Geographical Journeys
Geographers Tell Their Stories
1st Edition
Published on 5. March 2026
368 pages
978-1-040-52507-4 (ISBN)
Description
This book provides concise insights from a diverse range of leading scholars reflecting on how they became geographers.
Asking how a range of geographers, representative of the field's diversity, this book explores the trajectory of their academic career, their formative influences, interpretive frameworks and divisions within geography, and what it means to have a geographic sensibility. It asks how geographers came to acquire an interest, and how they developed that interest. It interrogates the various influences and conditions that helped make them geographers; the interpretive frameworks that guided them; the role of the serendipitous; and how their ideas shifted. The various trajectories cover a period of dramatic change in the field, and this is registered in the stories told. Within that frame, and despite the particularity of each contribution, there are both similarities and contrasts.
In these ways, the book offers insightful contributions on how geographies and the history of the field get made; and for those considering embarking on a career in geography, just what to expect.
Asking how a range of geographers, representative of the field's diversity, this book explores the trajectory of their academic career, their formative influences, interpretive frameworks and divisions within geography, and what it means to have a geographic sensibility. It asks how geographers came to acquire an interest, and how they developed that interest. It interrogates the various influences and conditions that helped make them geographers; the interpretive frameworks that guided them; the role of the serendipitous; and how their ideas shifted. The various trajectories cover a period of dramatic change in the field, and this is registered in the stories told. Within that frame, and despite the particularity of each contribution, there are both similarities and contrasts.
In these ways, the book offers insightful contributions on how geographies and the history of the field get made; and for those considering embarking on a career in geography, just what to expect.
Reviews / Votes
'This book provides a set of fascinating insights into the diverse routes in and through an academic career. It is also a source of encouragement for those who start late or change direction on the way, as well as demonstrating the energy and enthusiasm of practitioners of geography in all its absorbing facets.'Linda McDowell, DLitt., FBA, CBE Professor Emerita of Human Geography University of Oxford
'This fascinating compendium explores the varied ways that geography as a discipline has captured the imaginations and commitments of scholars seeking larger explanations than the simple more siloed disciplines have provided. The pervasive integrative questions of environment, place, justice, pasts and futures are woven into the biographies of these geographers and their expansive work. Through these essays you can see how geography changed them, and how they changed geography and its allied disciplines. A great review of personal histories of ideas, and their broader transformative dynamics...'
Susanna Hecht, Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA and professor of international history at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
2 Tables, black and white; 37 Halftones, black and white; 37 Illustrations, black and white
File size
13,74 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-040-52507-4 (9781040525074)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 03/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€65.50
Not yet published
Book
approx. 03/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€213.00
Not yet published
Person
Kevin R. Cox is Emeritus Distinguished University Professor, in the Department of Geography, of The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
Content
1. From the Back End of Nowhere 2. A Reluctant Convert 3. Landforms and Me: Shaping a Career in Geomorphology 4. A Geographer From, Off And Working On The Rustbelt 5. From Pacific Shores 6. Forging a Path Through Life and the Changing Landscape of Geography 7. The Moth And The Flame: A Journey Towards Self-Annihilation 8. A Transatlantic Adventure 9. A Quantitative Geographical Odyssey 10. Very Slowly and Then All at Once 11. Becoming A Geographer In The Shadow Of Geography's Quantitative Revolution 12. The Production of Geography (and a Geographer) 13. My Journey To and Through Marxist Geography 14. A Long Way Home: My Journey as a Geographer 15. Becoming a Critical "Climate Geographer": What Might That Mean, and What Can It Do? 16. Meanders of an Uneasy Geographer 17. Doing It the Hard Way 18. Landscapes, Luck and an Inquisitive 20. 'I became a geographer-in-the-making at the age of six' 21. A Pirate and a Scientist 22. The Geographer That Latin America Made Me 23. A Geographer at Heart 24. No Cursing, No Crying, No Cookies: The Interplay of History and Geomorphology 25. Becoming a Geographer 26. Becoming Undisciplined 27. Time and Contingency: A Journey Through Geography 28. From Essex to the 'Edgelands' of Geography 29. Reflections on Geography, the Long 1960s and the Trahison des clercs
