Historical Explanation in Geography

Component-I(A) - Personal Details

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof. Masood Ahsan Siddiqui Department of Geography,

Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi
Paper Coordinator, if any Dr. Taruna Bansal Department of Geography,
Jamia Millia Islamia,
New Delhi
Content Writer/Author (CW) Dr. Shewli Shabnam Assistant Professor,
Department of Geography
Bidhannagar College,
Kolkata
Content Reviewer (CR) Dr. Nasim Akhtar Department of Geography
Presidency University, Kolkata

Language Editor (LE)

Component-I (B) - Description of Module

Items Description of Module

Subject Name Geography

Paper Name Geographical Thought

Module Name/Title Historical Explanation in Geography

Module Id GEOG/32

Pre-requisites Geography, Chorological and chronological explanation,

Quantitative revolution, Behavioural geography, Humanistic
geography, Marxist geography
Objectives To Know What Is Historical Geography

Keywords Historical geography, Cultural landscape, Reconstruction

of past, Quantitative revolution
Component II - e-Text

Historical Explanation in Geography

Shewli Shabnam
I - Introduction
History of geography and historical geography are not synonymous. History of geography
deals with the changing nature of geography – how the focus of the subject has shifted and
evaluated from time to time with the emergence of new ideas. Historical geography, on the
other hand, may be defined as the geography of the past. According to A.H. Clark (1952)
geography has many branches like social geography, physical geography, economic
geography, political geography etc. However, any geography of the past, be it cultural or
plant geography, is historical geography. In this regard historical geography is different from
other branches of geography because it actually covers the whole realm of geography of past
period. Therefore, controversy arises regarding the status of historical geography – whether it
is a branch of geography or it is a separate field of study or it is simply history.
Eva Semotanova (2002) has regarded historical geography as an independent,
interdisciplinary, broader discipline which studies man- nature relationship, correlates time
with space and combines social and physical sciences. Huntington, on the other hand
believed that historical geography laid more emphasis on history than geography. According
to him, in historical geography, events of history were analysed in terms of geographical
context. Guelke in his writings in 1982 also opined that historical geography should be
considered as history. A large number of academicians do not agree with Guelke’s viewpoint.
As early as in the eighteenth century Immanuel Kant described that history and geography
were different from other systematic sciences because unlike other sciences, they study the
unique or particular. History is concerned with positioning of phenomena across time
(chronological studies) and geography is concerned with the arrangement of phenomena
across space (chorological studies). Following Kantian tradition, Hettner and Hartshorne
emphasized that geography was chorological science and the central theme of geography was
to study areal differentiation. It is the geography of the past that helps to understand the
present unique geographical characteristics of an area and the geographical interpretation of
phenomena of any region at a particular period of the past is regarded as historical geography.
So, historical geography cannot be equated with history. Darby differentiated historical
geography from history by focussing on assembling sequences of cross-sections to depict
evolution of rural landscape. Hettner, Darby and others, who believe that it is a branch of
geography, argue that geography is regarded as spatial science and historical geography study
the spatial relations of phenomena of the past.

II - Nature and Development of Historical Geography

Examples of the study of historical events in their spatial context can be traced back as early
as the writings of Herodotus (485-425 B.C.). The modern historical geography has been
influenced by the writings of many historians of the 19th century such as Thomas Arnold
whose famous History of Rome was published in 1838. During the the first quarter of the
twentieth century some works on historical geography were done at Chicago School by a
number of American geographers. R. J. Johnston (1981) has identified three main phases of
conceptual development of historical geography in Anglo-American world after the First
World War.
(a) From 1930s till Quantitative Revolution: During this period historical geography and
geomorphology were the most important branches of geography. We know that
geomorphology is regarded as the science of landforms. Interestingly, historical
geography of this period emphasized on cultural landscape. The most eminent cultural
geographers of this period were Ralph H. Brown and Carl O. Sauer from North
America and H.C. Darby from the Great Britain. In America, historical geography
experienced a major thrust by the Berkeley School under the leadership of Carl Sauer.
Sauer and his associates embraced interdisciplinary studies with historians and
anthropologists and focussed on the generic study of landscapes – how cultural
landscapes develop out of natural landscapes by human activities that continued for
many generations. Both the works of Sauer and Brown studied the sequences of
settlements in many parts of North and South America. Their studies, particularly the
work of Sauer revealed that the same physical landscape might produce different
cultural landscape due to cultural difference of the people of those regions. This
indicates to the influence of environmental possibilism in his work. The students of
Sauer, namely Parsons and Clark continued to follow the tradition of reconstruction of
cultural landscapes in geographical studies.
In Britain Darby’s classic work on historical geography was published in a series of
writings under the heading of Domesday Geographies of England (1952-1977).
However, Darby did not follow the cultural landscape school. His focus was on cross-
sectional analyses through time to describe the evolution of the rural landscape. He
used cartographic techniques to reconstruct the past using available materials.
 From the above discussion it is clear that two different approaches prevailed in the
study of historical geography after World War I which continued for almost four
decades but both the approaches were more compelling when studied in regional
context.
(b) The phase of Quantitative Revolution in late 1960s and 1970s: In late 1940s and early
1950s some geographers expressed great dissatisfaction towards the chorological or
regional paradigm of geography which was more descriptive and focussed on
uniqueness of places as opposed to formulate general laws that are common in other
fields of scientific enquiries. Schaefer criticised this exceptionalist view of geography
and argued that geographers should adopt the methodology of positivism to study
spatial arrangement of phenomena on the earth’s surface and seek to formulate
theories and laws explaining observed spatial distributions. To make the subject
matter more precise and scientific, to formulate laws and models, geography shifted
its perspective from ideographic to nomothetic and from description to analysis. Such
transformation in the objectives and methodology of geography and the vigorous use
of statistical and mathematical methods in this subject for testing hypotheses and
building theories is known as Quantitative Revolution. The waves of quantitative
revolution engulfed historical geography. The classical historical geography which
was ideographic in nature lost its glory and found itself at the fringe of the subject. To
regain the importance, some historical geographers started incorporating the
mathematical and statistical techniques in their works and adopted interdisciplinary
approach. Among them to name a few were A.R.H Baker (who used Nearest
Neighbour Analysis to find out settlement structure in the 19th century rural France),
F. W. Carter (who used Graph Theory in search of the dimension of ecumene in
Serbia at medieval period) and H. Carter (who used Central Place Theory to explain
spatial organization of urban system in North-East Wales in the 19th century).
(c) Post Quantitative Revolution phase since 1970s: The theories and models that
emerged as a result of quantitative revolution were influenced by the doctrine of
positivism which only relies on objective reality rather than perceived reality. The
over-emphasis on quantification and systematic analysis of geographical phenomena
strongly criticized by some geographers; as a consequence behavorial and humanistic
and radical approaches were being introduced in geography. The growing discontent
against quantitative revolution also led to the revival of historical geography. The
‘new’ historical geography incorporated quantitative methods with humanistic and
 environmental approach. A. R. H. Baker in 1981 stated that historical geography
should follow the humanist tradition of historical materialism. Humanist tradition put
emphasis human consciousness and human activities. Historical materialism is a
method introduced by Marx to interpret the development of human societies over
time. Baker believed that historical geography should be concerned with social and
economic history of a place and period. Therefore, historical geography is nothing but
historical explanation of geographical phenomena. Besides, the revival of traditional
environmentalism in the post quantitative revolution period led to increasing co-
operation between historical geographers and scholars of other disciplines (e.g.,
palaeobotanists, archaeologistis etc.) for recreating cultural ecology of past
landscapes.

III - Approaches to the Study of Historical Geography

According to Smith (1965) the study of historical geography has embraced four distinct
approaches. These are:
(a) The operation of the geographical factor in history;
(b) The evolution of the cultural landscape;
(c) Reconstruction of past geographies; and
(d) The study of geographical change through time.
However, many studies of historical geography incorporated more than one approaches.
The operation of the geographical factor in history
Many studies of historical geography are based on geographical elements of a particular time.
Carl Sauer himself believed that the study of any region should be based on sequential
arrangement of its previous geography. Reconstruction of past geographies is based on
studying and classifying the geographical factors to understand the influence of physical
environment on man in the past period. Human response to physical factors at different
periods can even help to formulate geographical laws. However, such type of works has been
labelled by many as history rather than geography.
The evolution of the cultural landscape
According to this particular approach historical geography deals with the changing cultural
landscape of a region. The concept of cultural landscape was popularised by Carl Sauer.
According to him cultural landscape is a landscape developed by the transformation of
natural landscape. This transformation is done by human community having particular
cultural traits and preferences. The concept of changing cultural landscape is similar to that of
sequential development of landforms. As geomorphologists study the processes that lead to
the development of present landforms, similarly historical geographers study the processes
that are responsible for transforming natural areas into cultural landforms. Smith has
criticized this approach on the ground that it considers human beings as mere machines who
only produce cultural landscape unemotionally.
Reconstruction of past geographies
Reconstruction of past geographies helps to understand the present geography – be it
agricultural or urban or industrial geography. This approach for the study of historical
geography is based on the view that geography is the study of areal differentiation. So it is
essentially regional geography of the past period. To explain the present geography of a
region one need to study in detail the geography of past periods. For example, to understand
the present urban scenario of Venice, one needs to know the geography of Venice in the 15th
century (Hartshorne, 1939). To put it in other way, the present particular characteristics of a
region perhaps can be best explained by the situation of certain period of past. In contrast to
the view of cultural landscape school, Whittlesey in 1929 said the historical geographers
should not study the processes of development but focus on the interpretation of causal
relationship of geographical phenomena of a fixed period. It is believed to be the most
traditional view of historical geography. However, the study of the past picture of the present
as the core of historical geography has also been criticised. According to Guelke (1982) the
geographical study of the past period comes under the realm of history.
The study of geographical change through time
According to this approach, “Each past period had its own present geography” (Hartshorne,
1939). If historical geographers conduct comparative study of geographical phenomena
through successive periods of time, then it is possible to depict the changing geography of an
area. However, Mackinder argued that no distinction could be made between historical and
contemporary geography because historical geography dealt with historical present and the
study of present geographic features would be regarded as historical geography in future.

IV - Sources of historical geography

According to Richard Hartshorne the study of historical geography needs data or materials
which are mostly historical, i.e., collected from the past. Although some scholars believe that
it is the work of historians, Brown has pointed out that only the trained geographers could
find out and analyse historical records of geographical materials. In this context let us discuss
the nature of the source materials of historical geography in India.
Reconstruction of past geographies of ancient and medieval India is a serious problem as
there are paucities of materials and maps of this period. Therefore, it is a serious challenge to
the geographers to find out the geographical information from the non-geographical accounts.
In this regard the geographers have to depend on the following sources:
Religious Text
Religious and semi-religious texts of India provide some useful geographical contents of the
past. Vedas (written about 1500 B.C. – 1000 B.C.), Upanishads (800 B. C. – 500 B.C.) and
Puranas (uncertain) contain much information about many regions of ancient India at
different points of time. There are four Vedas and eighteen Maha Puranas that help to get
some pictures of the land and people and dynasties of Puranic India. In his colossal work on
the Geography of Puranas (1966), S.M. Ali has revealed that the geographical information of
various Puranas represented gradual progress of the geographical knowledge about Bharata
and the world. Rgveda is full of information about flora, fauna and tribal communities. A
classification of natural vegetation into trees, shrubs and grass along with the characteristics
of various plants are found in Rgveda. Important materials of Human Geography from the
viewpoint of people’s adjustment to environment through different form of human activities
(agriculture, irrigation, transport settlement, diet and clothing) were highlighted in Rgveda.
The description of relief features in later Vedic literature is better than in Rgveda. From
Vedas and Purnas, Ali has demonstrated how occupational specialization and caste system
led to the change in the pattern of physical and cultural landscape.
Epics and Literary Sources
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata (8th century B.C. to 400 A.D.) are rich in geographical
information which was utilized by Das (1894) and Dikshitar (1935). In Ramayana, important
relief features of North India are described more or less accurately but the given topographic
characteristics of Peninsular India are quite confusing. In the Bhisma Parva of Mahabharata,
Sanjaya narrates the long list of countries, mountains and rivers of that period of India. The
works of Kalidasa had also been used by Law (1954) and Gupta (1963) to find out
geographical information.
Travel Account
Historical geographers depend heavily on the travel accounts to reconstruct past geographies.
In case of India, among various travel accounts, the most important are the narratives of four
travellers – Chinese pilgrims Hiuen Tsang (7th century A.D.) and Fa Hain (5th century A.D.)
and medieval Arab travellers Alberuni and Ibn Batute. Also important is the name of
Megasthenes (who came to India at the end of the third century B.C.). Between sixteenth to
eighteenth centuries many Europeans (Terry, Hailton, Hawkins, Careri and other) travelled
vast part of India. Their writings are also important source of historical geography of this
period.
The description of Hiuen Tsang of the then India was annotated by Beal. Based on it
Cunningham (1871) produced brilliant geographical account of Buddhist India. Similarly, the
geographic content of the travel account of Ibn Batuta was discussed by Yule (1874).
Dynastic Archives and Chronicles
Materials for historical geographies can also be gathered from court histories, chronicles and
biographies. Rajtarangini by Kalhana (12th century A.D.) which provides the history of the
Kingdom of Kashmir is regarded as the first historical chronicle of India. Babarnama,
Akbarnama, Tuzak-i-Jahangiri – all are rich source of geographies of Mughal period. The
works of Tod (1829, 1832) which provides valuable geographic information were based on
genealogical rolls, poetic histories and other bardic literature.
Revenue Records
Agricultural statistics and other documents on revenue of late Mughal period are valuable
resources for the reconstruction of agricultural geography of this period. Ain- i- Akbari by
Abul Fazal has been extensively used by many historians such as Moreland and Irfan
Habeeb. Materials on Mughal administration and revenue divisions were analysed by
geographer M. Raza in his series of studies on historical geography.
Old Maps
Diagrammatic representations of Puranic knowledge did existed in India but they lack
cartographic requirements so as to be called as maps. Earliest maps of India can be traced
back in the works of Greek and Roman scholars like Eratosthenes, Herodotus and Ptolemy
but their knowledge were not based on firsthand account. During the medieval period Arab
geographers provided huge materials of geographic information but they were not good map
makers. With the advent of European travellers from the 18th century, significant advance
were observed in the field of map making. Notable contributions in this field were made by
Jefferys (1768), Rennell (1782-93) and Thomas Call (1793). Rennell’s Atlas of Bengal and
Bihar and Kelley’s Atlas of South India (1782) provide useful information about regional
geography of India.

Other sources of historical geography in India includes military campaigns, temple records
etc. On the basis of the various sources described above, many studies on historical
geography in India have been found. Most of them focussed on the geomorphic and climatic
change on one hand and the reconstruction of past geographies in the field of human
geography (e.g., urban geography) on the other.