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Darby, H. C., On The Relations of Geography and History, Pp. 1-11
Darby, H. C., On The Relations of Geography and History, Pp. 1-11
Author(s): H. C. Darby
Source: Transactions and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), No. 19 (1953), pp. 1-11
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of
British Geographers)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/621223
Accessed: 11-08-2017 13:17 UTC
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ON THE RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY1
1 Being a lecture to a Joint Meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geographical
Association and the Institute of British Geographers given at the House of the Royal Geographical
Society on January 2nd, 1953.
2 PETER HEYLYN, Microcosmus, or a little descrinption of the great world (1621), 1I1.
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2 RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
eastern Suffolk which he knew so well. This new attitude has been called
'realism', and, although the term is not above reproach, it is probably as go
a label as any. Whatever it be called, it was rooted, like the earlier Renaissan
in contemporary change, and it had effects upon all ways of thinking. Nor
it restricted to one country.
Hitherto, the pre-occupation of historical study had been with polit
relations and incidents. But now its vision was extended until it came to include
almost every aspect of human endeavour, social and economic. And, as the
study of history became more realistic, it also became more geographical. One
of the main, and most influential, products of the new outlook was Michelet's
Histoire de France (1833). Other writers had reduced the history of France to a
long struggle for monarchical centralization and to a tale of domestic politics.
It is true that some had thought of the ground as a stage upon which the players
acted, but to Michelet the soil was not an inert plank of a theatre. He proclaimed
that history was, in the first place, all geographical; and, in order to equip him-
self for his task, he made long wanderings through various parts of France to
gain a first-hand impression of its varying countrysides. Reviewing his work,
later in life, he wrote:
So powerful was his example that it became customary for French historians to
preface their studies with a geographical introduction; and we must not forget
that Vidal de la Blache's Tableau de la gdographie de la France appeared in 1911
as an introductory volume to Lavisse's great history of France.
I have taken Michelet as the type of the new spirit in historical writing, but
there were others, and not only in France. A long list of professions of the new
faith could be made, longer than one might think at first. In 1851, in Germany,
appeared an account of the history and geography of the Pelop6nnisos by
Ernst Curtius." To him, the aged Humboldt wrote: 'I have read your first
volume line by line. Your survey of the country is a masterpiece of nature
painting.' Similar manifestations were evident in England, and one English
example must stand for the rest - A. P. Stanley's Sinai and Palestine in con-
nection with their history which appeared in 1856. This was an attempt to illustrate
geography and history and, as Stanley said, 'the relation in which each stands
to the other'. It is of special interest to us because Stanley, as he confessed,
owed something to Carl Ritter.
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RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 3
Past Geographies
The term 'historical geography' has come to be increasingly identified
with an approach in which the data are historical but in which the method is
geographical. The purpose of the historical geographer, according to this view,
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4 RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
And so he set the stage upon which his figures were to move and act. It was wi
similar intent that, almost a century later, Macaulay's kinsman, G. M. Trevel-
yan, prefaced his trilogy, England under Queen Anne (1930-33) with what
described as 'a survey' of 'Queen Anne's island', based largely upon Danie
Defoe's account of it. And about this time also, J. H. Clapham in his trilog
An economic history of modern Britain (1926-38), gave two accounts of what
called 'the face of the country', in 1820 and again in 1886.
These three stand out as classic examples of the practice of historica
geography by historians. To a greater or less extent, other historians hav
attempted analagous reconstructions. Nor has their effort been limited to prose
C. H. Pearson's Historical maps of England (1869) was an outstanding pione
attempt to portray the main features of the medieval scene; its preface speaks
'reconstructions of early geography'. By its side can be placed the maps th
accompanied J. R. Green's The making of England (1885). Green found th
he could give an adequate account of the Anglo-Saxon settlement only b
reconstructing the disposition of marsh and wood and open country. It was in
the preface to this book that he delivered the famous dictum: 'the ground itself
where we can read the information it affords, is, whether in the account of th
Conquest or in that of the Settlement of Britain, the fullest and most certain o
documents'.
All these studies, and others too, are most illuminating, and they command
our respect on geographical grounds, quite apart from their other excellencies.
But they all must be considered in their contexts, and it is possible that none of
them would satisfy the specifications, so to speak, that a historical geographer o
today might set out in an outline scheme.
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RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 5
(i) The period of the Indian hunter and French trader (before 1840)
(ii) The period of the pioneer trapper and frontier farmer (1840-80)
(iii) The period of the stock farmer and the sportsman fowler (1880-1910)
(iv) The period of the Corn Belt farmer and the river resorter (since 1910).
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6 RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
landscape do not change at the same rate nor at the same tim
marshes are being drained, the heaths are not being reclaim
tion has to be repeated in cross-section after cross-secti
change takes place, repetition is unavoidable. It might be
not theoretical difficulties, and that the problems they prese
practical common sense. But only too often they involve un
and it may well be that any cross-section in a series fails ad
reality. In spite of these difficulties, I still think that the m
cross-sections has much to be said for it, especially if the c
chosen as to coincide with marked changes in an area as a w
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RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 7
natural heathland. But recent work has shown that even its
devoid of wood when farming first began, and that the so-
had its origin in the clearing of the wood by Neolithic farm
existence of the heathland has depended upon some factors
the re-establishment and growth of trees. The more obviou
by sheep or rabbits, recurrent fires which destroy tree seed
direct action of man.
But while a certain amount of grazing maintains heathland, too much
destroys it. Heavy and continuous pasturing by sheep or rabbits converts it into
grassland. The reason is that the animals nibble down to about half an inch
above the ground, and that shrubs cannot endure this, while grass can. In the
competition between heather and grass, the grass therefore survives and spreads.
When rabbits enter a heathland with some existing trees, the trees are trimmed
in a spectacular fashion up to a height of about 20 inches - that is the height
to which a rabbit can reach with its mouth when standing on its hind legs;
young seedlings do not survive the experience. If the rabbits depart or are
excluded from a heathland, the heather rapidly recolonizes the ground at the
expense of the grass. The story does not end there, for the ultimate effect of
rabbit-grazing may be to destroy the vegetation completely in some localities.
Entrances to rabbit burrows, and a general thinning of vegetation, may give the
wind a purchase on the sand so that it blows away; grass-heath fades out locally
into bare sand. A further complication is that rabbits do not like bracken fern
which in places thus flourishes triumphantly amid the savage battle for life raging
around.
The net result of these struggles is that an expanse of heathland usually
presents a variety of surface, and a variety that is never still. Stretches of
calluna and erica merge into a light wood cover or into bracken, or grass or bare
soil. A heathland is, therefore, not only a geographical fact, but a most delicate
compromise between the forces promoting it and those destroying it. The
scene that confronts us represents a momentary balance of power, an equipoise,
sensitive, as we have seen, to short-term changes, responsive also to long-term
changes - to the introduction, in the eighteenth century, of turnips and clover
which completely altered the appearance of vast areas, and to afforestation
which likewise has had great effect. Even so, many tracts of heathland still
remain as inliers of an older and wilder landscape surrounded by improvement.
In the light of these facts, can anyone be satisfied with an empirical des-
criptive approach to the geography of heathlands, or to the geography of any
other area? The landscape we see is not a static arrangement of objects. It has
become what it is, and it is usually in the process of becoming something differ-
ent. A close analogy is to regard our momentary glimpse of it as a 'still' taken
out of a long film. Let us then not study a static picture, but a process that is
continuing and, seemingly, never-ending.
The main instrument of historic change is, of course, Man himself, and
there is an enormous literature dealing with his works and influence upon the
B
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8 RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
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RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 9
Yet I suggest that the new cry might well be 'Field work is not enough'. T
map, to use F. W. Maitland's familiar phrase, is a 'marvellous palimpsest
Not all the ancient writing is legible through what has been written since, bu
much of it is, and still more of it is for those who have eyes to see. When, as
geographers, we gaze around, one question forces itself upon our attentio
it takes a variety of form: 'Why does this countryside look as it does? What h
given this landscape its present character?' The moment we ask this question,
that moment are we committed to historical geography in one form or
another.
But difficulties lie in ambush, not so much theoretical ones as practical
ones. As Derwent Whittlesey asked in 1945: 'Is there a solution for the puzzle
of writing incontestable geography that also incorporates the chains of event
7 F. W. MAITLAND, Domesday Book and beyond (1897), 15.
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10 RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
Into this not too hospitable land came man, and with m
modifications of the original terrain which it is our special
Three distinct periods in the modification of the original
discerned. First the native Indians with their primit
land occupation created landscape forms characteristic of
Then came the European settlers, first interested in farm
people developed out of the earlier landscape, largely o
a new set of forms reflecting a more advanced agricul
Finally, industrial cities with an entirely new set of cultu
imposed upon the rural landscape, not by any means o
but rather forming patches scattered especially in the vall
vivid contrasts with the earlier landscapes in which they
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RELATIONS OF GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY 11
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