Geographical imagination and the authority of images collects three papers and an interview on the themes presented and discussed during the 2005 Hettner lectures. Cosgrove examines the roles that vision and imagination have played in shaping material and represented landscapes at scales ranging from the local and regional to the global and cosmic. The book presents substantive studies of cosmographic and global mapping, the picturesque tradition and suburban Los Angeles, and the use of aeTranspennine' England as a geographical art gallery. Embedded in these are theoretical and ethical reflections on the ways that we come to know the world, ourselves and each other through geographical engagements, especially when these are mediated through graphic images. The interview locates these themes within the context of Denis Cosgrove's development as a geographer and his response to debates within the discipline about the roles of imagination, culture and representation within geographies's humanities tradition. Contents Peter Meusburger / Hans Gebhardt: Introduction: Hettner-Lecture 2005 in Heidelberg Denis Cosgrove: Apollo's eye: a cultural geography of the globe Denis Cosgrove: Landscape, culture and modernity Denis Cosgrove: Regional art: Transpennine geography remembered and exhibited Tim Freytag / Heike Joens: Vision and the, culturalae in geography: a biographical interview with Denis Cosgrove The Klaus Tschira Foundations gGmbH u Photographic representations: Hettner-Lecture 2005 u List of participants.

Europe and the British Geographical Imagination, 1760-1830 explores what literate British people understood by the word 'Europe' in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Was Europe unified by shared religious heritage? Where were the edges of Europe? Was Europe primarily a commercial network or were there common political practices too? Was Britain itself a European country? While intellectual history is concerned predominantly with prominent thinkers, Paul Stock traces the history of ideas in non-elite contexts, offering a detailed analysis of nearly 350 geographical reference works, textbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopaedias, which were widely read by literate Britons of all classes, and can reveal the formative ideas about Europe circulating in Britain: ideas about religion; the natural environment; race and other theories of human difference; the state; borders; the identification of the 'centre' and 'edges' of Europe; commerce and empire; and ideas about the past, progress, and historical change. By showing how these and other questions were discussed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British culture, Europe and the British Geographical Imagination, 1760-1830 provides a thorough and much-needed historical analysis of Britain's enduringly complex intellectual relationship with Europe.

Leading geographer Denis Cosgrove provides a series of personal reflections on the complex connections between seeing, imagining and representing the world geographically. In a series of eloquent essays he draws upon pictorial images - including maps, sketches, cartoons, paintings, and photographs - to explore and elaborate upon the many and varied ways in which the vast and varied earth, and at times the heavens beyond, have been both imagined and represented as a place of human habitation. The essays include reflections upon geographical discovery; urban cartography and utopian visions; ideas of landscape and the shaping of America; wilderness and masculinity; conceptions of the Pacific; and the imaginative grip of the Equator. Extensively illustrated, this engaging work reveals the richness of the geographical imagination as expressed over the past five centuries.

Reflecting the revival of interest in a social theory that takes place and space seriously, this book focuses on geographical place in the practice of social science and history. There is significant interest among scholars from a range of disciplines in bringing together the geographical and sociological ‘imaginations’. The geographical imagination is a concrete and descriptive one, concerned with determining the nature of places, and classifying them and the links between them. The sociological imagination aspires to explanation of human activities in terms of abstract social processes. The chapters in this book focus on both the intellectual histories of the concept of place and on its empirical uses. They show that place is as important for understanding contemporary America as it is for 18th-century Sri Lanka. They also show how the concept can provide insight into ‘old’ problems such as the nature of social life in Renaissance Florence and Venice. The editors are leading exponents of the view of place as a concept that can ‘mediate’ the geographical and sociological imaginations.

Space and place are at the heart of how geographers and sociologists think. This updated edition of the essential undergraduate text will introduce you to the most influential thinkers in the tradition of social theory, with a new focus on the past fifty years. This book is designed to engage with theoretical debates in human geography through the individuals who have made the most significant contributions to this field. This will show you how ideas are shaped by contexts, and how those ideas in turn effect change. This book shows how theoretical understandings evolve, shift and change. It also highlights the connections between different thinkers, whose ideas are developed in collaboration with or in reaction to others. Spatial thought is never developed in a vacuum, but is always constructed by individuals and groups of people located in particular institutional and social structures, with their own sets of personal and political beliefs. The biographical approach of this book reveals how individual thinkers draw on a rich legacy of ideas from past and contemporary generations. With increased coverage of international and female thinkers, as well as those who work against Eurocentric notions of space and place, this book reveals the exciting reorientation of Geography towards new ideas and methods in the last decade. Each entry contextualises its subject within on-going (inter)disciplinary debates and important political moments, as well as highlighting connections between different thinkers. Together the chapters uncover the rich and diverse evolution of social theory, equipping you with the foundational ideas of geographical thought. Each entry offers the following components: i) a short biography ii) an explanation of ideas iii) an exploration of how their ideas have been used and critiqued iv) a selective bibliography of key publications (and key publications which review or critique)

In this latest edition of Key Thinkers on Space and Place, editors Phil Hubbard and Rob Kitchin provide us with a fully revised and updated text that highlights the work of over 65 key thinkers on space and place. Unique in its concept, the book is a comprehensive guide to the life and work of some of the key thinkers particularly influential in the current ′spatial turn′ in the social sciences. Providing a synoptic overview of different ideas about the role of space and place in contemporary social, cultural, political and economic life, each portrait comprises: Biographical information and theoretical context. An explication of their contribution to spatial thinking. An overview of key advances and controversie. Guidance on further reading. With 14 additional chapters including entries on Saskia Sassen, Tim Ingold, Cindi Katz and John Urry, the book covers ideas ranging from humanism, Marxism, feminism and post-structuralism to queer-theory, post-colonialism, globalization and deconstruction, presenting a thorough look at diverse ways in which space and place has been theorized. An essential text for geographers, this now classic reference text is for all those interested in theories of space and place, whether in geography, sociology, cultural studies, urban studies, planning, anthropology, or women′s studies.

The imagination has long been associated with travel and tourism; from the seventeenth century when the showman and his peepshow box would take the village crowd to places, cities and lands through the power of stories, to today when we rely on a different range of boxes to whisk us away on our imaginative travels: the television, the cinema and the computer. Even simply the notion of travel, it would seem, gives us license to daydream. The imagination thus becomes a key concept that blurs the boundaries between our everyday lives and the idea of travel. Yet, despite what appears to be a close and comfortable link, there is an absence of scholarly material looking at travel and the imagination. Bringing together geographers, sociologists, cultural researchers, philosophers, anthropologists, visual researchers, archaeologists, heritage researchers, literary scholars and creative writers, this edited collection explores the socio-cultural phenomenon of imagination and travel. The volume reflects upon imagination in the context of many forms of physical and non-physical travel, inviting scholars to explore this fascinating, yet complex, area of inquiry in all of its wonderful colour, slipperiness, mystery and intrigue. The book intends to provide a catalyst for thinking, discussion, research and writing, with the vision of generating a cannon of scholarship on travel and the imagination that is currently absent from the literature.