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Palgrave Macmillan
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Enlightenment Geography

The Political Languages of British Geography, 1650-1850

  • Book
  • © 2000

Overview

Part of the book series: Studies in Modern History (SMH)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

Keywords

About this book

Enlightenment Geography is the first detailed study of the politics of British geography books and of related forms of geographical knowledge in the period from 1650 to 1850. The definition and role of geography in a humanist structure of knowledge are examined and shown to tie it to political discourse. Geographical works are shown to have developed Whig and Tory defences of the English church and state, consonant with the conservatism of the English Enlightenment. These politicizations were questioned by those indebted to the Scottish Enlightenment. Enlightenment Geography questions broad assumptions about British intellectual history through a revisionist history of geography.

Reviews

'...a significant work of scholarship...' - Denis Cosgrove, Albion

'Mayhew provides us with a compelling genealogy of his subject.' - Colin

Kidd, British Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies

'[Mayhew] provides an account of geographical thought that might be more

recognisable to contemporaries...As a result, his book is consistently

trenchant, focused and persuasive.' - David Armitage, Journal of Historical

Geography

Authors and Affiliations

  • Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK

    Robert J. Mayhew

About the author

ROBERT MAYHEW was a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He is currently a Lecturer in Human Geography at Aberystwyth University.

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