Historical Geographies

Historical Geographies: The Basics provides readers with a thorough grounding in a sub-discipline that revisits the past through a geographical lens. It encourages the reader to pursue researching the past in a usable manner, reflecting on the role of the past in the present and how it might inform geographical thinking.

Across seven chapters, the authors guide readers through their engagement with the past, via direct encounters with archives and memories, as well as buildings, artefacts and landscapes. It poses critical reflections on how we might work with the potential gaps and fragments in revisiting the past and the ways in which we can follow traces to unearth hidden histories. In doing so, it covers both conceptual questions and practical skills in historical geography. Critical questions include; how might we apply concepts and theories to case studies from the past? How does a researcher move from an historical idea, through to working in an archive, to writing historical geographies? Similarly, and perhaps more practically, how can we find archives or historical methods that work for our project?

The book will be of particular value to undergraduate and postgraduate geographers and historians. Whether taking a historical geography module, preparing a historical geography dissertation, or reflecting on how the past might inform engagement with geographical study, this book will provide a foundational understanding of the sub-discipline for students of global history, environmental history and further afield.