Book Review

In his book Geography and History: Bridging the Divide, historical geographer Alan R. H. Baker examines the interdependence of geography and history. He points out that geography is not only about maps and history about chaps. To regard geography and history as being concerned only with places and people respectively is a distorted representation of these disciplines. Geography and history are, instead, very broad disciplines that have different ways of looking at the world, but they are so closely related that they cannot ignore or neglect each other. There is in fact a significant overlapping of interests between the two disciplines.

The debate about the role of geography and history intersecting is a long one. Almost a century ago the German geographer Alfred Hettner pointed out that the distribution by place forms a characteristic of objects and must necessarily be included in the compass of research. Baker, then, highlights that the “objects” studied by historians have their own geographical (spatial) distribution. He explains that distribution has been the foundation of one of the major discourses within geography and especially within historical geography. While mapping distribution of phenomena in the present is a major concern of geography, historical geography is especially concerned with mapping the past.

Mapping the past, however, is not a simple task. Baker explains that it is in fact a difficult and demanding undertaking that requires selection and subjectivity on the part of the researcher. However, if one can master such a skill, it can provide excellent insight into some aspects of the past. Mapping historical sources can be seen as the reconstruction of geographies of the past as horizontal cross-sections. These individual cross-sections can provide a snapshot of the geography of a particular place at a specific moment in time. They can indicate the changes that have taken place during the intervening years. Mapping historical data is much more descriptive and provocative than interpretative and productive -- while answering the question “where?” it may also raise the question “why there?” Thus, a distribution map becomes a research tool because it poses new questions and further research.

Baker notes that the classic case of a cross-section of the past is that of the geography of England, entitled The Doomsday Geography of South-East England (1962) and The Doomsday Geography of South-West England (1967), reconstructed from Doomsday Book. In these two books the authors (H. C. Darby et al.) reconstructed a picture of the geography of England in the late eleventh century. They have come to be seen as model historical geographies of distribution.

With the advancement of technology in the late 20th century, studies of past geographical distribution have been enhanced. Historical GIS, for instance, is attracting the attention not only of geographers, but also of historians because it makes possible the spatial integration of large sets of both quantitative and qualitative data and allows comparisons over long periods of time. Some of the most sophisticated studies of spatial diffusion have been conducted in the field of historical medical geography, especially because of the continuous or near-continuous historical records of the outbreak and spread of specific diseases.

Space and time have become the concerns of geographers and historians alike and concepts of spatial and temporal organization are seen today as interdisciplinary rather than mainly geographical and historical. Baker argues that viewing time and space as resources emphasizes their relative characteristics. In summary, Baker tries to consider the benefits of the embrace between geography and history. He draws attention to the richness and diversity of work produced by those who have attempted to bridge the two disciplines.

By Neda Bezerra.