¹ See: Darby, H. C., “On the Relations of Geography and History,” Transactions and Papers, Institute of British Geographers, XIX (1953), 1–11Google Scholarand Broek, J. O. M., “The Relationships between History and Geography,” Pacific Historical Review, X (Sept. 1941), 321–25.Google Scholar A more extensive discussion is contained in Clark, A. H., “Historical Geography” in James, P. E. and Jones, C. F. (eds.) American Geography: Inventory and Prospect (Syracuse: Association of American Geographers by the Syracuse University Press, 1954), ch. iii, 71–105Google Scholar.

² The most recent comprehensive treatment in English of the philosophy and methodology of geography is Hartshorne, R., Perspective on the Nature of Geography (Assoc. Am. Geogrs. Monograph Series, No. I; Chicago: Rand McNally, 1959)Google Scholar Attention is called to his statement, of direct relevance here (p. 179): “… the student of history cannot confine his study to an area so small as to contain no significant areal differences.… History … must be in greater or less degree geographic. Conversely, as we have seen, since the concept of ‘the present'—or of any other point of time—is an abstraction, all geographic work must be in greater or less degree historical. The distinction between the two kinds of study is not one of separation but of difference in purpose and emphasis.”

³ For a discussion of the subjective and abstract character of “regions” and boundaries so established see Hartshorne Perspective, 129–45. In addition to the general popular meaning of an area of the earth's surface distinguished in any way so that it is useful to talk about it, we have “formal” regions (intellectual generalizations, corresponding to typology in other sciences, based on “relative homogeneity” and ignoring differences deemed minor) and “functional” regions (utilizing the areal extent of systems of organization in reality, like a network of roads centering on a city). As many scholars have pointed out, the analogies between the establishment of “regions” in geography and “periods” in history are very close. It is suggested that when historians become impatient with the geographers’ diffidence, or difficulty, in defining regions that they reflect on their own parallel problem.

⁴ Among North American geographers who have taken the lead in quantitative statistical applications are W. L. Garrison, H. H. McCarty, J. R. Mackay, A. H. Robinson, E. J. Taafe, E. L. Ullman and W. Warntz. Two review articles by Garrison, , “Spatial Structure of the Economy: “I” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, XLIX (June 1949), 232–39Google Scholar and “II,” ibid. (Dec. 1949), 471–82, are useful in indicating some of the nature and extent of the geographical interest. Among other recent publications are: Mackay, J. R., “Regional Geography: a Quantitative Approach,” Cahiers de Géogr. de Québec, 3^me ann. (Apr.-Sept. 1959), 57–63;Google ScholarStewart, J. Q and Warntz, W., “Macrogeography and Social Science,” Geogr. Rev. XLVIII (April 1958), 167–84;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and, idem, “Some Parameters of the Geographical Distribution of Population,” Geogr. Rev. XLIX (April 1959), 270–73Google Scholar.

⁵ One of the most effective attempts to place the current statistical “binge” of geographers in perspective is Spate, O. H. K., “Lord Kelvin Rides Again,” guest editorial in Economic Geography, XXXVI (April 1960), facing p. 96Google Scholar. He properly and specifically objects to the dictum: “When you cannot measure [what you are speaking about], when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science. …” See Thomson, Wm. [Lord Kelvin], Popular Lectures and Addresses I (London: Macmillan & Co., 1889), 73Google Scholar.

Spate's rejoinder (or caveat) closes with this statement: “The soul of scientific method is verification, and that is not always numerical. Render unto UNIVAC those things that are UNIVAC's; but remember that statistics are at best but half of life. The other half is understanding and imaginative interpretation.”

⁶ Many geographers have joined, or work closely with, the Regional Science Association, founded in 1954, and the new Institute of Regional Science's Journal of Regional Science, born at the University of Pennsylvania in 1958.

⁷ Rostow's, W. W. remarks in the “Introduction” to The Stages of Economic Growth (London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1960), pp. 2–3Google Scholar are relevant: “… in terms of human motivation, many of the most profound economic changes are viewed as the consequence of non-economic human motives and aspirations.” He goes on to quote Keynes, “If human nature felt no temptation to take a chance, no satisfaction (profit apart) in constructing a factory, a railway, a mine or farm, there might not be much investment merely as a result of cold calculation.” See Keynes, J. M., The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1936), p. 150Google Scholar.

⁸ Hartshorne, R., “The Role of the State in Economic Growth: Contents of the State Area,” in Aitken, H. G. J. (ed.), The State and Economic Growth (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1959), 287–324Google Scholar, especially p. 321. The “human requirements” are suggested by his listing of the retarding effects of illiteracy, particular cultural attitudes, forms of state organization, and so on.

A rather full exposition of the general approach of geographers to such problems has just appeared: Ginsburg, N. (ed.) Essays on Geography and Economic Development (Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Geography, Research Paper No. 62, 1960)Google Scholar, with contributions by nine geographers and an economist.

⁹ Good examples are to be seen in Darby, H. C. (ed.), An Historical Geography of England before A.D. 1800: (Cambridge: University Press, 1936).Google ScholarWhittlesey, D. S. suggested “Sequent Occupance” as a theme in an article so titled in Annals Ass. Am. Geogrs. XIX (March 1929), 162–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ See H. C. Darby, “Relations,” and idem, “The Changing English Landscape,” Geographical journal, CXVII (Dec. 1951), 377–98.Google Scholar Very important also has been the theme of man's use, or misuse, of his potentially permanent, renewable resources of vegetation, soil, and water. See Clark “Historical Geography,” pp. 85–6, 89; Sauer, C. O.“Theme of Plant and Animal Destruction in Economic History,” Journal of Farm Economics, XX (Nov. 1938), 765–75; and, idem,CrossRefGoogle Scholar “Destructive Exploitation in Modern Colonial Expansion” Proceedings, International Geographical Congress, 1938, II, Section IIIc, 494–99. Note also the full discussion of this theme in Thomas, W. L. (ed.) Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press for the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 1956)Google Scholar. It is central, too, in much conservational study by geographers, perhaps best exemplified in the many writings of J. R. Whitaker.

¹¹ For example of method see Clark, A. H., Three Centuries and the Island (A Historical Geography of Settlement and Agriculture in Prince Edward Island, Canada) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and, idem, “Old World Origins and Religious Adherence in Nova Scotia,” Geographical Review, L (July 1960), 317–44Google Scholar.

¹² Several examples of work by geographers in terms of quantitative spatial analysis, that go as far, in terms of change, as “before and after” studies over relatively brief periods of time, are discussed in Barry, B., “Recent Studies Concerning the Role of Transportation in the Space Economy,” Annals Ass. Am. Geogrs., XLIX (Sept. 1959), 328–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.