Geography and Science in Britain, 1831–1939

Charles W. J. Withers is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Edinburgh

This important work of original scholarship explores the significant roles that the British Association played both by promoting science throughout the United Kingdom and its empire and as a locale within which one nascent discipline - geography - developed as a science. Based on primary sources, it is an exemplary contribution to the history of British science, successfully inter-weaving two geographical narratives.'‘Geography and Science in Britain, 1831-1939 delivers far more than the title suggests. Combining meticulous research with theoretical sophistication, Charles Withers has produced a groundbreaking study of one of the most important modern scientific bodies, the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). Through his focus on section E, the geography section of the BAAS, Withers is able to illuminate key themes in both the history of science and the history of geography. He explores the different urban settings of the BAAS annual meetings, its audiences, and its imperial agenda. He covers the disciplinary formation of geography, its development as a physical and human science, and its status in the early twentieth century. Withers’ insistence on exploring both the geography of BAAS science and the science of geography in the BAAS yields impressive results. This book will be the definitive work on the post-mid nineteenth century BAAS.’An extremely important contribution to the history of geography that challenges a good many existing assumptionsRoy Bridges, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 43, Number 1,Charles Withers has made an important contribution to our understanding of the dissemination of British science . . . he has manages to shed light on an otherwise overlooked element in the history of our disciplineHugh Clout, Annales de Geographie No 685, 2012

• 1. Introduction: histories and geographies of science2. Geographies of civic science: the British Association at work 3. The science of geography in the British Association4. The dominion of science and geographies of empire: the BAAS overseas 1884-1929 5. Hierarchy, distribution, connection: geography as a science of the physicalworld6. Measurement, exploration and ethnology: geography and the human sciences 7. Science, education and the ‘crisis’ in geography, 1910-c.19398. Conclusion: the British Association, geographies of science and the science of geographyBibliographyIndex