Brunhes, Jean

(b. Toulouse, France, 25 October 1869; d. Boulogne-Seine, France, 25 April 1930)

geography.
Brunhes came from a family of university professors: both his father, Julien, and his older brother, Bernard,
were professors of physics. Jean entered the cole Normale Suprieure in 1889, and in 1892 he graduated
and passed the agrgation in history and geography. His faculty adviser was Vidal de la Blache. On a
scholarship from the Thiers Foundation from 1892 to 1896, he completed his education by taking courses in
law, mining, and agriculture. He found his true vocation in geography when he wrote the thesis Lirrigation,
ses conditions gographiques dans la pninsule ibrique et IAfrique du Nord, which he defended in 1902.
Brunhes was named professor of general geography at the University of Fribourg in 1896, and in 1908 he
was appointed to give a course in human geography at the University of Lausanne. He continued to work in
human geography, a science that did not then exist in France.
In his Anthropogographie the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel attempted to explain man in terms of
nature and to make history and culture dependent on geography. In contrast, Brunhes saw in nature not a
tyrannical fatalism, but an infinite wealth of possibilities among which man has the power to choose (S.
Charlty, Notes sur la vie et les travaux de M. J. Brunhes [Paris, 1932], p. 13). He also believed that there is
no social determinism whose laws can be ascertained. In his great work, Gographie humaine (1910),
Brunhes presented the first attempt to coordinate the geographical phenomena resulting from the activities of
man. It was illustrated with numerous photographs. In 1912 the Collge de France created a chair of human
geography for him.
A member of the Acadmie des Sciences Morales et Politiques since 1927, Brunhes died suddenly of a
stroke just after he and his daughter, Mme. Raymond Delamarre, had published Les races, a small, richly
illustrated book.
Certain geographers have reproached Brunhes for having extended geography to cover all forms of human
activity; others have criticized him for having limited the study of geography to what is photographable.
Nevertheless, he gave a decisive impetus to human geography.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I. Original Works. Brunhess writings include La gographie humaine. Essai de classification positive.
Principes et exemples (Paris, 1910, 1912, 1925), trans. into English (Chicago-New York, 1920); 2 vols. in G.
Hanotauxs Histoire de la nation franaise; I. Gographie humaine de la France (Paris, 1926), and II,
Gographie politique et gographie du travail (Paris, 1926), written with P. Deffontaines; and Les races
(Paris, 1930), written with his daughter, Mme. Raymond Delamarre. He also translated Isaiah Bowmans The
New World as Le monde nouveau. Tableau gnral de gographie politique universells (Paris, 1928).
II. Secondary Literature. Biographies of Brunhes are A. Allix, in Les tudes rhodaniennes, 6 (1930), 340342;
M. Boule, in Lanthropologie, 40 (1930), 514515; V, Chtelain, in Dictionnaire de biographie franaise, fasc.
39 (1955), cols. 554555; D. Faucher, in Revue de gographie des pyrnes et du Sud-ouest, 1 (1930), 514
515; E. de Martonne, in Annales de gofraphie, 39 (1930), 549553; and G. Vallaux, in La gographie, 34
(1930), 237239.
Juliette Taton
"Brunhes, Jean." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. (May 10, 2012).
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830900680.html
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