Enlightenment Geography: The Political Languages of British Geography, 1650-1850

by R. Mayhew

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333791868
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	08/30/2000
Series:	Studies in Modern History Series
Edition description:	2000
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Robert J. Mayhew is Lecturer in Human Geography at the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Effacing and Recovering the History of Geography The Sphere of Geography and the Realm of Politics in Britain, c.1650-1850 'Geography is Twinned with Divinity': The Lauduan Geography of Peter Heylyn, 1621-57 John Ogilby and the Iconographic Roads to a Restored Royalist Geography, c.1660-75 The Political and Geographical Appropriations of Edmund Bohun, 1684-1710 Edmund Gibson's Edition of Britannia : Loyalist Chorography and the Politics of Precedent, 1695-1722 Varieties of Orthodox Geography, 1700-50: Three Vignettes: Echard, Wells and Salmon The Denominational Politics of Travel Writing: The Case of Tory Anglicans in the 1770s The Scottish Enlightenment and British Geography (I): Guthrie and Pinkerton, c.1770-1802 On the Cusp of Modern Geography: Fieldwork and Textuality in the Career of James Rennell, 1764-1830 The Scottish Enlightenment and British Geography (II): James Bell and J.P. McCulloch, 1830-50 Coda: Halford Mackinder and the Empire of 'New' Political Geography, c.1887-1919 Enlightenments and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Politics of Early Modern British Geography, c.1550-1850 Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial 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

From the Publisher

As a contribution to the intellectual history of geographical knowledge in particular and of Britain more generally, Mayhew (human geography, U. of Wales-Aberystwyth) details the politics of British geography books and of related forms of geographical knowledge during the two centuries. He looks at the definition and role of the field in a humanist structure of knowledge, and its print culture before its formalization as a discipline in the late 19th century. All political parties drew on it, he says, to further their own ideologies. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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