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American Geography and Geographers: Toward

Geographical Science

Ronald R. Boyce

To cite this article: Ronald R. Boyce (2015) American Geography and Geographers:
Toward Geographical Science, The AAG Review of Books, 3:4, 193-197, DOI:
10.1080/2325548X.2015.1077437

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Published online: 30 Sep 2015.

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 The AAG Review of Books
American Geography
and Geographers:
Toward Geographical Science
Geoffrey J. Martin. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press,
2015. xxix and 1210 pp., maps,
diagrams, illustration notes, bibli-
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ography, indexes. $195.00 (ISBN
978-0-19-533602-3).
Reviewed by Ronald R. Boyce,
School of Social and Behavioral
Sciences, Seattle Pacific Univer-
sity, Seattle, WA.
Geoffrey J. Martin is the preeminent
authority on geography, geographers,
and geographical thought in the
United States. He has been widely ac-
claimed for his previous works on the
subject, which are preludes to the book
under review. They include All Possible Worlds: A History
of Geographical Ideas (Martin 2005), The Life and Thought
of Isaiah Bowman (Martin 1980), Ellsworth Huntington:
His Life and Thought (Martin 1973), and Mark Jefferson,
Geographer (Martin 1968). Martin has been the official
archivist of the Association of American Geographers
(AAG) for more than thirty years. His books and articles
are models of empirical reportage and accuracy. American
Geography and Geographers: Toward Geographical Science
has been awaited with great expectations. It has been
years in the making and is the capstone of Martins career.
Even a casual overview of its nature and content dem-
onstrates that it is a colossal achievement, unlikely ever
to be equaled. On more careful examination, I believe it
will be seen as an instant classic. It will be consulted
by future generations of scholars, not only to gain new
insights on the nature of geography, but also to avoid re-
peating past mistakes. Among other features, this monu-
mental volume (1) contains a wealth of information and
insights that should precipitate a myriad of discoveries;
The AAG Review of Books 3(4) 2015, pp. 193197. doi: 10.1080/2325548X.2015.1077437.
2015 by Association of American Geographers. Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.
(2) details the arduous journeys of ge-
ographers in their quest to define the
nature of geographyjourneys fraught
with pratfalls, pitfalls, and disdain for
those with whom they differed; (3)
provides an excellent treatment on the
role of normal schools on the training
of teachers and the teaching of geogra-
phy at the preuniversity level; (4) de-
tails the reasons for the current condi-
tion of the profession; and (5) provides
critical information on where further
material on geography and geogra-
phers can be found. He examined 152
archives in fourteen countries during
his research and writing on this book.
The book is arranged chronologi-
cally according to topics, but there are
many themes and threads that can be
explored. For example, I identify three threads that are
interwoven in Martins tapestry of U.S. geography: (1) the
German influence, (2) the central thread of physical ge-
ography, and (3) the hot thread of control.
The German Influence
According to Martin, U.S. geography, at least until the
1970s, was deeply indebted, whether acknowledged or not,
to the foundations laid by German geographers. Geogra-
phy in the United States began at the elementary school
level with the first group of German immigrants in 1683
arriving on the Concord, the German Mayflower (p. 3).
The German influence was paramount after geography
was established in the colleges and universities beginning
in the 1860s. German geographers were the authorities
that U.S. geographers looked to.
Throughout the nineteenth century Alexander von Hum-
boldt was widely acclaimed, especially for his international
expeditions. He defined geography as Erdbeschreibung, or
 description of the earth and the things on it. His col-
league Carl Ritter developed a more rigorous approach,
which he described as Erdkunde. The word suggests not
only a description of the earth, but a need to study and
understand the placement of things on it. The key word
is kunde. When applied in this context, kunde refers to
a weighty examination, knowledge, and understanding
obtained by a serious process of investigation. This aspi-
ration was adopted later not only in theory, but in prac-
tice, particularly by Alfred Hettner at the University of
Heidelberg.
Hettner labeled geography as Lnderkunde and Lnd-
schaftkunde. Thereby, he introduced the ideas of landscape
interpretation, regional geography, and the concepts of
areal differentiation. His works had a great impact on the
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dean of U.S. geographers, William Morris Davis at Har-
vard. Davis introduced Hettner to many others. Brigham
reported that Davis sympathizes fully with Hettner in
regarding geography in its regional aspects as embodying
a description of the material filling of terrestrial spaces
(die dingliche Erfllung der Erdrame), but gives more em-
phasis to the explanatory aspects of systematic geography,
in which things of a kind are studied together (p. 382).
Richard Hartshorne was also deeply influenced by Hettner
(1927), especially his Die Geographie: Ihre Geschichte, irh
Wesen, und ihre Methoden (Geography, Its History, Na-
ture, and Methods) and after careful reading concluded
that Hettner offered a place for political geography
(p. 892). Hettners ideas were central to Hartshornes
(1939) The Nature of Geography, considered by many to
be the most influential book on U.S. geography in the
twentieth century. Likewise, human ecology, developed
primarily at the University of Chicago, was based on
Hettners work.
Friedrich Ratzel, professor of geography at Leipzig Uni-
versity (18861904), also had a major impact on U.S.
geography, but on a quite different path. He defined his
geography as Anthropogeographie, thereby focusing his
inquiry on the human, or anthropological aspects (e.g.,
density, distribution, activity) as these were affected by
such physical features as climate, topography, vegetation,
and soils; that is, the study of the land and the effect
upon its people (p. 392). Even so, Ratzel claimed that
Anthropogeographie can not be translated [into English]
literally (p. 412). Ellen C. Semple, his most prominent
student, was a prolific and colorful writer. She promoted
theories that were derisively labeled environmental deter-
minism. According to Martin (2005, 365), Semple fell
into an error not uncommon when deductive reasoning
is followedshe failed to look carefully for examples that
194 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS
contradicted her principles. Although severely criticized
from the 1920s on, the determinist perspective regard-
ing humanenvironment relationships continued to
have some adherents, particularly Ellsworth Huntington
(p.233).
Ratzel also wrote on other components of geography in-
cluding political and economic (p. 816). At the University
of Pennsylvanias Wharton School, J. Russell Smith and
others focused on commercial geography. Later economic
geographies discovered other German sources and schol-
ars to guide their efforts. Key figures were Johann H. von
Thnen (theory of agricultural zonation), Alfred Weber
(theory of industrial location), and Walter Christaller
(central place theory). Unlike Hettners geography, these
works focused on spatial interaction within nodal, not
uniform, regions. Ullman (1980) encapsulated these no-
mothetic approaches to geography by proclaiming that
Site and situation concepts and their extension to cover
the relation of man to environment and to spatial interac-
tion furnish in broad fashion perhaps the main basis for
geographical theory (26).
Even so, the core of geography remained rooted in physi-
cal geography. Many geographers were skeptical of the
spatial interactive approach for a number of reasons (p.
237). First, the Germans who were studied, aside from
Ratzel, were primarily economists, not geographers. Also,
according to critics, the models did not account for arbi-
trary decisions made by individuals. Third, the economic
geographers were not as fluently trained in German as
their predecessors. Fourth, most of these persons lacked
the prestigious university appointments so cherished by
traditional U.S. geographers. Finally, the pool of German
influence was diminished after World War I and World
War II. For example, after Hettners vociferous com-
ments about the Treaty of Versailles, The willingness of
the Americans to please their allies together with their
lack of knowledge of European affairs and fear for Ger-
man competition in the world, has permitted all of this
to come about (p. 52), and the propaganda writings of
German geographers such as Karl Haushofer (Geopolitik)
caused a real rift. When Mark Jefferson, an earlier admirer
of Hettner, was asked in 1930 to review Hettners work,
he rebuffed the idea by saying that Hettner no longer
interests me (Martin 1968, 161).
The Central Thread of Physical
Geography
Another thread of Martins magnum opus is the domi-
nance of physical geography. This was largely because
 of the importance of William Morris Davis, the father
of U.S. geography. Davis was a full professor at Harvard
from 1885 to 1912, the most prestigious university in the
United States at the time. Inasmuch as he was initially
a geologist, he selected the physical features of the earth
from the cornucopia of German thought. In this regard,
he was an advocate of geography as Erdkunde as defined
by Ritter and Lnderkunde as elaborated by Hettner.
Davis was consumed with the study of landforms, particu-
larly the role of rivers in shaping the physical features of
the earth. He was not satisfied with simply describing the
physical landscape, but tried to discover the causal forces
that created it. His most lasting contribution in this re-
gard was the so-called geographical cycle. The most time-
consuming legacy on the geographic profession, however,
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was his study of physiography from a scientific (hypothe-
sis) perspective. He argued that a mature, fully developed
geography therefore involves the study of physiography in
their mutual relations. Treated otherwise, the divisions of
the subject lose coherence; they fall apart, and are gath-
ered up by various other sciences (p. 136). In short, he
wanted to establish geography as a science. Ironically, his
physical geography was so successful that various others
disciplines, such as geomorphology and climatology, were
spin-offs.
His approach to geography can be found in the work of
many illustrious followers. These included Ellsworth Hun-
tington, famous for his study of tree rings as these related
to changes in climate. Isaiah Bowman pursued physical
geography as well as human geography and served in key
positions, including Director of the American Geograph-
ical Society and president of Johns Hopkins University.
Mark Jefferson, another follower who marched much to
his own music, was one of the most prolific scholars of his
time. At the Michigan State Normal College at Ypsilanti,
he trained thousands of school teachers in the nature of
geography.
Martin devotes considerable space to the pursuit of per-
fect physiographic provinces (regions). It is amazing how
many geographers devoted efforts to their study and a
whole chapter is devoted to that subject. For example,
regional physiography came fully into its own with the
publication of Bowmans Forest Physiography (1911) (p. something that she almost blindly tried to demonstrate.
210). About a dozen other geographers provided various
renditions, including Fenneman and especially Wallace
W. Atwood, The Physiographic Provinces of the United
States (1940) (p. 227). Erwin Raisz (p. 227) produced a
highly original artistic rendering of the physical features
of the United States once known by every student of ge-
ography.
FALL 2015 195
After the Midwest geographers obtained dominance,
physical geography shifted to matters more relevant to ag-
ricultural areas in the core of the continent. These geog-
raphers focused on farms and fields rather than mountains
and plains. They moved from a macro to a microscale.
Detailed farm and field studies became standard fare with
V. C. Finch and his famous Montfort studies. Their pri-
mary method was careful field mapping with the under-
lying assumption that facts put on a map would reveal
underlying causes for the distributions. Their approach
to such regional study was inductive, not deductive; idio-
graphic, not nomothetic; site, not situation. Their regions
were uniform (homogeneous) and not functional (nodal).
Interaction between them was primarily vertical, not
horizontal. This caused those on the periphery to quip
that such geographers were simply hewers of facts and
makers of maps, alluding to the Biblical injunction that
the Gibeonites were sentenced to be hewers of wood and
drawers of water. The implication was that geographers
were destined to be the servants to other disciplinesnot
a science, but merely to provide site descriptors placed on
maps.
The Hot Thread of Control
Throughout the history of geography there has been a
small cadre of keepers of the keys of orthodoxy. They de-
fined geography in their images and deliberately tried to
prevent those with contrary views from gaining positions
of power.
Davis, being a geologist initially, defined geography with
physical features at the core. Therefore, when Ellen C.
Semple, following Ratzel rather than Hettner or Ritter,
presented people as the centerpiece of the discipline, she
was attacked by the establishment. Semple was a prolific
and elegant writer and was highly persuasive and highly
popular in the presentation of her thesis. She followed
Ratzels Anthropogeographie, which defined geography as
the study of the land and the effect upon its people (p.
392). Her hypothesis was that the physical environment
was the causal agent, or determining factor, in shaping
the placement and nature of humankind on the earth,
Of course, her theory was flawed and needful of correc-
tion, but so were many of Daviss hypotheses.
Smith and others at the Wharton School of Business at
the University of Pennsylvania had another view of geog-
raphy, with economics playing a paramount role. Thereby,
it also followed a component of Ratzels geography.
 Nonetheless, the movement was not strong enough to
bring censor and anger from the pillars of the power elite.
Geography was tightly controlled by Daviss followers,
particularly in New England. In 1923, however, a Mid-
west takeover of the AAG occurred. This represented
a shift of influence away from the East and the Davisan
influence to the Midwest and the by then intellectually
strong department at Chicago (p. 1169). Thereafter, the
core of geography became defined by Hartshorne (Uni-
versity of Wisconsin) in his weighty work The Nature of
Geography (Hartshorne 1939). Martin wisely devotes an
entire chapter to this work and various responses to it.
Even so, Martin might have a soft spot favorable to Harts-
horne. Martin reveals in a footnote that he shared more
than thirty privately held meetings with Hartshorne in a
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little more than twenty years. Sessions were usually one
or two days in length; the obituary session lasted three
days. The sessions were held at the authors house or at
Hartshornes sisters house in Killingworth, Connecticut
(p. 951). Even so, as would be expected, Martin maintains
meticulous objectivity in his treatment.
There were three major critics of Hartshornes opus: Carl
Sauer, Fred K. Schaefer, and those of the newly emerg-
ing geography at the University of Washington. Sauer
claimed that Hartshorne had misrepresented Hettner, a
similar charge to that made later by Schaefer. In a letter
to Preston James, a kind of godfather, or arbiter, to the
profession, Sauer said:
Hartshornes vast tome rests largely on Hettner. Yet
what Hettner has added to knowledge himself, namely,
a lot of excellent geomorphology, is excluded. Hettners
influence on his students has been most strongly in their
development of the same approach to culture phe-
nomena that Hettner made to the phenomena of land
forms, namely, a genetic, developmental approach. This,
Hartshorne also pushes out to an unimportant fringe of
the subject. (pp. 91920)
Sauer went even further in a letter to the Director of the
Social Sciences Division of the Rockefeller Foundation
when he wrote:
I must, of course, plead to bias with regard to Harts-
horne The publication for which he is chiefly known,
The Nature of Geography, is admittedly an assault on
Leighly and myself. At a meeting of the geographers,
he [Hartshorne] made the since famous quip that it was
time for them [mainline geographers] to turn away from
the god west of the Sierras [Sauer]. (p. 940)
Fred K. Schaefer made a more lasting criticism of Harts-
hornes work. Schaefer, then teaching at the University of
Iowa, was a German trained in economics and geography
196 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS
at the University of Berlin. His impact is evident by
Richard Morrills comments for those at the University
of Washington: It was easy to personify Richard Harts-
horne, whose work we studied in detail, as what we strug-
gled against. We found heroesnotably Schaefer and
Christallerand many villains (p. 1119).
In fact, there might have been somewhat of a conspir-
acy to prevent the publication of Schaefers criticism of
Hartshornes Nature of Geography. Schaefers (1953) ar-
ticleExceptionalism in Geography: A Methodologi-
cal Examinationwas submitted in 1952 to the Annals
for publication. The editorial committee was Stephen B.
Jones (Yale), Edward L. Ullman (University of Wash-
ington), and Clyde F. Kohn (University of Iowa). Jones
and Ullman, of all people, voted against its publication.
To the chagrin of many, the editor published it. It shook
the establishment to its core. Kohn, being a colleague of
Schaefer, years later told Martin he was unable to recall
what he had written, [to the editor] and was uncertain
that he had written such a letter (p. 938).
Schaefer returned to the original sources in German by
Kant, Humboldt, Hettner, and others. He argued, for
example, that Hartshorne deliberately selected the id-
iographic statements of Hettner and ignored his nomo-
thetic statements. In so doing, the picture Hartshorne
paints of the German author [Hettner] is as one-sided as
his quotations are selective (Schaefer 1953, 240). Schae-
fers primary conclusion was that geography, as generally
practiced in the United States, and particularly as defined
by Hartshorne, prevented geography from becoming a sci-
ence. Schaefer concluded that, if U.S. geography contin-
ued on the path laid out by Hartshorne, it would remain
sterile. I am not so optimistic in case geography should
reject the search for laws [which he accused Hartshorne
of doing], exalt its regional aspects for its own sake [la-
beled exceptionalism by Schaefer] and thus limit itself
more and more to mere description (Schaefer 1953, 249).
Hartshorne was furious, having not known of its im-
pending publication, and vociferously attacked Schaefer.
Hartshorne began with a zornhau (a strike of wrath). He
pronounced Schaefers article a palpable fraud, consist-
ing of falsehoods, distortions, and obvious omissions (p.
939). He then began a deliberate series of attaque au fer (a
fencing term for a counterattack) of devastating thrusts.
Nonetheless, Schaefers charge of exceptionalism had
landed a crippling blow. Hartshorne (1959) made a heroic
attempt to foil the criticisms of The Nature of Geography
by publishing his corrective response in his Perspective on
the Nature of Geography. After publication he would re-
mark that his ten substantive chapters were coming to
 be regarded as ten commandments (p. 946). They were
not, especially at the University of Washington. As soon
became evident, the profession was no longer under law,
but under liberty. The damage was done. The center of
the field as defined by Hartshorne could no longer hold.
The periphery prospered.
Tragically, Schaefer died in 1953 of a heart attack and
could not respond to these vicious attacks. His defend-
ers were legion, however, summarized in Reflections on
Richard Hartshornes The Nature of Geography (Entrikin
and Brunn 1989). Schaefers works were donated to the
American Geographical Society and ironically, contain
an unpublished article entitled The Nature of Geog-
raphy.
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The 2015 annual AAG meetings in Chicago were out-
wardly a great success. They were attended by about 9,000
persons and papers were presented by dozens of specialty
groups. No single point of view prevailed; there was no
evident ultimate authority. It had become almost a heresy
to ask the perennial question: What is geography? Even
a casual examination of American Geography and Geog-
raphers: Toward Geographical Science reveals the need for
the question to be raised. Outwardly, the discipline is
flourishing, but primarily by the turmoil of an unloosed
centrifugal-driven peripherya kind of Don Quixote
period. It is reminiscent of William Butler Yeatss (1920)
The Second Coming: Turning and turning in the widen-
ing gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer; things fall
apart: the centre can not hold (p. 466).
How did geography reach this stage? And what is the
center? Are things falling apart or is freedom for innova-
tion and the unleashing of liberty ringing a triumphant
rebirth of the discipline? It is certainly no longer to
be found in the long-standing region-based syncretism
FALL 2015 197
(exceptionalism) as presented by Nevin M. Fennemans
The Circumference of Geography (pp. 51112). And
has geography arrived as a science? Wisely, Martin does
not venture into the murky mire of modern interpreta-
tion but ends abruptly circa 1970. He lays out the facts
and points the reader to treasure troves of archived ma-
terial. Even so, the sleuths for the truth will find all the
clues they need in this summa cum laude achievement,
to make sense of the otherwise confusing state of U.S.
geography today.
References
Entrikin, J. N., and S. Brunn, eds. 1989. Reflections on
Richard Hartshornes The nature of geography. Washing-
ton, DC: Association of American Geographers.
Hartshorne, R. 1939. The nature of geography: A critical
survey of current thought in light of the past. Lancaster,
PA: Association of American Geographers.
. 1959. Perspective on the nature of geography. Chi-
cago, IL: Rand McNally.
Hettner, A. 1927. Die Geographieihre Geschicte, ihr We-
sen, und ihre Methoden [Geography. Its history, its na-
ture, its methods]. Breslau, Germany: Ferdinand Hirt.
Martin, G. J. 1968. Mark Jefferson: Geographer. Ypsilanti,
MI: Eastern Michigan University Press.
. 1973. Ellsworth Huntington: His life and thought.
Hamden, CT: Archon Books.
. 1980. The life and thought of Isaiah Bowman.
Hamden, CT: Archon Books.
. 2005. All possible worlds: A history of geographical
ideas. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Schaefer, F. K. 1953. Exceptionalism in geography: A
methodological examination. Annals of the Association
of American Geographers 43 (3): 22649.
Ullman, E. L. 1980. Geography as spatial interaction. Se-
attle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Yeats, W. B. 1920. The second coming. The Dial, Novem-
ber, 466.