Muddling the history of geography

Abstract

The argument put forward by Keith Lilley (2011) foreshadows similar debates in other disciplines concerning the history of science and the place of history in disciplines. Geography, he contends, loses twice over from failing to fully study and integrate medieval geography into the history of the discipline, first in reducing geography's ‘territory' by cutting geography off from an important part of its past, and second by reinforcing what he considers a dubious assertion, namely that geography's history began only with the early modern period. Geography remains a contested enterprise, a muddled enterprise and, as Lilley and other scholars working on geography that took place before the discipline emerged continue to show, our understanding of its history is all the richer for its being muddled.