on children's mapping abilities resulted in well-funded projects and a number of high profile publications. Had Blaut never ventured beyond this domain (impossible to imagine!), with just his extant publications, he would have established a lasting reputation for creative work on the borderlands between psychology and geography. He also made contributions to cultural geography with critical commentary on idealism and materialism (Blaut 1993a) and on ethnic 'homelands' (Blaut 1993b). His main 'breakthrough,' and almost certainly his most enduring contribution, has been his critique of Eurocentrism. The Colonizer's Model of the World (Blaut 1993a) has won him a global readership, and a place in the curricula of countless courses in modern history, post-colonial studies, anthropology, development studies, as well as geography. With this book, its sequel, and attendant articles, Blaut joined the ranks of the select group of modern geographers (no more than a dozen at any one time, and often less) whose ideas and influence transcend the discipline and circulate widely in broader academic and intellectual discourse. In Blaut's case this happened with segments of both the humanities and social sciences as well as political movements. Of late, it has been mostly critical geographers that can claim this distinction. Even among his fellow radicals, Blaut and his oeuvre were viewed as distinctive, at times wayward, marching always to his own drumming. The tempo was upbeat, with strong Third Worldist phrasing and rhythms. The refrains came from a rich repertoire of Marxist, pragmatist, and cultural geographic themes. As is the case with much news in the current Age of the Internet, word of Blaut's death travelled rapidly and widely. Within a few days there were multiple memorial postings on internet sites that paid tribute to his personal qualities, placed his research and publication in larger contexts, and lamented his passing with so much planned and promising future work before him. A special memorial session was quickly organized for the approaching annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in New York City. The event was well attended, giving some one hundred geographers, among them those who had known him for decades, those that had studied with him, and few that knew him mostly from the written record, ample opportunity to testify to his irrepressible spirit and enthusiasm, his unflagging commitments to various causes, and his devotion to theorizing and practising geography in original and multiple ways. Out of this gathering came plans for a special issue of the journal Antipode (Vol. 37, no. 5, 2005) 'Critical Assessments of James M. Blaut's Life and Work' co-edited by Ben Wisner and Kent Mathewson (see the section below 'Obituaries and References on James Blaut' for a listing of most of the contents). While the special issue was primarily retrospective in orientation, and featured a healthy diversity of viewpoints, it was not without forecasts on the prospects for Blaut's legacy. Here, there was consensus. He was one of a kind; there will never be another Jim Blaut. There will be, however, a continuing interest in many of his publications, particularly his theories on universal mapping abilities, and his challenges to Eurocentric thinking and scholarship.
124
James Morris Blaut
Bibliography and Sources 1. OBITUARIES AND REFERENCES ON J. M. BLAUT Herman Santana, D. (2005), 'Jim Blaut, jPresente! Puerto Rico: Theory, Solidarity, and Political Practice,' Antipode 37, 1023-1026. Ghazi-Walid, F. (2005), 'Speaking the Truth to Power: Jim Blaut, CounterMemory and Justice in Palestine,' Antipode 37, 1033-1037. Harvey, D. (2005), ' "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing": Jim Blaut's Contribution to the Geographical Knowledge,' Antipode 37, 927—935. Johnson, K., Wisner, B., and P. O'Keefe (2005), 'Theses on Peasantry Revisited,' Antipode 37, 944-955. Koch, T., Johnson, K., Kasnitz, D., and B. Wisner (2005), 'Calypso Meets the Professions: Practicing the Spirit of Jim Blaut,' Antipode 37, 1011-1023. Mathewson, K. (2005), 'Jim Blaut: Radical Cultural Geographer,' Antipode 37, 911-926. Mathewson, K., and D. Stea (2000), 'James M. Blaut (1927-2000).' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90, 214—22. Peet, R. (2005), 'From Eurocentrism to Americentrism,' Antipode 37, 936-943. Rodrigue, C. M. (2005), 'James Blaut's Critique of Diffusionism through a Neolithic Lens: Early Animal Domestication in the Near East,' Antipode 37, 981-989. Sheppard, E. (2005), 'Jim Blaut's Model of the World,' Antipode 37, 956-962. Sluyter, A. (2005), 'Blaut's Early Natural/Social Theorization, Cultural Ecology, and Political Ecology,' Antipode 37, 963-980. Soni, D. V. and B.Maharaj (2005), 'Voices from the Periphery: Solidarity and Political Practice (In Memory of a Good Friend and Comrade),' Antipode 37, 1027-1032. Stea, D. (2005), 'Jim Blaut's Youngest Mappers: Children's Geography and the Geography of Children,' Antipode 37, 990-1002. Varanka, D. (2005), 'Natural Mapping and Art: A Student's Exploratory Study with J.M. Blaut,' Antipode 37, 1003-1022. Wisner, B., Heiman, M., and D. Weiner (2005), 'Afterword: Jim Blaut, Scholar Activist,' Antipode 37, 1045-1050. Wisner, B., and K. Mathewson (2005), 'Introduction: The Geographical and Political Vision of J.M. Blaut,' Antipode Vol. 37, 900-910. Wissoker, P. (2005), 'Editing Blaut: Including a Draft Outline of the Third Volume of Colonizer's Model of the World,' Antipode 37, 1038-1044.
2. CONTEXTUAL
REFERENCES
Conklin, H. C. (1954), 'An Ethnoecological Approach to Shifting Agriculture' Transactions of the Mew York Academy of Sciences 17, 133—142.
James Morris Blaut
125
Conklin, H. C. (1980), Ethnographic Atlas of Ifugao: A Study of Environment, Culture, and Society in Northern Luzon, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Duncan, J. S. (1980), 'The Superorganic in American Cultural Geography', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70, 181—198. Duncan, J. S. and Ley, D. (1980), Structural Marxism and Human Geography: a Critical Assessment. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 72, 30—59. Hartshorne, R. (1964), 'Robert S. Platt, 1891-1964', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 54, 630—637. James, C. L. R. (1938), The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Santo Domingo Revolution, London: Seeker and Warburg. Knapp, G. W. (1981), 'The full extent of the field: a commentary on the 'new cultural geography' in Latin America'. In T. L. Martinson and G. Elbow (eds.), Geographic Research on Latin America: Benchmark 1980, Muncie, IN: CLAG Publications, 217-229. Mathewson, K. and V. Shoemaker (2004), 'Louisiana State University at SeventyFive: "Berkeley on the Bayou" and Beyond.' In J. Wheeler and S. Brunn (eds.), The Role of the South in the Making of American Geography, Columbia, MD: Bellwether Press, 390-412. Philo, C. (1988), 'New directions in cultural geography: a conference of the Social Geography Study Group of the Institute of British Geographers, University College London, 1—3 September 1987'', Journal of Historical Geography 14, 178— 181. Platt, R. S. (1942), Latin America: Countrysides and United Regions (1942), New York: McGraw-Hill. —
(1948), 'Determinism in Geography', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 38, 126-32.
—
(1949), 'Environmentalism versus Geography', American Journal of Sociology 53, 351-58.
—
(1959), Field Study in American Geography, Department of Geography Research, Paper No. 61, Chicago: Department of Geography, University of Chicago.
Rubin, V., (ed.) (1959), Plantation Systems of the Mew World, (1959), Washington, DC: Pan American Union, 83-103. Stoddart, D.R. (1989), 'Epilogue: Homage to Richard Hartshorne', In J.N. Entrikin and S.D. Brunn (eds.), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Mature of Geography, Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers, 161 — 166. Wheatley, P. (1961), The Golden Khersonese: Studies in the Historical Geography of the Malay Peninsula before A.D. 1500, Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaysia Press. Williams, Eric, Capitalism and Slavery (1944), Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
126
James Morris Blaut
3. SELECTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS BYJ.M. BLAUT 1953
'The Economic Geography of a one-acre farm in Singapore: A study in applied microgeography.' Journal of Tropical Geography 1, 37—48.
1954a.
'The Language of Maps.' The Professional Geographer 6, 9—11.
1954b.
'Micro-regional sample surveys in applied agricultural geography: A preliminary statement.' Proceedings, Louisiana Academy of Sciences 17, 100— 7.
1958
'Chinese Market-Gardening in Singapore: A Study in Functional Microgeography.' Unpub. Ph.D., Dept. of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, 1958.
1959a.
Senior author with M. Moerman, R. Blaut, and N. Harman. 'A study of cultural determinants of soil erosion and conservation in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.' Social and Economic Studies 8, 403—420.
1959b
'The Ecology of Tropical Farming Systems.' In V. Rubin (ed.) Plantation Systems of the Mew World. Washington, DC: Pan American Union, 83-103.
1959c
'Microgeographic sampling: A quantitative approach to regional agricultural geography.' Economic Geography 35, 79—88.
1961
'Space and Process' The Professional Geographer 13, 1—7.
1962
'Object and Relationship' The Professional Geographer 14, 1—7.
1967
'Geography and the Development of Peasant Agriculture. In S.B. Cohen (ed.) Problems and Trends in American Geography. NY: Basic Books, 200-20.
1969
'Jingo geography: Part I.' Antipode 1, 10-13.
1970a
'Realistic models of peasant agriculture.' In A. J. Field (ed.) Town and Country in the Third World, Boston: Schenkman, 213—224.
1970b
Senior author with G. S. McCleary and A. S. Blaut. 'Environmental mapping in young children.' Environment and Behavior 2, 335—349.
1970c
'Geographic Models of Imperialism.' Antipode 2, 65- 85.
1970d.
'The Use of Aerial Photographs in teaching Mapping to children in the first grade: An experimental study.' The Minnesota Geographer 22, 5—21.
1971a
With D. Stea. 'Studies of Geographic Learning.' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 61, 387—393.
1971b
With D. Stea. 'Space, Structure, and Maps.' Tijdschrift voor Economische en Social Geografie 62, 1—4.
1972
With D. Stea. 'Some preliminary observations on spatial learning in Puerto Rican school children. In S. N. Gerber (ed.) The Family in the Caribbean. Rio Piedras, PR: Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico, 121-9.
1973a
'Notes toward a developmental theory of spatial learning.' In Roger Downs and David Stea (eds.), Image and Environment, Chicago: Aldine, 51-62.
James Morris Blaut
127
1973b
'With D. Stea 'Spatial learning in Puerto Rican school children.' In Roger Downs and David Stea (eds.), Image and Environment, Chicago: Aldine, 226-234.
1973c
'The Theory of Development.' Antipode 5, 22-7.
1974a
'The Ghetto as an Internal Neocolony.' Antipode 6, 37-42.
1974b
'Mapping at the age of three.' Journal of Geography 73, 5—9.
1975a
With D. Stea. 'Are Puerto Ricans a 'national minority'?' Journal of Contemporary Puerto Rican Thought 2, 117—129.
1975b
'Imperialism.' Antipode 7, 1-19.
1976a
'Where was Capitalism born?' Antipode 8, 1—11.
1977a
'Two views of Diffusion.' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 67, 343-9.
1977b
Senior author with K.Johnson, P. O'Keefe, and B. Wisner. 'Theses on peasantry.' Antipode 12, 125-7.
1979a
'The dissenting tradition.' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 69, 157-164.
1979b
'Some principles of ethnogeography.' In S. Gale and G. Olsson (eds.), Philosophy in Geography, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1—7.
1980a
'A Radical Critique of Cultural Geography.' Antipode 12, 25-30.
1980b
'Nairn on Nationalism.' Antipode 12, 1-17.
1981
'Ghettos are Real, not Ideal.' Transition 11, 10—14.
1982a
'Nationalism as an Autonomous Force.' Science and Society 46, 1—23.
1982b
'Pringle on 'bourgeois nationalist ideology'.' Antipode 14, 33—39.
1983a
'The Motor of History.' Transition 13, 2-20.
1983b
Senior author with R. McNee, W. Peterman, and L. Wolf. 'Assimilation versus ghettoization.' Antipode 15, 35- 42.
1984
'Modesty and the Movement: A Commentary.' In T.F. Saarinen et al. eds., Environmental Perception and Behavior: An Inventory and Prospect, Chicago: University of Chicago Dept. of Geography, Research Paper No. 209, 149-163.
1985
Senior author with A. Rios-Bustamante. 'Geographic models of imperialism.' Antipode 17, 2—3.
1986
'A Theory of Nationalism.' Antipode 18, 5-11.
1987a
'Diffusionism: A Uniformitarian Critique.' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77, 30—4:7.
1987b
'Place Perception in Perspective.' Journal of Environmental Psychology 7, 297-306.
1987c
'Notes toward a theory of mapping behavior.' Children's Environments Quarterly 4, 27-34.
128
James Morris Blaut
1987d
The National Question: Decolonizing the Theory of Nationalism. London: Zed Books.
1988a
Aspectos de la Cuestion Nacional en Puerto Rico. With Loida Figueroa. San Juan: Editorial Claridad.
1988b
'When did Europe rise?' Studies in Comparative International Development, 22, 26-32.
1989.
'Colonialism and the Rise of Capitalism.' Science and Society 53, 260—296.
1991
'Natural mapping.' Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16, 55-74.
1992a
'The Theory of Cultural Racism.' Antipode 23, 289- 99.
1992b
'Fourteen Ninety-Two.' Political Geography Quarterly 11, 355-385.
1992c
Fourteen Ninety-Two: The Debtae on Colonialism, Eurocentrism, amd History, J. M. Blaut as principal author and with contributions by S. Amin, R. A. Dodgshon, A. G. Frank, and R. Palan. Introduction by P. J. Taylor. Trentn NJ: Africa World Press.
1993a
The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, New York: Guilford Press.
1993.
Senior author with A. Rios-Bustamante. Nostrand's 'Hispanos' and their 'Homeland'. In A. Rios- Bustamante (ed.) Regions of the Raza: Changing Perspectives on Mexican-American Regional History. Encino, CA: Floricanto Press.
1994a
'Mind and Matter in Cultural Geography.' In K. Mathewson (ed.) Culture, Form, and Place: Essays in Cultural and Historical Geography, Baton Rouge: Geoscience Publications, 345—356.
1994b
'Robert Brenner In the Tunnel of Time.' Antipode 26, 351-74.
1996a
With D. Stea and J. Stephens. 'Mapping as a Cultural Universal.' In J. Portugali (ed.), The Construction of Cognitive Maps, Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 345—360.
1996b
With S. Sowden, D. Stea, M. Blades, and C. Spencer. 'The Mapping Abilities of Four-Year-Old Children in York, England.' Journal of Geography 95, 107-11.
1997a
'Children Can.' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87, 152—8.
1997b
'Piagetian Pessimism and the Mapping Abilities of Young Children'. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 87, 168—177.
1997c.
With D. Stea, J. Stephens, and S. Elguea. 'La Teoria del Mapeo Universal: Una Perspectiva Diachronica desde Mesoamerica. Archipielago: Revista Cultural de Nuestra America 10, 52—55.
1997d.
With D. Stea, and S. Elguea. 'Desarrollo del Conocimiento del Espacio a la Escala Macroambiental entre Ninos muy Jovenes: Una Investigacion Transcultural.' Revista Interamericana de Psicologia 10, 52—55.
1997e
'Evaluating Imperialism' Science and Society 61, 382—93.
1998
With M. Blades, Z. Darvizeh, S. Elguea, S. Sowden, C. Spencer, D.
James Morris Blaut
129
Stea, R. Surajpaul, and D. Uttal. 'A Cross-Cultural Study of Young Children's mapping Abilities', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 23, 269-77. 1999a
With D. Stea. 'Geographic education and public participation: The search for umbrella theory', Journal of Research in Geographic Education 1, 179-193.
1999b
'Environmentalism and Eurocentrism.' Geographical Review 89, 391—408.
1999c
'Maps and Spaces.' Professional Geographer 51, 510-5.
2000a
With D. Stea, and M. LeFebre. 'Towards a global view: Cross-cultural perspectives on environmental development, learning, and education.' In Robertson, M., and R. Gerber (eds.) The Child's World: Triggers to Learning. Canberra, Australia: Australian Council for Education Research, 40—61.
2000b
'On Myths and Maps: A Rejoinder to Lewis and Wiggen.' Journal of World History 11, 93-100.
2000c
Eight Eurocentric Historians. New York: Guilford Press.
2001
With D. Stea, D. Pinon, N. Middlebrook, V. Eckert. 'Place and space learning: The geography and environment of young children.' In Robertson, M., and Gerber, R. (eds.) Children's Ways of Knowing: Learning Through Partnerships. Canberra: Australian Council for Educational Research, 40—61.
2003
Blaut, J. M., D. Stea, C. Spencer, and M. Blades. 'Mapping as a Cultural and Cognitive Universal.' Annals of the Association of American Geographer 93, 165-85.
Chronology 1927
Born New York City, New York, October 20, 1927
1932-38
Attended The Little Red School House, lower Manhattan, New York City
1938—44
Attended the Elisabeth Irwin High School, lower Manhattan, New York City
1944—48
Attended the University of Chicago
1948
Graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy in Geography, University of Chicago
1948-49
Attended the New School for Social Research, lower Manhattan, New York City
1949—50
Post-graduate studies Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Port-ofSpain, Trinidad
1950—51
Graduate studies Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
130
James Morris Blaut
1951—53
Fieldwork Singapore, Malaya. Assistant Lecturer of Geography, University of Malaya
1953—54
Graduate studies Department of Geography and Anthropology, LSU
1954
Graduated with a Masters of Science degree in Geography, LSU
1954—56
Service in US Army. Basic training Camp Gordon, Georgia. Army Map Service and Environmental Division of Quartermasters Corps.
1956
Summer term Instructor of Geography, LSU
1956—58
Instructor of Geography, Department of Geography, Yale University
1958—61
Assistant Professor of Geography, Department of Geography, Yale University
1957
Summer fieldwork in Blue Mountains region, Jamaica
1958
Graduated from LSU with Ph.D. in geography. Dissertation on 'Chinese Market-Gardening in Singapore: A Study in Functional Microgeography'
1961—63
Director of the Pan American Union, and Director of Graduate Studies in Caribbean Social Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
1963—64
Guayana Project consultant, UNESCO, Venezuela
1964—66
Director, Caribbean Research Institute, College of the Virgin Islands
1966—67
Visiting Professor, Department of Geography, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
1967—68
Visiting Professor, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester, MA
1968—71
Professor, Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, Worcester,
MA 1971—72
Acting Chair, Department of Geography, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
1972—2000 Professor, Department of Geography, University of Illinois-Chicago Circle, Chicago, IL 1987
The National Question: Decolonizing the Theory of Nationalism. London: Zed Books
1988
Aspectos de la Cuestion Nacional en Puerto Rico. J.M. Blaut and Loida Figueroa. San Juan: Editorial Claridad.
1992
Fourteen Ninety-Two: The Debate on Colonialism, Eurocentrism, and History, J. M. Blaut, principal author, contributions by S. Amin, R. Dodgshon, A. G. Frank, and R. Palan, and intro. P. J. Taylor. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press
1993
The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: Guilford Press
2000
Eight Eurocentric Historians. New York: Guilford Press
2000
Died November 11, Chicago
Howard F, Gregor 1920-2000
Stephen C. Jett George Daugavietis
Howard F. Gregor was a founding member of the University of California, Davis (UCD), Department of Geography and served through most of that unit's lifetime. He became one of the United States' most prolific and important academic agricultural geographers, with a particularly deep knowledge of farming in California and its economic and spatial relationships to physical environment, society, and culture.
Early Years and Education Howard Frank Gregor was born in 1920 in Two Rivers, situated on Lake Michigan some 56 kilometres to the southeast of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Two Rivers was a town of fewer than 10,000 persons in America's agricultural heartland. It had been the destination of immigrants from Germany, the Netherlands, and other European countries. Howard was the only child of Stephen P. and Emily Drissen Gregor, both offspring of German-Czech immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although a worker (ultimately, crew foreman) at the Mirro Aluminum Manufacturing Company, Stephen had been a farm boy while growing up in the Green Bay region and nostalgia often inspired him to take Howard out to visit the old place. After graduating from Two Rivers High School in 1939, the young man matriculated at the University of Wisconsin Extension Center at Manitowoc, 16 kilometres to the southwest of Two Rivers, enrolling in the American Institutions programme, which included economics, geography, and history; the last of which particularly appealed to him. After a year at Manitowoc, he transferred to the University's main campus at Madison. Although he thought about majoring in
132
Howard F. Gregor
history, he ultimately found his interest in that subject to have declined somewhat and so began to consider other majors. His decision was deferred owing to his studies being interrupted by World War II. During that conflict, Gregor spent nearly three years as an Army Air Corps B-24 bombardier with the 444—4 Navigator-Bombadier Group, first in California and then at several islands in the Pacific theatre of operations as First Lieutenant — a role that few of his colleagues or students would have imagined this quintessential professor playing, and a role of which he spoke little. His feelings may be hinted at by the fact that he became a charter sponsor of the Air Force Memorial Foundation. After the war ended, Gregor continued to serve, in the Air Force Reserves, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1966. Gregor managed to read and to ruminate a great deal during his active service. Returning to the University of Wisconsin, he resumed his studies, having elected to continue majoring in American Institutions. In June of 1946, he completed the BS requirements and received his degree. Howard's Air Corps experience had included military training at March Air Base in Riverside and also at Victorville, California, where he learned to love being aloft. Much inspired by his exposure to land and landscape and to the dynamic economic and demographic changes then occurring in California, he decided to continue his studies at Wisconsin and to pursue an MS in geography. While thus engaged, he was particularly impressed by the teaching approach of population geographer and Japan specialist Professor Glenn Trewartha and by Trewartha's methodical thoroughness. Partly as a consequence of the influence of agricultural geographer Professor Vernor Finch, Gregor developed a strong interest in the agricultural side of economic geography, graduating with that emphasis in 1947. Ray Whitbeck and Vernor Finch's (1941) textbook Economic Geography, with its broad, synthetical and regional approach, conditioned Howard's perceptions and interests. Despite Gregor's middle western roots and Wisconsin academic training, California continued to call, and Howard enrolled as one of the first doctoral students in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). While there, he was especially influenced by Professors Robert Glendenning, Clifford Zierer, and Richard Logan. Logan, a man whose engagement with students was not confined to a nine-to-five work day, offered a provocative summer field course that proved inspirational for young Gregor. Zierer's publications on southern Californian agriculture also powerfully stimulated this student's mind. Glendenning's research concerning the Simi Valley on Los Angeles' northwestern fringe became a particular beacon for Howard's endeavours. Simi Valley was a rapidly urbanizing agricultural basin, a microcosm of what was happening widely in California. Gregor's dissertation research focused on agriculture and urban encroachment in Ventura County, to the west of Los Angeles County. In 1950, he became the second student to receive a PhD in Geography at UCLA. His degree was not Howard's only valued acquisition from UCLA. A few months after he finished his doctorate, he married geography department secretary (1946-1950) and UCLA history graduate (1945) Marjorie E. Onley. EARLY CAREER: THE CIA AND SAN JOSE STATE By 1950 the post-World War II boom in teaching positions had ended; and, although loath to depart California, following graduation Gregor accepted a summer instructional engagement at the George Peabody School for Teachers in Nashville, Tennessee, followed by an academic-year stint at Indiana University in
Howard F. Gregor
133
Bloomington. After these finite pedagogical experiences, he acceded to an offer of steady employment as an analyst in the Central Intelligence Agency outside of Washington, DC. Although he enjoyed the research that he was assigned there, Howard disliked the fact that since his work was classified, strict limitations were imposed on scholarly publication and other communication. He did manage to extract his dissertation for publishable articles (Gregor 1951 through 1954), but he missed teaching and the Pacific Coast. He managed to obtain a visiting engagement at the University of Oregon, but that was for one academic year only. Following that, he secured a place at the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission, where he had to deal with the maddening chore of explaining county zoning regulations to individual citizens and fending off their often irate reactions. Enough was enough; yet, no teaching positions were available. So, to make a living, Howard returned to the CIA — where his earlier feeling that that agency was not the optimum milieu for him was confirmed. Providentially, in 1955 he at last obtained a full-time teaching position at San Jose State College in the San Francisco Peninsula area and the Gregors made their final cross-country auto trip in pursuit of employment. At that time, San Jose State College (later, University) was not a research institution, nor were Gregor's colleagues research-oriented, and he felt somewhat out of place. Yet the institution did provide the opportunity to teach and it was in California. In 1957, he was promoted to the tenured rank of Assistant Professor. He became active in the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (APCG), serving terms as vice-president (1958—1959) and President (1959—1960). Despite a substantial teaching load, including economic geography and cartography, hard-working Gregor managed to produce ten publications while at San Jose State (Gregor 1956 through 1960). Some of these were concerned with examining urban pressures on Southern California agriculture, and others described problems associated with urbanization's forcing agricultural expansion into the state's desert regions. He pointed out that not all desert areas were equally usable and that the economic costs of agricultural development could be substantial. His record of producing publications despite carrying a heavy teaching load was soon to stand him in good stead. THE YEARS AT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS The same year that Gregor began teaching at San Jose State, Kenneth Thomson, an Englishman by birth, had become the first geographer to be hired by the social sciences department at the University of California, Davis (UCD). The Davis campus, opened in 1908 as an agricultural training adjunct of the University of California, Berkeley, had become a general campus in 1959 and at the time was in the throes of rapid growth and development. Research was definitely on its agenda. In 1960, Thomson, impressed by the man's record, was authorized to invite Gregor to join him as the second geographer in social sciences at UCD. For Howard, this was a chance to be in a research-nurturing environment at last, even though he had to begin at the untenured rank of Assistant Professor. During the next few years, various disciplines were hived off from social sciences, until geography was briefly left paired with anthropology in a joint department. Then, in 1964, geography became fully separate (Scheuring 2001, 45). At that time, its faculty consisted of historical geographer Thomson (Northwestern PhD), economic geographer Gregor, cultural geographer Philip L. Wagner (a Berkeley PhD who had been appointed in 1961 and who, many years later, went on to Simon Fraser University in British Columbia), and newly-hired Johns Hopkins PhD Stephen C. Jett, who had left an instructorship at The Ohio State University to accept an assistant
134
Howard F. Gregor
professorship at UCD, replacing Tom Pagenhart. Although primarily a cultural geographer, Jett was hired to teach physical geography and conservation. The Davis years were good ones for the Gregors. Howard and Marge were now parents, their daughter Marsha (Splaver) having been born in 1956 in San Jose. Howard found much to investigate regarding the state's rich agricultural geography. During his first decade at Davis, he periodically published the fruits of his research, continuing a pattern that would lead to his ultimately becoming one of the scholars most published in the leading US geographical journals. He authored a textbook, Environment and Economic Life: An Economic and Social Geography (1963; see Brown 1963), thereby attaining one of his three main academic goals, and helped the UCD Department grow and improve. He also conducted occasional seminars in Canada, at the universities of Manitoba and New Brunswick and at McMaster University in Ontario. Whereas Gregor's 1950s and earlier 1960s research had emphasized urban expansion at the expense of farming, during the latter 1960s and 1970s he came increasingly to consider the changing character of California agriculture in response to that encroachment, notably its growing intensity as a means of maintaining production volume as available land diminished, resulting in large, highly organized farms which he compared to the plantations of the seasonalrainfall tropics. He came to recognize more and more that not only increasing farm size and decreasing numbers of farms along with agricultural intensification, but also farmers' decreasing residency on farms, increasing farm commercialization, the application of more and more technology to farming, and these farms' kinship with manufacturing, were affecting farming and he commenced using the term 'industrial farming.' Still, he cautioned against the emotion-laden notion that the small family farm was completely becoming a thing of the past. Howard was involved with the Program on Agricultural Geography and Rural Settlement of the International Geographical Congress (IGC), and he stressed the research theme of farm industrialization in his 1972 invited keynote address to the Program, in Montreal, Quebec. Howard's Canada connection was strengthened during this period with his 1978 visiting professorship at the University of Guelph, Ontario. In 1970, Gregor published his magnum opus, the Geography of Agriculture: Themes in Research, in Prentice-Hall's prestigious Foundations of Economic Geography Series. Although of modest length, the volume surpassed, in its scope and rich detail, all other English-language books on the topic, covering as it did nearly every important research approach, finding, and debate in the subfield. In his Geographical Bibliography for American Libraries, Chauncey Harris characterized the volume as being one of the best introductions to agricultural geography that could be found (Harris 1985, 167). In its completion, Howard realized the second of his three main academic goals: the writing of a methodological tome for agricultural geographers, and this book ensured him lasting standing in the field. Howard published his third book in 1974, for the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Agricultural Typology. An Agricultural Typology of California, aimed at an international audience, summarized many of his research findings of the previous decade. His increasing internationality is reflected by the fact that, over the years, he published through outlets in Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Japan, and India. Foreign professors came to UCD as visiting scholars, in part to work with Howard Gregor: these included Yoshihiko Shirai of Nagoya's Aichi Gakuin University, Takeshi Miyazaki of Kyoto Prefectural University and Gerard Dorel of the Universite de Reims.
Howard F. Gregor
135
Howard loved flying to and attending professional geography meetings, including those of the APCG, the Association of American Geographers (AAG), and the IGC. He always used those opportunities to rent a car and look at the local rural landscapes, taking myriad slides and talking with locals. The third and last of Gregor's principal academic goals was to translate a foreign geography book into English. The one he chose was agricultural economist Bernd Andreae's lengthy Agrargeographie: Strukturzonen und Betriebsformen in der Weltlandwirdschaft, which appeared in English in 1982 as Farming, Development, and Space: A World Agricultural Geography. In the same year appeared Gregor's data-rich Industrialisation of US Agriculture: An Interpretive Atlas, in which he used multivariate analysis to ascertain the extent and regional character of US agricultural industrialization. In the latter book, a culmination of his research on the subject (see Olmstead 1983, 502), Gregor pioneered investigation of farm industrialization's effects on regional natural and human resources. He noted that whereas labour had been the critical element for farms at the beginning of the twentieth century, capital expenditures were now preeminent. He also noted that the kinds and degrees of pressure on small farms varied from region to region, and that opportunities for agricultural industrialization likewise varied areally. The book involved the most comprehensive 'mapping' of American agricultures since the US Department of Agriculture had ceased producing 'type-of-farming' maps (Heady 1983, 451). Two years after these major publication achievements, Howard suffered a significant stroke. Happily, his recovery was rapid and full, perhaps in part owing to his long-standing fitness-enhancing habit of commuting to work on foot; after eight months, he was able to resume his research and teaching. During his incapacitation, the department accorded him leave with pay. The present writer presented on his behalf a paper Gregor was scheduled to read at an IGC satellite meeting at Angers, France. In 1987, the APCG recognized Gregor with its Distinguished Services Award, and the following year there was a special session organized in his honour at the annual meeting of the AAG. Howard was most gratified by these peer recognitions of his contributions to agricultural geography.
Howard Gregor: The Man and the Scholar Howard Gregor's contributions to the understanding of agricultural geography were many and massive, and two of his books were translated into other languages and used as texts in Japan and Mexico, respectively. A particular interest of his was changes in twentieth-century American agriculture over time, both in crops raised and in the evolution from small family farms to huge plantationesque industrial operations, especially in California, as economies of scale increasingly favoured the large operations. He concluded that farm industrialization was a necessary aspect of a sound contemporary economic system. He disagreed, however, with those who contended that because urbanization of farmland simply reflected market forces, it should engender no alarm. He argued that the market ignored external economies (such as the enormous canning industry) and diseconomies (such as the negative impacts of urban population growth: Gregor 1958a). More than most of his agricultural-geographer peers, he took into consideration the roles played by physical and social environment and culture, not just strictly economic factors such as production and distribution, in accounting for the observed phenomena of agricultural intensification and the expansion of farming into drylands. Regiona-
136
Howard F. Gregor
lization in agriculture was another paramount interest, on both local and nationwide scales, and he sought generalizations applicable to interregional and national consistency and diversity. Howard Gregor was an unusually dedicated and hard-working scholar. He was prepared to do what it took to address the questions that interested him. For example, as quantitative approaches became increasingly necessary to deal with massive amounts of data, Howard taught himself the necessary analytical techniques. He used his knowledge of the German language to undertake a major translation. His published output, especially in the form of books, was impressive, and he was very active with professional organizations, notably the APCG and the IGU/IGC. Yet, he worked alone; none of his works was co-authored. In addition to being very easy to get along with — he almost never displayed anger — and although proud of his achievements, Howard Gregor was an utterly unpretentious human being in the middle western mould and would have been one of the last to toot his own horn. Had he been a self-promoter, no doubt he would have received even more recognition than he in fact gained, as one of North America's very few outstanding agricultural geographers. Gregor was fiercely dedicated to the study of his subfield and was a traditional and demanding teacher, encouraging students to high standards. He displayed concern for his students and remained ready to help those who needed it, being flexible when appropriate. The lecture courses most characteristically reflecting his interests were 'Geography of Agriculture' and 'The Organization of Economic Space'. He most valued the graduate seminar as a setting for encouraging thinking and debate. But agricultural geography was not a trendy topic and Gregor had only one student, southern Californian Floyd Hickock, take a PhD under his tutelage. Hickock taught technical courses in geography from 1980—1993 at the University of North Dakota and then became a GIS specialist with the Grand Forks/East Grand Forks Metropolitan Planning Organization, retiring to southern California in 2002 (Anonymous 2002). Howard's interest in pedagogy is also manifested in his publications in the The National Council for Geographic Education's Journal of Geography (Gregor 1956a, 1962c) and in the Bulletin of the California Council of Geography Teachers and The California Geographer (Gregor 1958b, 1962b, 1965b), organs of the California Council for Geographic Education (since 1983, the California Geographical Society; see Zorn 2003). Howard would probably have continued teaching as long as he was able. He was affected, however, by that brief window of time during which mandatory retirement at age 70 was in effect at the University of California. Thus, in 1990 Howard became Professor Emeritus, thereby retiring well before the disestablishment of the geography department six years later. In 1998, Howard suffered a fall in which he sustained a head injury. After two years of related illness, he died on 2 November 2000, at age 80. His professional papers are now housed in the Peter J. Shields Library on the UCD campus (Manuscript Collections, 'Gregor, Howard F. (1920-2000) Papers Collection,' D-378). Agricultural geographer Howard Gregor and UCD, with its agricultural tradition — its students are still called 'Aggies' — were ideal for each other. Of course, Howard was an important presence on the campus. In the geography department, he was not only a stalwart in terms of the teaching of economic geography courses and, for some years, cartography, he also served as department chairman from 1969 to 1974. He was involved in the hiring of many faculty members over the years, applying the criterion of scholarly breadth over narrow concentration, a policy that fell from fashion during the entrepreneurial 1980s and 1990s, when the administrative push was for departmental development of a specialization that
Howard F. Gregor
137
would gain high visibility and ranking on the national scene. It was largely such priorities that led to the 1996 demise of the breadth-oriented UCD geography department during a university-wide budget crunch. The department and undergraduate major were closed, but a multidisciplinary Graduate Group in Geography was established. But at least from the point of view of educating geography students — and students were of high importance to Howard Gregor — we suspect that his valuing breadth was entirely on target.
Acknowledgements This article was written by Gregor's colleague Stephen Jett but based largely on information gathered for a 1993 term paper by George Daugavietis, then a student taking Herb Eder's course on the history of geographic thought at California State University, Hayward (now, California State University, East Bay). Daugavietis interviewed Gregor on 22 and 27 January and on 2, 12, and 26 February 1993. He also interviewed his wife Marjorie E. Gregor (18 February 1993), Gregor's UCD colleagues Conrad J. Bahre and Kenneth Thomson (23 February 1993), and former Gregor graduate students Floyd Hickock (1 March 1993) and Donald Kiernan (5 February 1993). Facts were checked and augmented by Marjorie E. Gregor (to Jett, 14 July 2007, 1 September 2007). Thanks are due to Robin Datel for information on Floyd Hickock.
Bibliography and Sources 1. CONTEXTUAL REFERENCES Anon. (2002), 'News of the Geography Alumni', Department of Geography Alumni Newsletter Summer, [2], University of North Dakota. Anon. (2002), 'Howard F. Gregor', The Davis Enterprise Nov. 16. Brown, S. E. (1963), Review of Environment and Economic Life: An Economic and Social Geography, The Journal of Geography 62, 225—6. Harris, C. D. (ed.) (1985), Geographical Bibliography for American Libraries, Washington: Association of American Geographers. Heady, E. O. (1983), Review of Industrialization of US Agriculture: An Interpretive Atlas, Economic Geography 59, 451—52. Jett, S. C. (2001), 'Dr. Howard F. Gregor', AAG Newsletter, 36, no. 7, 12. Jett, S. C., L. E. Grivetti, D. J. Dingemans and G. Daugavietis (2002), 'Howard F. Gregor, 1920—2000, Professor of Geography, Emeritus', in University of California In Memoriam 2001, Oakland: University of California, 71—73. Olmstead, C. W. (1983), Review of Industrialization of US Agriculture: An Interpretive Atlas, The Professional Geographer 35, 502—3. Scheuring, A. F. (2001), Abundant Harvest: The History of the University of California, Davis. Davis: UC Davis History Project.
138
Howard F. Gregor
Whitbeck, R. H., and V. C. Finch (1941), Economic Geography: A Regional Survey, New York: McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. Zorn, J. (2003), 'The California Geographical Society: A Retrospective Look', The California Geographer 43, 67—84. 2. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS OF HOWARD F. GREGOR 1951 1952a
'A Sample Study of the California Ranch', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 41, 285—306. 'The Southern California Water Problem in the Oxnard Area', The Geographical Review 42, 16—36.
1952b
'Current Land Use Changes on the Oxnard Plain', Proceedings, XVIIth General Assembly — XVIIth Congress, International Geographical Union, Washington: International Geographical Union, 624—28.
1953
'Agricultural Shifts in the Ventura Lowland of California', Economic Geography 29, 340-61.
1954
'Urbanization and Water in Southern California', The Geographical Review 42, 422-3.
1956a
'Slide-Projection Techniques in the Geography Class', The Journal of Geography 55, 298-303.
1956b
'The Geographical Dynamics of California Market Gardening', Tearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 18, 28—35.
1957a 1957b
'German vs. American Economic Geography', The Professional Geographer 9, 12-13. 'The Local-Supply Agriculture of California', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 47, 267—76.
1957c
'Urban Pressures on California Land', Land Economics 33, 311—25.
1958a
'Urban Pressures on California Land: A Rejoinder', Land Economics 34, 83-7.
1958b
'Some Suggested Modifications of Climatic Region Terminology', Bulletin of the California Council of Geography Teachers 5, 5—12.
1959a 1959b
'Push to the Desert', Science 129(3359), 1329-39. 'An Evaluation of Oasis Agriculture', Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 21, 39—50.
1960
'Agricultural Intensity and
Its Regionalization',
Yearbook of the
Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 22, 7—27.
1962a
'The Plantation in California', The Professional Geographer 14,1—4.
1962b
'Agricultural Region and Statistical Area: A Dilemma in California Geography', The California Geographer 3, 27—31.
1962c
'The Regional Primacy of San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Production', The Journal of Geography 61, 394—99.
Howard F. Gregor
139
1963a
Environment and Economic Life: An Economic and Social Geography. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, [also publ. 1964 as: Geografia economica y social^ tr. J. G. Silva (Mexico City, Compania Editorial Continental)].
1963b
'Spatial Disharmonies in California Population Growth', The Geographical Review 53, 100-22.
1963c
'Regional Hierarchies in California Agricultural Production, 1939— 1954', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 53, 27—37.
1963d
'Industrialized Drylot Dairying — An Overview', Economic Geography 39, 299-318.
1963e
'Urbanization of Southern California Agriculture', Tijdschrift Economische en Sociale Geographic 54, 273—8.
1964a
'Competition for Rural Land: A Rationale for Planning', in Spatial Organization of Land Uses: The Willamette Valley. Papers of a Symposium held at Oregon State University, May 1964, J. G. Jensen (ed.), 37, Corvallis: Oregon State University.
1964b
'A Map of Agricultural Adjustment', The Professional Geographer 16, 16—9.
1965a
'The Changing Plantation', Annals of the Association of American Geographers 55, 221-38.
1965b
'Plantation Farming: Its Wider Application in Agricultural Classification', The California Geographer 6, 25—8.
1965c
'Building Preferences as Spatial Problems in California (USA.)', in Changing Concepts of Human Habitation, Roorkee, U.P.: Nem Chand & Bros., 1-7.
1967
'Wage Labor as a Primary Plantation Indicator — The Case of American Cotton Farms', in Essays in Honor of Clifford Zierer (ed.) J. E. Spencer and I. Sutton. The California Geographer 8, 89—108.
1968
'Water and the California Paradox', in The California Revolution, Carey Williams (ed.), New York: Grossman Publishers, 159—71.
1969
'Farm Structure in Regional Comparison — California and New Jersey Vegetable Farms', Economic Geography 45, 209-25.
1970a
'The Industrial Farm as a Western Institution'. Journal of the West 9, 78-92.
1970b
'The Large Industrialized American Crop Farm — A Mid-Latitude Plantation Variant', The Geographical Review 60, 151—75.
1970c
Geography of Agriculture: Themes in Research, Foundations of Economic Geography Series, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, [also publ. 1973 as: Nogyo Chirigaku — Sono Kadei to Tenbo (Tokyo: Taimeido Company); and 1974 as Geografia de la agricultura, tr. L. Lajo (Barcelona: Editorial Vincens-Vives) ].
1972a
'Plantation Farming on the Subtropical Margins: A Model-Farm Approach', in Agricultural Typology and Land Utilisation, Verona: Center for Agricultural Geography, University Academy for Agricultural Sciences and Humanities, University of Padua, 147—59.
voor
140
Howard F. Gregor
1972b
'The Quasi-Plantation as a Conceptual Model', International Geography 2,
722-3.
1972c
'Terminology in Typology — The Problem of Plantation', International Geography 2, 1095-96.
1973
'Terminology in Typology — The Problem of Plantation', in Agricultural Typology and Land Use, L. G. Reeds (ed.), Hamilton, Ont: McMaster University, 60—8.
1974
An Agricultural Typology of California, Budapest: Akademiai Kiaido, for the Research Institute of Geography, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and for the International Geographical Union.
1975
'A Typology of Agriculture in Western United States - In World Perspective', in Agricultural Typology and Land Utilisation, C. Vanzetti (ed.), Verona: Center for Agricultural Geography, University Academy for Agricultural Sciences and Humanities, University of Padua, 173—85.
1976
'Agricultural Intensity in the Pacific Southwest', Proceedings of the Association of American Geographers 8, 6—7.
1978
'The Large Industrial Farm: Concept versus Reality', Transition 8, 6—7.
1979
'The Large Farm as Stereotype: A Look at the Pacific Southwest', Economic Geography 55, 71—87.
1981
'Agricultural Capitalization as a Spatial Complex', in Perspectives in Agricultural Geography: Framework of Agriculture, N. Mohammed (ed.), New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 407—26.
1982a
Industrialization of US Agriculture: An Interpretive Atlas. Boulder: Westview Press.
1982b
(translator) Farming, Development, and Space: A World Agricultural Geography, Bernd Andreae [tr. of Agrargeographie: Strukturzonen und Betriebsformen in der Weltlandwirdschaft, Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1983]. Berlin: W. de Gruyter.
1982c
'Large-Scale farming as a Cultural Dilemma in US Rural Development — The Role of Capital', Geoforum 13, 1—10.
1983
'Resource Productivity Patterns in US Agriculture and Their Implications for Rural Welfare', International Meeting on Rural Development: Papers 2, 221—44. [repr. 1986 in Dynamism and Development in the Rural Urban Fringe, V. Singh and N. Singh (eds.), Varanasi: Star Distributors, Publication Division]
1986
'Resources Productivity in US Agriculture — Regional and Typological View.' In Perspectives in Agricultural Typology, V. Singh and N. Singh (eds.), Varanasi: Star Distributors, Publication Division, 128—47.
1990
'The Regionalization of Rationalization in US Agricultural Production, Geographia Polonica 57, 69—80.
1991
'Agricultural Geography', in Modern Geography — An Encyclopedic Survey, Gary S. Dunbar (ed.), Garland Reference Library of Humanities 1197. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1—2.
Howard F. Gregor
141
Chronology 1920
Born, Two Rivers, Wisconsin, USA., 7 April
1939
Graduates from Two Rivers High School
1939—1940 Undergraduate student at University of Wisconsin Extension Center, Manitowoc 1940—1942 Undergraduate student at University of Wisconsin, Madison 1943-1945 Serves in Army Air Corps B-24 bombardier in 444-4 NavigatorBombadier Group, in Southern California and in the Pacific Theater (as first lieutenant); serves in the Air Force Reserves thereafter, attaining rank of Lieutenant Colonel (1966) 1945—1946 Undergraduate student, University of Wisconsin, Madison; B.S. in American Institutions, 1946 1946—1947 Graduate student in Geography, University of Wisconsin, Madison; MS, 1947 1947—1950 Graduate student in Geography, University of California, Los Angeles; PhD, 1950 (dissertation: 'Changing Agricultural Patterns in the Oxnard Area of Southern California') 1950
Marries Marjorie E. Onley, 26 December; summer appointment at the George Peabody School for teachers, Nashville, Tennessee
1950—1951 Geography instructor, Indiana University, Bloomington 1951-1953 Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 1953—1954 Visiting professor of Geography, University of Oregon 1954
Employee of the Los Angeles County Regional Planning Commission
1954-1955 Analyst, CIA 1955—1957 Assistant professor of geography, San Jose State College 1956
Birth of daughter Marsha Gregor (later, Mrs. Eric J. Splaver of Los Angeles, who had four children)
1957—1960 Associate professor of geography, San Jose State College 1958—1959 Vice president, Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 1959—1960 President, Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 1960—1964 Assistant professor of geography, Department of Social Sciences, University of California, Davis (UCD) 1963
Publication of the textbook Environment and Economic Life: An Economic and Social Geography
1964
Creation of a separate UCD Department of Geography
1964—1969 Associate professor of geography, UCD; conducts occasional seminars at Canadian universities 1969-1974 Chair of the Department of Geography, UCD
142
Howard F. Gregor
1969-1990 Professor of Geography, UCD 1970
Publication of Geography of Agriculture: Themes in Research
1972
Invited keynote speaker at the Program on Agricultural Geography and Rural Settlement, International Geographical Congress, Montreal, Quebec.
1974
Publication of An Agricultural Typology of California
1978
Visiting professor of Geography, University of Guelph, Ontario
1982
Publication of Industrialization of US Agriculture: An Interpretive Atlas and of Gregor's translation of Bernd Andreae's Agrargeographic: Strukturzonen und Betriebsformen in der Weltlandwirdschaft as Farming, Development, and Space: A World Agricultural Geography
1984
Suffers a stroke, recovers
1987
Receives the Distinguished Service Award, Association of Pacific Coast Geographers
1988
Special session in Gregor's honour, annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers
1990
Retires at UCD, becoming Professor Emeritus of Geography
1996
UCD Department of Geography disestablished; Graduate Group in Geography established
2000
Dies 2 November, owing to complications from a 1998 fall
Jiro Yonekura 1909-2002
Toshihiro Okada
The foundations of Japanese academic human geography were laid by Takuji Ogawa (Geographers Vol. 6) and others from the 1900s to the 1920s. Jiro Yonekura played an important role in promoting Ogawa's achievements after the 1930s. Yonekura began his geographical work with historico-geographical researches on Japanese settlements and his studies were later to have a major influence on historical-geographical work in Japan. One characteristic of Yonekura's work was his thorough grasp of East Asia, including India. He was an advocate of comparative regional geography, as it related to regional planning, and was concerned too with political geography. In his study on settlement types, Yonekura studied the ideal types of the Jori settlements and the Kokufu towns in ancient Japan. In 1967, he founded an Indian research project at the Department of Geography, University of Hiroshima. The project is continued today by his successors and is highly esteemed in the Japanese and Indian geographical worlds.
Education, Life and Work Jiro Yonekura was born in 1909 in a village on the lower Chikugo-gawa plain in Saga Prefecture, Japan. After completing the science course of Saga High School (what is now Saga University) in 1928, he went to the Imperial University of Kyoto, where, in the Faculty of Literature, he specialized in geography. He studied under Takuji Ogawa (1870—1941), professor of geography there, Goro Ishibashi (1876—1946), professor of geography, Sadakichi Kita (1871—1939), professor of Japanese history, Saneshige Komaki (1898—1990), an associate professor of geography, Ichisada Miyazaki (1901—1995), an associate professor of Oriental history, and others. After graduating from the university in 1931, Yonekura studied under Professor Masami Koga of the Faculty of Agriculture and, as a member of the Faculty of Agriculture, turned his attention to rural planning and the assessment of arable land. In 1932, he was appointed to the position of assistant in the Department of Geography at the age of 23.
144
Jiro Yonekura
Initially Yonekura studied the Jori allotment system in ancient Japan. Having selected Nara and Omi Basins in Nara and Shiga Prefectures for his fieldwork, he considered the relationships between the Jori system of rural settlement and the cultural landscape of rice-growing villages in Japan. He analysed the cultural landscape in fieldwork, classified various elements in the landscape, gave consideration to processes of landscape changes, and, effectively reconstructed the cultural landscapes of past times. In doing so, he came to regard Chinese land divisions and settlements in the ancient past as the model of the Jori system in Japan. He subsequently investigated the Jori system in four other provinces, in part in an attempt to recover its original or 'essential' form, and in part to use the Jori allotment system as an explanation of contemporary settlement forms and as a diagrammatic model to aid the understanding of the development of the medieval village (Ishida 1972). He further studied ancient towns and cities on the basis of the Jori system in relation to urban planning. He considered the Jobo system of capital cities such as Otsu-kyo (Otsu Capital), Heijo-kyo (Nara Capital) and Heian-kyo (Kyoto Capital) in relation to the bloc system of Chang-an in ancient China. He initiated studies of the Kokufu towns, provincial capitals, in terms of urban origin in ancient Japan and, in estimating the locations and the scales of several other Kokufu towns by reconstructing their associated Jori allotments, he opened up a new field in historical geography, notably in the 1930s. When the Lukow-Kiao (Marco Polo Bridge) Incident broke out in July 1937, Yonekura had just assumed a position as lecturer at Wakayama Commercial College (what is now Wakayama University). He was promoted to professor there in 1938. His interest in China and Manchuria were the result of study trips there in 1932 and 1936. From July to September 1939, he undertook a study trip through Korea, Manchuria, North China and Inner Mongolia. From the spring of 1939, he had also become a regular member of a group engaged in geopolitical studies organized by S. Komaki in Kyoto, and as part of that group, Yonekura studied works on China and Manchuria. The main object of his study thus shifted to China and associated regions, and its substance towards geography's practical applications. He turned to the political and military geography of China, directing his attention to the fact that the situation after the Lukow-Kiao Incident was similar to the struggle between the north and the south in ancient and medieval China, and surmising that the Incident would be prolonged in the same way as its historical precedents. In that regard, he was more pessimistic than others whose optimistic view was that the Incident would not have a prolonged effect. From the summer of 1940 in Japan, advocates of geopolitics were advancing plans for a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Yonekura conducted geopolitical studies in association with this idea. Historically, all the main dynasties of China, Han, Sui, Tang and Ming, which united the whole mainland of China, acquired three territories outside mainland China, namely, Korea, Vietnam and the northwest of China. Control of these territories is necessary, it was argued, to bring Greater East Asia under a single political authority. Japan had not yet conquered the northwest of China, however, and this shortfall provided legitimacy for the view that it was necessary to extend Japanese power over Mongolia, and to change the principal routes accordingly. At the geographical core of the CoProsperity Sphere was the East China Sea and Huang Hai, and the idea is that the main industry of the sphere should be placed on the districts along the shores of these waters. In addition, south of Manchuria should be part of the core, given the distribution of its natural resources. This region of heavy industry should be established as a single economic district even though it crossed political divisions. In the agricultural district in the north of Manchuria, Japanese colonists would settle
Jiro Yonekura
145
in groups, mirroring the historical precedent that the Manchurians already settled there were absorbed into the societies of the Han peoples. In terms of the location of settlements, high priority was to be placed on the source of drinking water, more so than questions of the ease of agricultural production given the scarcity of water there. These views found favour with the Japanese military authorities. As a result, Yonekura was asked to accompany a Japanese expeditionary army to South Asia as a researcher in 1943. He arrived at Singapore in February 1944, and thereafter conducted geographical investigations, especially of native races, in Indo-China. Following the war, Yonekura was in Saigon in 1945 and was repatriated to Japan in May 1946. Although he had taken up a Professorship at Yamaguchi Commercial College (which is now Yamaguchi University) in 1942, he was dismissed from this office in 1947 due to his writings on geopolitics (Yonekura 1941, 1944). Yonekura returned to his native village in Saga Prefecture, labouring by day and reading and working on his book at other times (Yonekura 1949). In the preface to this work, he admitted his involvement in Japan's military aggrandizements and stated that this book restarted his life as a scholar. Its main text deals with the history of Japanese settlements and was the first full-scale history of the subject. The book also had an intended practical application in proposing post-war land planning schemes. Yonekura's exile allowed him to study geography, history and archaeology and to advance his work on historical geography, particularly of the Jori system. His four-year absence from public office ended in October 1951 and he took up the position of Professor of Geography at the Faculty of Literature at the University of Hiroshima in March 1952. There, he published a major paper which discussed, in terms of world history, the origin and the dispersal of grid pattern land allotment models, including the Jori system (Yonekura 1952). In this paper he stated that the land allotment originated in the ancient Orient, dispersed to Greece and Rome, and dispersed to China, Korea and Japan where it developed into the Jori system. This idea provided an opportunity for international comparative studies of land allotment systems and was followed by related studies in geography and history. His study of the capital cities and Kokufu towns in ancient Japan, interrupted by the war years, was resumed upon taking up the post in the University of Hiroshima. Notably, his studies of Kokufu towns were remarkably extended, and a large number of sites and scales of Kokufu towns were newly estimated in his papers. As a result, he came up with the following principle of the relation between Kokufu towns and Jori system. That is, the Kokucho (provincial government office) in Kokufu town was established on the basis of the Jori system as previously conducted, the sphere of Kokufu town was demarcated according to squares of the Jori system centring round Kokucho. His 30-year study of the historical geography of settlements was brought together in Yonekura (1960), and had been earlier presented as a dissertation for a doctoral degree at the University of Kyoto in 1957. From 1960, Yonekura turned his energies to the study of India, partly following an invitation as a foreign fellow of the Anthropological Survey of India headed by N. K. Bose, in Calcutta. From October 1960 to September 1961, Yonekura travelled throughout India. On the basis of these research trips, he planned a regional study of India to be conducted at the University of Hiroshima. He again travelled to India in 1964 to elaborate on this plan. The result was a research project entitled 'Recent Changes in the Settlements in India', financed by the Ministry of Education in Japan and begun in 1967. He organized a research committee made up of members of the Department of Geography at the University of Hiroshima, and they conducted three investigations in the lower and middle reaches of the Ganga (Ganges) River between October 1967 and February 1970.
146
Jiro Yonekura
In this work, Yonekura directed his attention to those planned agglomerated settlements with a grid-pattern street network found in various parts of India. His observations on this subject formed the basis of a lecture entitled 'Comparative Study of East Asia and Indian Villages' which Yonekura gave to the National Geographical Society of India in June 1961. In this lecture, he offered a classification in contrast to that of the German von Richthofen, who had classified Indian villages into the East Asian type (on von Richthofen, see Geographers Vol. 7). For Yonekura, Indian villages represented a form somewhere between the East and the West. In both external form and inner structure, Indian villages are comparable to the settlement systems of ancient China and the Jori system in Japan, so, Yonekura argued, Indian villages bear a resemblance to East Asian villages rather more than to Western European villages. The classification of settlement forms by Albert Demangeon, the French geographer (Geographers Vol. 11), which provided a standard basis to village studies of the time was based on investigations in Europe, and denied any relationships between ethnic group and settlement form. Yonekura's work was critical of Demangeon's ideas. He considered that the complicated mix of ethnic type had a major influence upon settlement form and the social structure in Monsoon Asia. As a result, he considered studies of village systems in relation to given regions. Yonekura also conducted studies on agricultural origins and the dispersals. In so doing, he accepted Carl Ortwin Sauer's ideas on the origin of rice farming (On Sauer, see Geographers Vol. 2). Yonekura initially directed his attention to the perennial Oryz,a perennis sp. growing wild in the Ganges delta. He assumed that the cultivators of root crops, skilful in vegetative propagation, had transplanted Oryz,a perennis into the nearby marshy grounds and thus prompted rice farming. As rice farming dispersed in the hill areas surrounding the Ganges delta, the hoe was invented, and the dry-field farming of cereals began in the Deccan Plateau. Farming thus dispersed in northwestern India, and barley cropping using domestic animals for ploughing commenced. In contrast to Europe where agriculture was dominated by stock raising, in East Asia the reverse obtained with cereal cropping dominant. Yonekura also compared urban places with irregular and complicated forms, such as those of Muslim cultures with Dravidian urban forms with its planned square street networks, and clearly indicated the relationships between urban forms and ethnic groups. As a result, he argued for there being more regular urban planning in Mohenjodaro than was popularly considered to be the case, and estimated that both the technology of land allotment and the system of weights and measures had developed to a considerable extent in this urban context. From this, Yonekura stated that Mohenjodaro was the oldest planned urban area in the world, and that its planning had exerted an influence on ancient urban cultures in the Orient and in China.
Scientific Ideas and Geographical Thought Yonekura's studies before about 1960 were characterized by a thorough grasp of East Asia as a whole. This focus and depth of understanding was a feature of the Department of History and Geography at the Imperial University of Kyoto, particularly as represented by T. Ogawa, Konan Naito (1866—1934) in Oriental history, I. Miyazaki and Motoharu Fujita (1879—1958) in geography. Yonekura always took the historical relationships between Japan and China into consideration. In the 1930s, for example, he studied the Jori system and settlements with
Jiro Yonekura
147
reference to the land division and settlements of ancient China. He also studied Heijo-kyo and Heian-kyo in comparison with the Chang-an of ancient China. Yonekura's commitment to the policies of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere allowed him to undertake illuminating descriptions of regional characteristics in Greater East Asia, and to propose a large number of regional plans. A consistent feature of Yonekura's geographical studies, one that lasted for nearly seventy years, was his consideration of settlement types. This is clear in his studies of the Jori settlements, on Kokufu towns and the ancient capitals of Japan, and on work on contemporary villages and on ancient urban places in India. His studies of similar and 'ideal' settlement types covered their origins and dispersal and underlay his studies of comparative regional geography. Yonekura always attached importance to comparative analysis, particularly in relation to regional geography. For instance, he compared the districts along the shores of the Seto Inland Sea, Japan, with those of Lake Erie, considering that the present state of affairs in the latter suggested the future state of the former, not least with regard to levels of industrialization and in the necessary prevention of water pollution. He also compared Seto Inland Sea with the coastal areas located between Luzon and Mindanao Islands. In this study, he used the present state of Japan as an advanced 'model' to investigate the direction of economic development of the Philippines. In his regional-geographical study of Vietnam, he compared it with Korea, considering the two countries to be alike in their natural environments and historical background. His argument in each case was that where shared common social phenomena were in existence, it was possible to forecast the future by means of historical analogy. In his study of the Indian Subcontinent, he considered regional characteristics in contradistinction to those of mainland China. There, his work began with comparison of the Ganges and the Chang Jiang and the two valleys of the Indus and the Kuanghe, and the Deccan Plateau with the mountainous regions of South China. For Yonekura, it was necessary to compare the natural environments first, and the human phenomena next, and in that respect, then to compare the progress of its historical development. Yonekura's concern for administrative planning was a consistent feature of his research activities before and after 1945. His study on the Jori system was of relevance to modern rural planning and his study of Kokufu town likewise to urban planning. His interests in regional planning and political geography were consistent with his attention to comparative regional geography since he considered comparative regional geography necessary for regional planning. Although his interests in geopolitics during the World War II led to him being removed from public office, he was firmly committed to political geography.
Influence and Spread of Ideas To some degree, Yonekura's geographical studies extended and built upon the work of Ogawa. It was Ogawa who began the geographical study of the Jori system and settlements with reference to Chinese land divisions and settlements and Ogawa who had taken up the study of the military geography of China. Yonekura followed and developed Ogawa's studies. Both Ogawa and Yonekura had an interest in the history of Chinese geography: indeed, both were proficient enough in comprehending the Chinese classics that they were able to compose poems in Chinese. Yonekura's work on geopolitics was perhaps a consequence of his connections with Ogawa but also owed to the geopolitics research group organized
148
Jiro Yonekura
by Komaki. Certainly, Yonekura built upon Ogawa's method of historicogeographical study in his work on East Asia, on the origin and dispersal of grid pattern land allotment and related agricultural systems, and in attention to India. Yonekura's studies had a great influence in the Japanese academic worlds of geography and of history. Although he later revised some of his findings and theoretical approaches, his research method was accepted by geographers and historians, and in particular the Jori land allotment as a form of cultural inheritance was subject to detailed research in all parts of the country. Although his study of Kokufu town in the 1930s met then with little response, his theory had a great influence on geographers, historians and archaeologists when he resumed his study of the topic in the 1950s. From the later 1950s to the 1960s, many Kokufu towns were investigated following his methods in various parts of the country, and, at the same time, criticism was raised against his theory. In the 1980s new theories advanced by him on the subject failed to get support. His image of the Kokufu town as a symmetrical square, proposed by him and other researchers, is now open to reinterpretation. Even so, it was of importance that he proposed an 'ideal' type of Kokufu town in relation to a fixed scale and structure since the work helped the promotion of research method in historical geography and initiated a large number of studies into the different regional expressions of such cultural assets. The Indian research projects at the University of Hiroshima founded by Yonekura in 1967 were succeeded in 1972—73 by Hiroshi Ishida and others, and from 1978 to 1983 and from 1987 to 1991 by Kenzo Fujiwara and colleagues. Sin 2001, Japanese-led Indian regional research has been carried on as a research tradition by numerous others. Yonekura's legacy thus continues in this work, an esteemed feature of Indian research, of the Department of Geography at the University of Hiroshima and an important research project within the Japanese geographical community.
Acknowledgements Thanks are due to Professor Emeritus Hiroshi Ishida and Keiichi Takeuchi who gave me invaluable advice on this essay. Assistance rendered by Professor Masaki Taniguchi in editing the English is deeply appreciated.
Bibliography and Sources 1. PRINCIPAL WORKS ON JIRO YONEKURA Ishida, H. (1972), 'Introducing Professor Jiro Yonekura'. In Singh, R. L. (ed.), Rural Settlements in Monsoon Asia. National Geographic Society of India: Varanasi, xiii-xxiv. Masai, Y. and Takeuchi, K. (eds.) (1999), £oku Chirigaku wo Manabu (Experiences of Nineteen Senior Geographers), Tokyo: Kokon shoin. Okada, T. (1998), 'Jugo nen senso ki no Yonekura Jiro' ('Jiro Yonekura's commitment to the Japanese policy and his geographical studies during the wartime between 1931 and 1945'), Chiri Kagaku (Geographical Sciences), 53, 73— 96.
Jiro Yonekura
149
—
(1999), 'Dai ni ji sekai taisen go no Yonekura Jiro' ('Jiro Yonekura's Geographical Studies after World War IF), Chiri Kagaku (Geographical Sciences), 54, 99-125.
—
(2000), Mihon Chirigaku-shi ran (A Study of History of Geography in Modern Japan), Tokyo: Kokon shoin.
—
(2002), Chirigaku-shi (History of Geography in Modern Japan), Tokyo: Kokon shoin.
Yonekura Jiro kyoju Taikan Kinen Jigyo kai (ed.) (1973), Yonekura Jiro Sensei Menpu, Gyoseki, Omoide (Chronology, Works and Recollection of Dr. Jiro Yonekura), Hiroshima: Yonekura Jiro kyoju Taikan Kinen Jigyo kai. 2. PRINCIPAL WORKS BY JIRO YONEKURA 1932
'Noson keikaku to shite no Jori-sei' ('Jori system in rural planning'), Chiri Ronso (Essays on Geography) 1, 307—352.
1933
'Ritsuryo jidai shoki no sonraku' ('Villages in the early Ritsuryo system'), Chiri Ronso (Essays on Geography) 2, 198—228.
1935
'Omi kokufu no ichi ni tsuite' ('A study of the site of the principal town in Omi Province in ancient times'), Kokogaku (Archaeology) 6, 376—380.
1936
'Chusei sonraku no yoso' ('Some features of the medieval village'), Chiri Ronso (Essays on Geography), 8, 415^4-50.
1941
Toa Chiseigaku Josetsu (An Introduction to a Geopolitical Study of East Asia), Tokyo: Seikatsu sha. 'Shindai hokuman no tonkon' ('Military settlement in northern Manchuria in the T'sing Dynasty'), Toa Jinbun Gakuho (Bulletin of Cultural Studies for East Asia), 1, 698-713.
1944
Manshu to Shina (Manchuria and China), Tokyo: Hakuyo sha.
1949
Shuraku no Rekishi-chiri (A Historical Geography of Settlements in Japan),, Tokyo: Teikoku shoin.
1952
'Hokaku jo kochi wari no genryu to sono denpa' ('The origin and the propagation of the square field system in the world'), Chigaku ^asshi (Journal of Geography) 61, 8—13.
1954
'Kokufu to jori' (Kokufu and Jori'), Shigaku Kenkyu (Review of Historical Studies) 57, 1-5.
1957
'Toa ni okeru hokaku jo jiwari no tenkai' ('The development of gridpattern land in eastern Asia'), Chirigaku Hyoron (Geographical Review of Japan) 30, 529-548.
1960
Toa no Shuraku (Settlements in East Asia), Tokyo: Kokon shoin.
1961
'Comparative study of East Asian and Indian villages' , Geographical Review of India 33, 6—15.
1962
Ganjisu-gawa no Keizai-Chirigaku teki Kenkyu (An Economic Geography of Ganga Plain), Tokyo: Ajia keizai kenkyu sho.
1968
'Suito saku no kigen chi ni tsuite' ('The origin of rice cultivation') In
150
Jiro Yonekura Komaki Saneshige sensei koki kinen jigyo iin kai (ed.), Jinbun Chirigaku no Shomondai (Problems of Human Geography), Tokyo: Taimeido, 499—504.
1969
Indo no Momin Seikatsu (Peasant Life in India), Tokyo: Kokon shoin.
1971
'Geographical comparison between the Bengal Plain and the lower Yangtze Plain', National Geographical Journal of India 17, 161^1.
1973
Indo Shuraku no Henbo (Recent Changes in Settlements in India), Tokyo: Kokon shoin.
1981
Tndasu toshi to sono shakudo' ('A new interpretation of the town planning of Indus towns'), Chiri Kagaku (Geographical Sciences) 36, 1—15. 'Introductory notes on the inland seas of Japan and Philippines' In Research Report on the Comparison of the Inland Sea Areas of Japan and Philippines, Hiroshima: Hiroshima Shudo University, 1—6.
1984
'Indus towns and Huanghe towns: The origin of the grid pattern town plan', Geographical Review of Japan, 57 (Ser. B), 101—110.
1990
'A comparative study of the Chang Jiang basin with the Ganges basin from the viewpoint of historical geography', Geographical Review of India 52, 1-7.
1992
Indo A- Tairiku Yugaku Ki (A Record of Study Travel through the Sub-Continent India), Tokyo: Taimeido.
Chronology 1909
Born in Kamimine-mura, Saga Prefecture, Japan
1928
Finished Saga High School
1931
Graduated from the Department of Geography, Faculty of Literature, Imperial University of Kyoto. Staff member of the Faculty of Agriculture, Imperial University of Kyoto
1932
Assistant, Department of Geography, Imperial University of Kyoto. Research work in China and Manchuria
1936
Research work in Formosa and Mainland China
1937
Lectureship at Wakayama Commercial College. (Promoted to Professor in 1938)
1939
Research work in China
1941
Research work in Manchuria. Appointed to professorship at Yamaguchi Commercial College
1944
Part of the expeditionary army to South Asia as a researcher
1945
Conducted an investigation in Indo-China
1946
Repatriated to Japan
1947—51
Dismissed from public office
Jiro Yonekura
151
1952
Assumed professorship at the Department of Geography, the Faculty of Literature, the University of Hiroshima
1956—57
Undertakes research on Jori system
1957
Awarded Doctor of Literature by the University of Kyoto
1958
Establishes the Institute for Southeast Asia Research, the University of Hiroshima
1960
Invited as a Foreign Fellow to the Anthropological Survey of India, Government of India
1961
Travelled widely in India
1962
Established the Chugoku and Shikoku Society for Urban Studies
1963—64
Granted Science Research Expenses for geographical study of regional planning in Chugoku and Shikoku
1967—69
Conducted an investigation into recent changes in settlements in India with an overseas research grant from the Japanese Ministry of Education
1970
Nominated as a committee member for establishing the Institute of World Geography
1971
Awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Medal
1973
Retired from professorship of the University of Hiroshima.
1973—85
Assumes professorship at Hiroshima Shudo University
1975
Undertakes research on the remains of ancient Indus civilizations
1977—79
Investigates inland sea of the Philippines as part of the Philippines research project of Hiroshima Shudo University
1981
Investigates the remains of Roman land allotment schemes in North Italy
2002
Dies 20 December in Hiroshima
152
Index
Index
The index is divided into two parts: 1. A general index, including personal names, organizations, conferences, societies, and geographical concepts, theories and research. 2. A cumulative list of biobibliographies which includes all the geographers listed in volumes 1—27. 1.
GENERAL INDEX
Abbot, George 31, 37 Africa vii, viii, 13, 43, 45, 49, 50, 51-3, 54, 56 agricultural geography vii, ix, 108, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 146, alchemy 2, 6 Amsterdam 14, 20 anthropology 98, 110, 111, 113, 122, 133 Apion, Philipp 6, 21 archaeology 34, 39 'armchair geography' 52, 56 Asia 13 Association of American Geographers 116, 135 astrology 2 ,5, 6 astronomy vii, 2, 6, 13, 17, 22, 55 Australia 101 Batutah, Ibn 49 Bekri, Al 49 Bexhill-on-Sea 72-3, 76, 82, 85 Bird, Isabella 81 Blaeu, Joan 14, 17, 19 Blaeu, Willem Janszoon 12, 13, 14, 21, 22, 38 Blaut, James (Jim') viii, 107-30 Brahe, Tycho vii, 1-27 Braun, Georg 8, 9, 19 British Association for the Advancement of Science 54 Brooke, Ralph 30 Brunhes, Jean 95 Bure, Anders 17, 19 Burton, Richard 51, 52, 53, 56 Butler, J.D. 70 Camden, William
vii, 28-42
Carew, Richard 29 Carpenter, Nathaniel 31, 36, 37 cartography vii, 1, 6, 133, 136 Cassini, Jean Dominique 20 Cecil, William 29, 30 Central Intelligence Agency (US) ix, 133 Charity Organisation Society of London 67, 69 Chicago 67, 83, 108, 117 'Chicago School' 99 China 109, 144, 145, 146, 147 Chomsky, Noam 117, 119 chorography vii, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38 Clark University 115, 116 Colet, John 28 Comite National de Geographic 95, 96 Conklin, Harold 114 Cooley, William Desborough vii, 43-62 Copenhagen 6, 17, 19, 20, 21 Copernicus, Nicolaus 5, 11 cosmography vii cultural geography 107, 110, 111, 120, 121 cultural diffusion 107,120,121 cultural ecology 118, 120 De Martonne, Emmanuel 93, 94, 98, 100, 101 Dean, Elizabeth 67 Demangeon, Albert 94, 95, 96, 101, 146 Denmark 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 14, 16, 19, 21 (see also Brahe) developmental psychology viii development studies viii Dewey, John 108, 110 Eckebrecht, Philipp 13 ecology 93, 97, 98, 99
Index economic geography 95, 132, 133 Egypt 50, 82 Einarson, Oddur 18 Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries 31, 32,
33, 37 England 37, 66 environmental determinism 109 Ethiopia 51 Euclid 44 Europe 12, 13, 68, 109, 117 exploration 68 Fabricus, David 14 Flahault, Charles 94, 97, 98, 100 Flemlose, Peder Jacobsen 5, 11, 15 Foss, Anders 15, 16, 18, 19 France 21 Francis, Alexander Revd 69, 77, 84 Freshfield, Douglas 74 Frisius, Reiner Gemma 6 Galilei, Galileo 5 Gassendi, Pierre 19 Geddes, Arthur 96, 97 genre de vie 99 geodesy vii, 1, 3, 13, 19, 22 geopolitics 144, 145, 147 Germany 2, 6, 134 Gibson, Edmund 35 Glendenning, Robert 132 Gough, Richard 38, 39 Greenland 18 Gregor, Howard ix, 131^3 Greville, Fulke 30 Hackluyt, Richard (the younger) 28, 31, 33, 48 Hackluyt, Richard (the elder) 32 Hackluyt Society 43, 45, 47, 56 Hapgood, Isabel Florence 67, 68, 69, 76, 84, 85 Hartshorne, Richard 112,119 Herodotus 50, 51, 56 Hewett, Ellen 68, 69, 76, 77, 84 Heylyn, Peter 31, 36 Hinks Arthur 73, 76, 83, 84, 85 historical geography 143, 144, 145, 148 Hogenberg, Frans 8, 9, 10, 19 Hondius, Jodocus 17 Hooker, Richard 37 human ecology vii, 96, 97, 118 humanism 31 Hven vii, (see also Brahe) Iceland 17, 18, 19 Idrisi, Al 49 India ix, 65, 134, 143, 145, 147, 148
153
International Geographical Congress 95, 96, 97, 101, 134, 135, 136 International Geographical Union 97, 101, 134, 136 Ireland 44 Janssonius, Joannes 17 Japan ix, 134, 135, 143-5 Jerusalem 82 Jupiter 11 Kant, Immanuel 54 Keltic, John Scott 74, 77 Kepler, Johannes 12, 13 Kingsley, Mary 81 Kniffen, Fred 110, 111, 112, 113, 116, 120, 121 Kropotkin, Peter 78 Labouchere, Henry 68, 76, 84 Latin America 1 0 9 , 1 1 1 , 1 1 7 , 1 1 9 , 1 2 2 Leiden 13 Leipzig 6 Leland, John 30, 35 Livingstone, David viii, 45, 51, 52, 53, 55, 56 London 44, 45, 46 Longomontanus, Christian Sorenson 13, 19 Louisiana State University 110, 111, 113, 116 Lyschander, Glaus Christoffersen 17 McCulloch, J.R. 39 Manchuria ix, 144 Marsden, Kate viii, 63-92 Marxism 107, 120, 121, 123 mathematical geography vii, 6, 36 Mejer, Johannes 18, 19 medical geography 79, 81, 95, 97, 98 Mercator, Gerard 18, 19, 21 Metius, Adriaan 14 microgeographic studies 107, 109, 110, 112, 114, 118, 122 Mongolia 144 Montpellier 93, 94, 96, 98 Morsing, Elias Olsen 5, 11, 21 Moscow 70 National Science Foundation (US) 115, 117 Netherlands 3, 7, 13, 14, 17, 134 New York 107, 108 New Zealand 66, 68, 69, 75, 77, 81, 82 Nightingale, Florence 102 Norris, Emily 64, 72-4, 76, 77 North, Marianne 81
154
Index
Norway
4, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
Ogawa, Takuji 143, 147 Ortelius, Araham 17, 18, 19, 21, 32, 35 Oxford University 29, 30, 31, 33, 37 Paris 20, 93, 94, 95 Paris Geographical Society 45 Peet, Richard 115 Philadelphia 71, 76 physical geography 53-5, 111, 113, 134 Picard, Jean 19, 20, 21 plant geography 93, 94, 97 Platt, Robert 109-10, 118 Poland 11 political ecology viii, 114, 118 political geography 53, 114 Pontanus, Johannes Isaksen 14 oraksson, Gubrandur 17, 18, 19 Portugal 95 Prague 4, 12, 13, 14, 16 Ptolemy 33, 35, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56 Puerto Rico viii, 109, 111, 114, 115, 117, 120, 122 Pyranees 93, 94, 95, 97 Rantzau, Henrik 18 regional geography 95, 143, 147 Renaissance geography 47-67 Riber, Christian Hansen 18, 19 Ritter, Carl 54 Rome 13 Romer, Ole 20 Rostock 4 Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris 20 Royal British Nurses Association 67 Royal Geographical Society viii, 43, 45-8, 52, 53, 55, 56, 64, 67, 69, 72, 73, 74, 81, 84, 85 Royal Observatory in Paris 20 Russell, Richard 110, 111 Russia 66, 68, 75, 79, 85, 109 Sauer, Carl 110, 111, 120, 121, 146 Scaliger, Joseph 36 Scandinavia 1, 3, 21 Scavenius, Glaus Laridsen 17 Scultetus, Bartholomaeus 6 Sheldon, May French 72 Sibbald, Robert 38 Siberia 63, 66, 69, 75, 78, 81, 82, 83 Siberian Leper Fund 70 Sidney, Philip 29, 30 Singapore 109, 112, 118, 145 Sion, Jules 94, 95, 96, 98 Snellius, Willebrordus 13, 20, 21
Snow, Helen 77, 85 Society of St. Francis 64 Somerville, Mary 54 Sorre, Maximillien viii, 93-106 Sorrentini, Meca (de Blaut) 114, 115, 117 Spain 95, 134 spatial cognition 107, 115, 116, 117, 119, 122 Spole, Anders 20 St. Francis Leper Guild 70-2, 75, 81, 82 St. John's Ambulance Association 65 St. Petersburg 69 Stafforde, Robert 31 Stea, David 115, 116, 117, 119, 122 Stephanius, Stephanus Johannis 17 Strabo 36 Sweden 1, 4 Switzerland 2 Thomson, Kenneth 133 time-space compression 98 Trewartha, Glenn 132 triangulation 6—7, 11, 20—1 Trinity College Dublin 44 Turkey 44 Union of Socialist Geographers 115 United States of America ix, 68, 69, 72, 108, 109, 112, 113, 115 University of Basel 2 University of California, Berkeley 115, 133 University of California, Davis 131, 133 University of California, Los Angeles 132 University of Chicago 108, 109, 110 University of Copenhagen 1, 2, 13, 17, University of Hiroshima 148 University of Illinois, Chicago 116, 118 University of Lille 95, 101 University of Malaya 112 University of Paris, Sorbonne 93, 94, 96, 98, 100, 101 University of Puerto Rico 114, 115, 116 University of Rostock 2 University of Wisconsin, Madison 115, 131, 132 University of Wittenburg 2 urban ecology 93, 96, 97 urban geography 95 vegetational mapping 94 Vedel, Anders Sorensen 2, 11, 17, 21 Vidal de la Blache, Paul ix, 93, 94, 95, 98, 99, 100 Villiard, Estienne 20 von Humboldt, Alexander 48, 54 Waghenaer, Lucas Janszoon
14, 21
Index West Indies
44, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115,
116, 122
Westminster School 29, 30, 33, 37, 38 Wheare, Degory 31, 34 Wheatley, Paul 112
2.
155
Women's Christian Temperance Union 67 Yale University 109, 113, 114 Yonekura, Jiro ix, 143-51
CUMULATIVE LIST OF BIOBIBLIOGRAPHIES
ADAIR, John (1660 1718) 20, 1 8 AL-BIRUNI (Abu'Rayhan Muhammad) (973 1054) 13, 1 9 AL-HASAN, see LEO AFRICANUS AL-KINDI (801 873) 17, 1 8 ALMAGIA, Roberto (1884 1962) 13,11 15 AL-MUQADDASI (c. 945 c. 988) 4, 1 6 ANGEL, Jacques (1882 1943) 3, 1 6 ANUCHIN, Dmitry Nikolaevich (1843 1923) 2, 1 8 APIANUS, Peter (1495 or 1501 1552) 6, 1 6 ARBOS, Philippe (1882 1956) 3, 1 12 ARDEN-CLOSE, Charles Frederick (1865 1952) 9, 1 13 ARMSTRONG, Terence Edward (1920 1996) 18, 1 9 ARQUE, Paul (1887 1970) 7, 5 9 ASCHMANN, Homer (1920 1992) 24, 1 27 ATWOOD, Wallace Walter (1872 1949) 3, 13 18 AUROUSSEAU, Marcel (1891 1983) 12, 1 8
BLAUT, James Morris (1927 2000) 27, 107 130 BLODGET, Lorin (1823 1901) 5, 9 12 BOBEK, Hans (1903 1990) 16, 12 22 BONNEY, Thomas George (1833 1923) 17, 9 16 BOSE, Nirmal Kumas (1901 1972) 2, 9 11 BOWEN, Emrys George (1900 1983) 10, 17 23 BOWMAN, Isaiah (1878 1950) 1, 9 18 BRAKE, Tycho (1546 1601) 27, 1 27 BRATESCU, Constantin (1882 1945) 4, 19 24 BRAUDEL, Fernand (1902 1985) 22, 28 42 BRAWER, Abraham Jacob (1884 1975) 12, 9 19 BRIGHAM, Albert Perry (1855 1929) 2, 13 19 BROEK, Jan Otto Marius (1904 1974) 22, 43 62 BROOKS, Alfred Hulse (1871 1924) 1, 19 23 BROOKS, Charles Franklin (1891 1958) 18, 10 20 BROWN, Ralph Hall (1898 1948) 9, 15 20 BROWN, Robert Neal Rudmose (1879 1957) BAINES, Thomas (1820 1875) 23, 1 13 BAKER, John Norman Leonard (1893 1971) 8, 1 16 BRUCE, William Speirs (1867 1921) 77,1725 16, I 11 BAKER, Samuel John Kenneth (1907 1992) BRUNHES, Jean (1869 1930) 25,1 12 BUACHE, Philippe (1700 1773) 9, 21 7 22, 1 11 BANSE, Ewald (1883 1953) 8, 1 5 BUJAK, Franciszek (1875 1953) 16, 23 30 BARANSKIY, Nikolay Nikolayevich BUSCHING, Anton Friedrich (1724 1793) (1881 1963) 10, 1 16 6, 1 15 BARBOUR, George Brown (1890 1977) 23, 14 34 CAMDEN, William (1551 1623) 27, 28 42 CAMENA d'ALMEIDA, Pierre (1865 1943) BATES, Henry Walter (1852 1892) 11, 1 5 BAULIG, Henri (1877 1962) 4, 1 17 7, 1 4 BEAUFORT, Francis (1774 1857) 19, 1 15 CAPOT-REY, Robert (1897 1977) 5,13 19 BECKINSALE, Robert Percy (1908 1998) CAREY, Henry Charles (1793 1879) 10, 22, 12 27 25 8 BERG, Lev Semenovich (1876 1950) 5, 1 7 CARTER, George F. (1912 2004) 26, 27 49 BERNARD, Augustin (1865 1947) 3, 19 27 CAVAILLES, Henri (1870 1951) 7, 5 9 CHATTERJEE, Shiba P. (1903 1989) 18, BINGHAM, Millicent Todd (1880 1968) 21 35 CHISHOLM, George Goudie (1850 1930) 11, 1 12 BLACHE, Jules (1893 1970) 1,1 8 12, 21 33
156
Index
CHRISTALLER, Walter (1893 1969) 7, 11 16 CHULALONGKORN, King of Siam (1853 1910) 21, 65 71 CHURCH, James Edward, Jr (1869 1959) 22, 63 71 CLARK, Andrew Hill (1911 1975) 14, 13 25 CLEMENTS, Frederic Edward (1874 1945) 18, 36 46 CODAZZI, Augustin (1793 1859) 12, 35 47 COLAMONICO, Carmelo (1882 1973) 12, 49 58 COLBY, Charles Carlyle (1884 1965) 6, 17 22 CONEA, Ion (1902 1974) 12, 59 72 COOK, James (1728 1779) 20, 9 23 COOLEY, William (1795 1883) 27, 43 62 COPERNICUS, Nicholas (1473 1543) 6, 23 9 COPPOCK, John Terence (Terry) (1921 2000) 26, 6 26 CORNISH, Vaughan (1862 1948) 9, 29 35 CORTAMBERT, Eugene (1805 1881) 2, 21 5 COTTON, Charles Andrew (1885 1970) 2, 27 32 COWLES, Henry Chandler (1869 1939) 10, 29 33 CRESSEY, George Babcock (1896 1963) 5, 21 5 CUISINIER, Louis (1883 1952) 16, 96 100 CVIJIC , Jovan (1865 1927) 4, 25 32 D'ABBADIE, Antoine (1810 1897) 3, 29 33 DANA, James Dwight (1813 1895) 15, 11 20 DANTIN-CERECEDA, Juan (1881 1943) 10, 35 40 DARBY, Henry Clifford (1909 1992) 26, 79 97 DARWIN, Charles (1809 1882) 9, 37 45 DAVID, Mihai (1886 1954) 6, 31 3 DAVIDSON, George (1825 1911) 2, 33 7 DAVIS, William Morris (1850 1934) 5, 27 33 DE BRAHM, William Gerard (1718 1799) 10, 41 7 DE CHARPENTIER, Jean (1786 1855) 7, 17 22 DE MARTONNE, Emmanuel (1873 1955) 12, 73 81 DEE, John (1527 1608) 10, 49 55 DEMANGEON, Albert (1872 1940) 11, 13 21 DIAZ COVARRUBIAS, Francisco
(1833 1889) 19, 16 26 DICKEN, Samuel N. (1901 1989) 13, 17 22 DICKINSON, Robert Eric (1905 1981) 8, 17 25 DIMITRESCU-ALDEM, Alexandre (1880 1917) 3, 35 7 DION, Roger (1896 1981) 18, 47 52 DOKUCHAEV, Vasily Vasilyevich (1846 1903) 4, 33 42 DOUGHTY, Charles Montagu (1843 1926) 21, 1 13 DRAPEYRON, Ludovic (1839 1901) 6, 35 8 DRYER, Charles Redaway (1850 1927) 11, 23 6 DRYGALSKI, Erich von (1865 1949) 7, 23 9 DUNBAR, William (1749 1810) 19, 27 36 ELTON, Charles Sutherland (1900 1991) 21, 14 27 ERATOSTHENES (c. 275 c. 195 BC) 2, 39 43 EVANS, Emyr Estyn (1905 1989) 25, 13 23 EVEREST, Sir George (1790 1866) 15, 21 36 EYRE, Edward John (1815 1901) 15, 37 50 FABRICIUSJohann Albert (1668 1736) 5, 35 9 FAIRGRIEVE, James (1870 1953) 8, 27 33 FAWCETT, Charles Bungay (1883 1952) 6, 39 46 FEBVRE, Lucien (1878 1956) 23, 35 49 FEDCHENKO, Alexei Pavlovich (1844 1873) 8, 35 8 FENNEMAN, Nevin Melancthon (1865 1945) 10, 57 68 FITZROY, Robert (1805 1865) 11, 27 33 FLEURE, Herbert John (1877 1969) 11, 35 51 FORBES, James David (1809 1868) 7, 31 7 FORMOZOV, Alexander Nikolayevich (1899 1973) 7, 39 46 FORREST, Alexander (1849 1901) and FORREST, John (1847 1918) 8, 39 43 FOX, Cyril (1882 1967) 23, 50 60 FRANZ, Johann Michael (1700 1761) 5, 41 8 FREEMAN, Thomas Walter (1908 1988) 22, 72 90 FRESHFIELD, Douglas William (1845 1934) 13, 23 31
Index GALLOIS, Lucien (1857 1941) 24, 28 41 GANNETT, Henry (1846 1914) 8, 45 9 GARCIA CUBAS, Antonio (1832 1912) 22, 91 8 GAVIRA MARTIN, Jose (1903 1951) 19, 37 49 GEDDES, Arthur (1895 1968) 2, 45 51 GEDDES, Patrick (1854 1932) 2, 53 65 GEIKIE, Archibald (1835 1924) 3, 39 52 GENTILLI, Joseph (Giuseppe) (1912 2000) 25, 34 41 GERALD OF WALES, see GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS GERASIMOV, Innokentii Petrovich (1905 1985) 12, 83 93 GILBERT, Edmund William (1900 1973) 3, 63 71 GILBERT, Grove Karl (1843 1918) 1, 25 33 GILLMAN, Clement (1882 1946) 1, 35 41 GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS (c. 1146 1223) 21, 28 45 GLACKEN, Clarence James (1909 1989) 14, 27 41 GLAREANUS, Henricus (1488 1563) 5, 49 54 GMELIN, Johann Georg (1709 1755) 13, 33 7 GOBLET, Yann-Morvran (1881 1955) 13, 39 44 GOODE, John Paul (1862 1932) 8, 51 5 GOULD, Peter Robin (1932 2000) 24, 42 62 GOURDU, Pierre (1900 1994) 25, 60 80 GOTTMAN, Jean (1915 1994) 25,42 59 GOYDER, George Woodroffe (1826 1898) 7, 47 50 GRADMANN, Robert (1865 1950) 6, 47 54 GRAND, Johannes Gabriel (1882 1956) 3, 73 84 GREELY, Adolphus Washington (1844 1935) 17, 26 42 GREGOR, Howard F. (1920 2000) 27, 131 142 GREGORY, Augustus Charles (1819 1905) 23, 61 72 GREGORY, Francis Thomas (1821 1888) 23, 61 72 GREGORY, John Walter (1864 1932) 23, 73 84 GREY, George (1812 1898) 22, 99 111 GRIGORYEV, Andrei Alexandrovich (1883 1968) 5, 55 61 GUYOT, Arnold Henry (1807 1884) 5, 63 71
157
HAGERSTRAND, Torsten (1916 2004) 26, 119 57 HALL, Robert Burnett (1896 1975) 25, 81 92 HARE, F. Kenneth (1919 2002) 25, 93 108 HASSERT, Ernst Emil Kurt (1868 1947) 10, 69 76 HAUSER, Henri (1866 1946) 26, 50 66 HAUSHOFER, Karl (1869 1946) 12, 95 106 HERBERTSON, Andrew John (1865 1915) 3, 85 92 HERDER, Johann Gottfried (1744 1803) 10, 77 84 HETTNER, Alfred (1859 1941) 6, 55 63 HIMLY, Louis-Auguste (1832 1906) 1, 43 7 HO, Robert (1921 1972) 1, 49 54 HOHNEL, Ludwig von (1857 1942) 7, 43 7 HOLMES, James Macdonald (1896 1966) 7, 51 5 HOWITT, Alfred William (1830 1908) 15, 51 60 HUGHES, William (1818 1876) 9, 47 53 HUGUET DEL VILLAR, Emilio (1871 1951) 9, 55 60 HULT, Ragnar (1857 1899) 9, 61 9 HUTCHINGS, Geoffrey Edward (1900 1964) 2, 67 71 IBNBATTUTA (1304 1378) 14,1 11 IGLESIES-FORT, Josep (1902 1986) 12, 107 11 ILESIC, Svetozar (1907 1985) 11, 53 61 ISACHSEN, Fridtjov Eide (1906 1979) 10, 85 92 ISIDA, Ryuziro (1904 1979) 15, 61 74 JAMES, Preston Everett (1899 1986) 11, 63 70 JOBBERNS, George (1895 1974) 5, 73 6 JOHNSTON, Alexander Keith (1844 1879) 26, 98 109 JONES, Llewellyn Rodwell (1881 1947) 4, 49 53 KANT, Edgar (1902 1978) 11, 71 82 KANT, Immanuel (1724 1804) 4, 55 67 KECKERMANN, Bartholamaus (1572 1609) 2, 73 9
KELTIE, John Scott (1840 1927) 70,93 8 KENDREW, Wilfrid George (1884 1962) 17, 43 51 KIM, Chong-ho (c. 1804 1866) 16, 37 44 KINGSLEY, Mary Henrietta (1862 1900) 19, 50 65
158
Index
KIRCHOFF, Alfred (1838 1907) 4, 69 76 KOMAROV, Vladimir Leontyevitch (1862 1914) 4, 77 86 KRAUS, Theodor (1894 1973) 11, 83 7 KROPOTKIN, Pyotr (Peter) Alexeivich (1842 1921) 7, 57 62, 63 9 KRUMMEL, Johann Gottfried Otto (1854 1912) 10, 99 104 KUBARY, Jan Stanislaw (1846 1896) 4, 87 9 LARCOM, Thomas Aiskew (1801 1879) 7, 71 4 LATTIMORE, Owen (1900 1989) 20, 24 42 LAUTENSACH, Hermann (1886 1971) 4, 91 101 LEFEVRE, Marguerite Alice (1894 1967) 10, 105 10 LEICHHARDT, Friedrich (1813 1848?) 17, 52 67 LEIGHLY, John (1895 1986) 12, 113 19 LELEWEL, Joachim (1786 1861) 4,103 12 LENCEWICZ, Stanislaw (1899 1944) 5, 77 81 LEO AFRICANUS (Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al Wazzan az-Zayyati) (c. 7499 1550) 15, 1 9 LEPEKHIN, Ivan Ivanovich (1740 1802) 12, 121 3 LEVASSEUR, Emile (1828 1911) 2, 81 7 LEWIS, William Vaughan (1907 1961) 4, 113 20 LHWYD (LHUYD), Edward (1660 1709) 24, 63 78 LI DAOYUAN (fl c. AD 500) 12, 125 31 LINTON, David Leslie (1906 1971) 7, 75 83 LLOBET I REVERTER, Salvador (1908 1991) 19, 66 74 LOBECK, Armin Kohl (1886 1958) 22, 112 31 LOMONOSOV, Mikhail Vasilyevich (1711 1765) 6, 65 70 MacCARTHY, Oscar (1815 1894) 8, 57 60 McGEE, William John (1853 1912) 10, 111 16 McNEE, Robert Bruce (1922 1992) 25, 109 21 MACKINDER, Halford John (1861 1947) 9, 71 86 MAGELLAN, Ferdinand (c. 1480 1521) 18, 53 66 MAKAROV, Stepan Osipovich (1848 1904) 11, 89 92 MAKIGUCHI, Tsunesaburo (1871 1944)
20, 43 56 MALTHUS, Thomas Robert (1766 1834) 20, 57 67 MARSDEN, Kate (1859 1931) 27, 63 92 MARTINEAU, Harriet (1802 1876) 21, 46 64 MARX, Karl (1818 1883) 19, 75 85 MASON, Kenneth J. (1887 1976) 18, 67 72 MATHER, Cotton (1918 1999) 23, 85 96 MATTRES, Francois Emile (1874 1948) 14, 43 57 MAURY, Matthew Fontaine (1806 1873) I , 59 63 MAY, Jacques M. (1896 1975) 7, 85 8 MEHEDINTI, Simion (1868 1962) 1, 65 72 MELANCHTHON, Philipp (1497 1560) 3, 93 7 MELIK, Anton (1890 1966) 9, 87 94 MENTELLE, Edmunde (1730 1815) 11, 93 104 MENTELLE, Francois-Simon (1731 1799) I I , 93 104 MEURIOT, Paul (1861 1919) 16, 45 52 MIHAILESCU, Vintila (1890 1978) 8, 61 7 MIKLOUHO-MACLAY, Nikolai Nikolaevich (1846 1888) 22, 132 40 MILL, Hugh Robert (1861 1950) 1, 73 8 MILNE, Geoffrey (1898 1942) 2, 89 92 MILOJEVIC, Borivoje Z. (1885 1967) 23, 97 104 MITCHELL, Thomas Livingstone (1792 1855) 5, 83 7 MONGKUT, King of Siam (1804 1868) 21, 65 71 MUELLER, Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich von (1825 1896) 5, 89 93 MUIR, John (1838 1914) 14, 59 67 MUNSTER, Sebastian (1488 1552) 3, 99 106 MUSHETOV, Ivan Vasylievitch (1850 1902) 7, 89 91 MYRES, John Linton (1869 1954) 16, 53 62 NAKANOME, Akira (1874 1959) 20,68 76 NALKOWSKI, Waclaw (1851 1911) 13, 45 52 NANS EN, Fridtjof( 1861 1930) 16, 63 79 NELSON, Helge (1882 1966) 8, 69 75 NEUSTRUEV, Sergei Semyonovich (1874 1928) 8, 77 80 NIELSEN, Niels (1893 1981) 10, 117 24 OBERHUMMER, Eugen (1859 1944) 7, 93 100 OBRUCHEV, Vladimir Afanas'yevich (1863 1956) 11, 105 10
Index ODAUCHI, Michitoshi (1875 1954) 26, 110 18 O'DELL, Andrew Charles (1909 1966) 11,
111 22
OGAWA, Takuji (1870 1941) 6, 71 6 OGILBY, John (1600 1676) 20, 77 84 ORGHIDAN, Nicolai (1881 1967) 6, 77 9 ORMSBY, Hilda (1877 1973) 5, 95 7 PALLAS, Peter Simon (1741 1811) 17, 68 81 PARK, Mungo (1771 1806) 23, 105 15 PARSONS, James Jerome (1915 1997) 19, 86 101 PARTSCH, Joseph Franz Maria (1851 1925) 10, 125 33 PAULITSCHKE, Philipp (1854 1899) 9, 95 100 PAVLOV, Alexsei Petrovich (1854 1929) 6, 81 5 PAWLOWSKI, Stanislaw (1882 1940) 14, 69 81 PEEL, Ronald (1912 1985) 25, 122-39 PENCK, Albrecht (1858 1945) 7, 101 8 PENNANT, Thomas (1726 1798) 20,85 101 PERRON, Charles-Eugene (1837 1909) 20, 102 7 PETERMANN, August Heinrich (1822 1878) 12, 133 8 PHILIPPSON, Alfred (1864 1953) 13, 53 61 PITTIER, Henri-Francois (1857 1950) 10, 135 42 PLATT, Robert Swanton (1891 1964) 3, 107 16 PLAYFAIR, James (1738 1819) 24, 79 85 PLEWE, Ernst (1907 1986) 13, 63 71 POEY, Felipe (1799 1891) and POEY, Andes (1825 1919) 24, 86 97 POL, Wincenty (1807 1872) 2, 93 7 POLO, Marco (1254 1324) 15, 75 89 PORTER, Revd Professor Josias Leslie (1823 1889) 26, 67 78 POWELL, John Wesley (1834 1902) 3, 117 24 PRICE, Archibald Grenfell (1892 1977) 6, 87 92 PUMPELLY, Raphael (1837 1923) 14, 83 92 PUTNAM, Donald Fulton (1903 1977) 21, 72 84 RAFFLES, Thomas Stamford (1781 1826) 24, 98 108 RAIMONDI DEL ACQUA, Antonio (1826 1890) 16, 80 7 RAISZ, Erwin Josephus (1893 1968) 6, 93 7 RATZEL, Friedrich (1844 1904) 11, 123 32
159
RAVENSTEIN, Ernst Georg (1834 1913) 1, 79 82 RECLUS, Elisee (1830 1905) 3, 125 32 RECLUS, Paul (1858 1941) 16, 88 95 REISCH, Gregor (c. 1470 1525) 6, 99 104 RENNELL, James (1742 1830) 1, 83 8 REVERT, Eugene (1895 1957) 7, 5 9 RHETICUS, Georg Joachim (1514 1573) 4, 121 6 RICHTER, Eduard (1847 1905) 10, 143 8 RICHTHOFEN, Ferdinand Freiherr von (1833 1905) 7, 109 15 RITTER, Carl (1779 1859) 5, 99 108 ROE, Frank Gilbert (1878 1973) 18, 73 81 ROE, John Septimus (1797 1878) 27,85 96 ROMER, Eugeniusz (1871 1954) 1, 89 96 ROSBERG, Johan Evert (1864 1932) 9, 101 8 ROSIER, William (1856 1924) 10, 149 54 ROXBY, Percy Maude (1880 1947) 5, 109 16 RUHL, Alfred (1882 1935) 12, 139 47 RUSSELL, Richard Joel (1895 1971) 4, 111 38 RYCHKOV, Peter Ivanovich (1712 1777) 9, 109 12 SALAZAR ILARREGUI, Jose (1823 1892) 23, 116 25 SALISBURY, Rollin D. (1858 1922) 6, 105 13 SANCHEZ GRANADOS, Pedro C. (1871 1956) 20, 108 18 SAUER, Carl Ortwin (1889 1975) 2, 99 108 SAWICKI, Ludomir Slepowran (1884 1928) 9, 113 19 SCHLUTER, Otto (1872 1959) 6, 115 22 SCHMITHUSEN, Josef (1909 1984) 14, 93 104 SCHMITTHENNER, Heinrich (1887 1957) 5, 117 21 SCHRADER, Franz (1844 1924) 1, 97 103 SCHWERIN, Hans Hugold von (1853 1912) 8, 81 6 SCORESBY, William (1789 1857) 4, 139 47 SEMENOV-TYAN SHANSKIY, Petr Petrovich (1827 1914) 12, 149 58 SEMENOV-TYAN SHANSKIY, Veniamin Petrovich (1870 1942) 13, 67 73 SEMPLE, Ellen Churchill (1863 1932) 8, 87 94 SHALER, Nathaniel Southgate (1841 1906) 3, 133 9 SHEN KUO (1033 1097) 11, 133 7 SHIGA, Shigetaka (1863 1927) 8, 95 105 SIBBALD, Robert (1641 1722) 17, 82 91 SIEVERS, Wilhelm (1860 1921) 8, 107 10
160
Index
SIGN, Jules (1879 1940) 12, 159 65 SINGH, Chandra Pal (1939 2000) 23, 126 39 SMITH, George Adam (1856 1942) 1, 105 6 SMITH, Joseph Russell (1874 1966) 21, 97 113 SMITH, Wilfred (1903 1955) 9, 121 8 SMITH, William (1769 1839) 23, 140 51 SMOLENSKI, Jerzy (1881 1940) 6, 123 7 SOLCH, Johann (1883 1951) 7, 117 24 SOLE I SABARIS, Lluis (1908 1985) 12, 167 74 SOMERVILLE, Mary (1780 1872) 2, 100 11 SORRE, Max (1880 1962) 27, 93 106 SPENCE, Catherine Helen (1825 1910) 22, 141 56 SPENCER, Joseph Earle (1907 1984) 13, 81 92 STAMP, Laurence Dudley (1898 1966) 12, 175 87 STEINMETZ, Sebald Rudolf (1862 1940) 24, 109 24 STOFFLER, Johannes (1452 1531) 5, 123 8 STOKES, John Lort (1811 1885) 18, 82 93 STRZELECKI, Pawel Edmund (1797 1873) 2, 113 18 TAMAYO, Jorge Leonides (1912 1978) 7, 125 8 TANSLEY, Arthur George (1871 1955) 13, 93 100 TATISHCHEV, Vasili Nikitich (1686 1750) 6, 129 32 TAYLOR, Thomas Griffith (1880 1963) 3, 141 53 TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, Pierre (1881 1955) 7, 129 33 TELEKI, Paul (1879 1941) 11, 139 43 TENISON-WOODS, Julian Edmund, see WOODS, Julian Edmund Tenison TERAN-ALVAREZ, Manuel de (1904 1984) 11, 145 53 THOMPSON, David (1770 1857) 18, 94 112 THORNTHWAITE, Charles Warren (1899 1963) 18, 113 29 TILLO, Alexey Andreyevich (1839 1900) 3, 155 9 TOPELIUS, Zachris (1818 1898) 3, 161 3 TORRES CAMPOS, Rafael (1853 1904) 13, 102 7 TOSCHI, Umberto (1897 1966) 11, 155 64 TROLL, Carl (1899 1975) 3, 111 24
TULIPPE, Omer (1896 1968) 11, 165 72 ULLMAN, Edward Louis (1912 1976) 9, 129 35 VALLAUX, Camille (1870 1945) 2, 119 26 VALSAN, Georg (1885 1935) 2, 127 33 VAN CLEEF, Eugene (1887 1973) 9, 137 43 VAN PAASSEN, Christiaan (1917 1996) 22, 157 68 VAVILOV, Nikolay Ivanovich (1887 1943) 13, 109 16, 117 32 VEDOVA, Giuseppe Dalla (1834 1919) 23, 152 62 VERNADSKY, Vladimir Ivanovich (1863 1945) 7, 135 44 VICENS VIVES, Jaume (1910 1960) 17, 92 105 VIDAL DE LA BLACHE, Paul (1845 1917) 12, 189 201 VILA I DINARES, Pau (1881 1980) 13, 133 40 VIVEN DE SAINT-MARTIN, Louis (1802 1896) 6, 133 8 VOLZ, Wilhelm (1870 1959) 9, 145 50 VOYEIKOV, Alexander Ivanovich (1842 1916) 2, 135 41 VUIA, Ramulus (1881 1980) 13, 141 50 VUJEVIC, Pavle (1881 1966) 5, 129 31 WAIBEL, Leo Heinrich (1888 1951) 6, 139 47 WALLACE, Alfred Russel (1823 1913) 8, 125 33 WANG YUNG (1899 1956) 9, 151 4 WARNTZ, William (1922 1988) 19, 102 7 WARD, Robert DeCourcy (1867 1931) 7, 145 50 WATSON, James Wreford (1915 1990) 17, 106 15 WELLINGTON, John Harold (1892 1981) 8, 135 40 WEULERSSE, Jacques (1905 1946) 1, 107 12 WHEATLEY, Paul (1921 1999) 24, 125 45 WHITTLESEY, Derwent Stainthorpe (1890 1956) 25, 128 58 WILKES, Charles (1798 1877) 15, 91 104 WISSLER, Clark (1870 1947) 7, 151 4 WOODS, Julian Edmund Tenison (1832 1889) 21, 114 122 WOOLDRIDGE, Sidney William (1900 1963) 8, 141 9
Index WRIGHT, John Kirtland (1891 1969) 22, 169 81 WU SHANG SHI (1904 1947) 13, 151 4 XU HONGZU (1587 1641) 16,31 6 YAMASAKI, Naomasa (1870 1928) 1, 113 17
YI CHUNG-HWAN (1690 1756) 21, 123 130 YONEKURA, Jiro (1909 2002) 27, 143 151 ZHENG HE (1371 1433) 20, 11925
161