Geography and History: Bridging the Divide

In 1954, Jean Mitchell published her Historical Geography in a series of books under the general title ‘Teach Yourself Geography’. The bulk of the work comprised essays on important themes (such as ‘the peopling of the land’ and ‘the evolution of villages and farms’) in the ‘the changing geography’ of Britain from prehistoric times to the early twentieth century, but it also included a chapter on the data of the historical geographer and two others on general issues. In her introductory chapter Mitchell posed the question: ‘What is historical geography?’ She considered that both geography and history were difficult to define and concluded that historical geography was ‘a still greater mystery’. She continued: 

Few go further than a belief that it is about ‘old’ maps, and perhaps concerns itself too much with tales of ancient mariners, medieval travellers and merchant adventurers. Some feel that it is an unsound attempt by geographers to explain history, and think that the historical geographer is most certainly trespassing and probably should be prosecuted. That is not so, the historical geographer is a geographer first, last and all time… (Mitchell 1954: 1-2)

There is much in common between the historian and the geographer, both are attempting to see the patter in a multitude of facts in order to appreciate the world about them, but there is a fundamental difference in outlook between them. The ‘world’ to the historian means civilization; the ‘world’ to the geographer means the surface of the earth. (Mitchell 1954: 12)

For Mitchell, history and geography had different objectives, they occupied separate intellectual territories. That exclusive stance was reinforced by her view that the historical geographer is concerned mainly with the geography of an area at some past time: “the historical geographer is not concerned with the survival of geographical patterns [into the present] or with the evolution of geographical patterns in time, but with the establishment and study of their design at any one particular time’ (Mitchell 1954: 14).