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The dead don't answer

questionnaires: Researching and
writing historical geography
a
Dr Alan R. H. Baker
a
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing
Place, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, UK Fax: E-mail:
Published online: 02 May 2007.

To cite this article: Dr Alan R. H. Baker (1997) The dead don't answer questionnaires:
Researching and writing historical geography, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 21:2,
231-243, DOI: 10.1080/03098269708725427

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 Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1997

"The Dead Don't Answer Questionnaires":

researching and writing historical geography
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ALAN R. H. BAKER, University of Cambridge, UK

ABSTRACT The focus of studies in historical geography upon some time or period in
the past rather than in the present means that historical geography is constrained in
ways that the practice of contemporary human geography is not. This paper considers
some of the general problems encountered in researching and writing historical
geography. In relation to research, it examines the identification of a research topic, and
discusses the problems associated with making geographical interpretations from his-
torical sources. It then addresses the issues which have to be resolved when writing
historical geography. It concludes by affirming both the individual pleasure to be derived
from work in historical geography and the mutual benefits to be gained from a dialogue
between historical geographers and contemporary human geographers in their common
search for historical understanding.

KEYWORDS Historical geography, researching, writing.

The Practice of Historical Geography

"All geography is historical geography" proclaimed L. Rodwell Jones more than 70
years ago in his inaugural address as Professor of Geography at the London School of
Economics and Political Science. Jones not only argued the necessity for a historical
perspective in all geographical enquiry (because people-environment relationships are
changing, not constant) but also asserted that in historical geography "lies the greatest
field for research and the most cultural part of the subject [of geography]" (Jones, 1925,
pp. 250, 255). Almost 30 years later, H. C. Darby asked whether a line could be drawn
between geography and history, and replied: "The answer is 'no', for the process of
becoming is one process. All geography is historical geography, either actual or
potential" (Darby, 1953, p. 6).
Debate about the nature of historical geography, like that about geography itself, has
a long pedigree (Langton, 1988; Brooks Green, 1991; Butlin, 1993). Studies in historical
geography have encompassed not only geography's traditional, 'central' concerns with
regions, places and areas but also the modern, 'peripheral' concerns of the ecological,

0309-8265/97/020231-13 1997 Carfax Publishing Ltd 231

 A. R. H. Baker

locational and landscape schools of geography. But all of these varieties of historical
geography share one feature in common with each other (but not with contemporary
geography): their geographical interest is focused upon some time or period in the past
rather than in the present. 'Doing' historical geography is, therefore, constrained in ways
that contemporary human geography is not: questionnaires and ethnographic surveys are
not available research options (except in oral historical enquiry in relation to the very
recent past).
The vitality of historical geography in the English-speaking world today owes much
to the recognition that debate should be much more than an appendage; it should hold
a central place in its practice. Rethinking orthodox interpretations of the geographies of
the past should be the norm. Current ideas and assertions must be, and must expect to
be, revised as new evidence comes to light, as new techniques of analysis become
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available, as new problems deserving attention are identified, and as new ideas and
theories are brought into play. The pace of change, of improvement, within the discipline
has accelerated considerably during the last decade or so (Baker, 1972; Norton, 1984;
Lawton, 1987; Pacione, 1987; Earle et al, 1989; Harris, 1991; Butlin, 1993; Conzen et
al., 1993; Philo, 1994; Courville, 1995). Historical geography is today practised in
diverse ways, for example as the reconstruction of past geographies, as the study of
geographical change, as historical ecology and environmental history, as cultural
diffusion, as the study of changing landscapes and their iconographies, and as a study
of the operation of geographical influences in history. I shall consider here some of the
general problems likely to be encountered in researching and writing almost any kind of
historical geography.

Researching Historical Geography

"The past is dead, long live history"
A historical geographer's object of studythe geography of a place at some time in the
past, or the changing geography of a place during some period in the pastconstitutes
a dead reality. The past has happened and cannot be influenced or changed by any
activity in the present: nor can it be repeated in the future. Unlike natural scientists or
social scientists, historical geographers are unable to observe directly the phenomenon
they wish to study; they cannot set up controlled, replicable experiments. But it also
follows that historical geographers are not personally involved with the phenomenon
being studied, that they are neither actors in any scientific experiment nor intentional or
unintentional participant observers in any social analysis. While the intangibility of the
past imposes limitations upon historical enquiry, the inevitable distancing of the
historical geographer from the object of study theoretically permits a greater degree of
impartiality than might otherwise be the case. Historical geographers arrive upon the
scene of an 'accident' (for example, the Industrial Revolution or the planting of a
hedgerow) after it has happened and their task is akin to that of a detective whose job
it is to reconstruct what happened and to present a substantiated and convincing account
to a court. Historical geographers cannot observe the past directly; they have instead to
rely indirectly on the testimony of witnesses. Herein lies the fundamental difference
between the prosecution of the natural and social sciences on the one hand and of the
historical sciences on the other. This is a serious constraint, often not acknowledged by
non-historians and sometimes forgotten by historians. It needs constantly to be recog-
nised and remembered that "explorers of the past are never quite free. The past is their

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 "The Dead Don't Answer Questionnaires"

tyrant. It forbids them to know anything which it has not itself, consciously or otherwise,
yielded to them" (Bloch, 1954, p. 59).
The past is dead but scholarly studies of it are vitally alive. More than 30 years ago
an edited volume on the diversifying approaches to history included chapters on political
history, economic history, social history, universal history, local history, the history of
art, the history of science, and archaeology and place-names (Finberg, 1962). Recently,
an edited volume on new perspectives in historical writing included essays on history
'from below', women's history, overseas history, microhistory, oral history, the history
of reading, the history of images, the history of political thought, the history of the body,
and the history of events and the revival of narrativeand recognised that there were
also other, new approaches to history such as environmental history, cultural history and
the history of everyday life (Burke, 1991). The essential characteristics of the 'new
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history' all have a direct relevance for those 'doing' historical geography. All of the
features of the 'new history' have a direct bearing upon the practice of historical
geography: its concern with virtually every human activity; its assumption that reality is
socially constituted; its concern with the analysis of structures as well as with a narrative
of events; its view of 'history from below'; its use of a wide variety of sources, not just
written documents; and its acceptance of the cultural relativism of historical explana-
tions, and of the merits of inter-disciplinary thinking and working (Burke, 1991, pp.
1-6).
It is not my purpose here to provide reviews of recent developments in either history
or geography, but I do want to emphasise the importance to a historical geographer of
being aware of those developmentsnot in order to follow academic fashion but in
order to encounter and to assess new ideas and findings, new evidence and techniques.
Nor do I wish here to engage with the philosophy of history or geography: my concern
instead is with the day-to-day practice of historical geography. Nor do I consider the
techniques of historical and geographical analysis, because specific projects often require
different kinds of expertise (such as pollen analysis, statistical analysis of quantitative
data, critical or content analysis of literary sources, or image analysis of pictorial
information) and this essay is not intended to be a tool kit. Instead, I want to deal with
some of the general issues of problem, evidence and interpretation which every historical
geographer will need to address, no matter the topic, period or place being investigated.

Problems
The point of departure of research in historical geography has an important bearing upon
its destination. The extent to which its ultimate findings will be considered to be original
and significant will depend crucially upon the initial determination of the problem to be
investigated and the ways in which it will be approached. A research problem should be
identified from a critical reading of the published literature (not only books and articles,
but also footnotes and book reviews) of the selected general field of enquiry, and from
regular and frequent discussions with a research supervisor. The topic to be researched
needs to be defined, together with the period for which, and the place in which, it will
be investigated. Similarly, there need to be mapped out lines of approach to the enquiry.
Perhaps 'mapped' is too strong a word to be using in relation to this initial but crucial
phase of 'doing' historical geography, but there certainly needs to be a sketch of the
research journey for, without one, a researcher runs the serious risk of wandering
randomly and unproductively through the holdings of libraries and record offices.

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 A. R. H. Baker

Research needs to be given direction from the beginning, while recognising that as it
develops some significant changes of direction might become appropriate or necessary.
Furthermore, this initial phase should be conducted quite independently of the
available sources of evidence relating to the research problem. For most of the time, a
historical geographer's research programme will be largely controlled by the sources; but
for the relatively short duration of the initial phase the definition of the research problem
should proceed imaginatively, unconstrained by evidence. This is not necessarily to
argue that the aim should be to formulate a broad research problem. While there is a
strong case for the production of general, contextual surveys of the field as a foundation
upon which to build detailed investigations of specific, well-defined aspects of past
geographies, there is also an understandable temptation to aim to produce research of
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broad, general significance and to design an overly ambitious programme which would
take an individual years, perhaps decades, to implement properly. There is a time for
broad synthesis and a time for deep analysis. The value of the former depends upon the
quality of the latter.
Having counselled restraint in the selection of a research problem, it is now necessary
to insist that familiarity with the relevant literature and sources must have no such
bounds. The compilation of an extensive bibliography of work in the relevant field is a
vital first step towards the research frontier. A critical survey of the literature serves both
to establish a clear picture of 'the story so far' and to identify ways in which gaps in
that story might be filled and developed further. The existing literature has to be read
critically, identifying the questions which remain unanswered and formulating new
questions yet to be posed. The literature has also to be read instructively, with a view
to learning about both the methods and the sources of evidence which other scholars
have used. For this purpose it is as important to read the footnotes as it is the text of
an article or book: a necessary task in this early phase of research is to compile a full
list of the sources (both primaryi.e. contemporary with the period being researched
and secondary) which might throw some light on the chosen research problem. All
historical geography is source-bound: all historical geographers should know the full
range of their sources and so of their evidence, thereby enabling them to push their
research to its empirical limits.

Evidence
No study in historical geography can be better than the sources on which it is founded:
the best studies are those based upon a wide spectrum of sources. Studies perched
precariously upon a single source, or even upon a single set of sources, have an
experimental or service value in exploring the possibilities and limits of that particular
source or set of sources, but they are always in danger of being undermined by evidence
from other sources: a historical geographer needs to question more than one witness
when investigating a historical 'accident'. Optimally, one should not only establish an
inventory of the full range of sources which might conceivably have a bearing upon the
investigation but one should also consult them all. Scarcity of resources, of time and
money, might not permit one to undertake such a thorough survey and to conduct such
thorough research, but sight should not be lost of that target, however ambitious and
ultimately unachievable it might be.
The full range of sources will almost certainly include literary documents (such as
correspondence, diaries, minutes, reports, newspapers and novels), numerical data (such
as population and other census returns, trade statistics, financial accounts, data on prices,

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employment figures and taxation assessments) and graphical images (such as drawings
and paintings, photographs, postcards, films, advertisements and cartoons). It might also
quite possibly include sounds (such as music, songs, chants and slogans) and sights (such
as buildings, monuments and memorials, indeed any feature in a landscape). We need to
be familiar not only with the full range of sources available for our own enquiry but also
with the ways in which those sources have so far been employed by other scholars. An
expertise needs to be developed in the conventional analysis of different types of sources
as well as a willingness to develop new forms of analysis: part at least of a dissertation's
claim to originality can lie in the discovery and use of a new source or in the formulation
and presentation of new ways of analysing a familiar source.
The need is not only for an inventory of relevant sources but also for an assessment
of their utility to the research in hand. No source should be taken at face value; all
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sources must be evaluated critically and contextually. The history and geography of a
source needs to be established before it can legitimately be utilised and incorporated into
a study in historical geography. The historical sources we use were not compiled and
constructed for our explicitly geographical purposes: they are more likely to have been
prepared, for example, for the purposes of taxation and valuation, administration and
control. We have to understand not only the superficial characteristics of a specific
source but also the underlying motivation, background and ideology of the person(s) who
constructed it. In order to make most effective and convincing use of a source we must
be aware of its original purpose and context and thus of its limitations and potential for
our own project. In short, a text must be contextualized, a source must be deconstructed
(Baker et al., 1970; Harley, 1982).
One of the paradoxes encountered by historical geographers is that evidence about the
past is both very fragmentary and extraordinarily capacious. The historical record is
incomplete and, while old data can be analysed in new ways to yield additional
information and genuinely new data about the past are discoverable in hitherto under-
used, totally neglected or even unknown sources, that record cannot be extended by the
historical scientist in the way that new data can literally be generated by the natural or
social scientist working in the laboratory or in the field. Our knowledge of the past will,
therefore, always be incomplete. Much of history went unrecorded and much of what
was recorded in the past has not survived into the present. Historical geographers
constantly encounter gaps in the data which cannot be filled empiricallyalthough they
might well rise to the challenge and endeavour to bridge those gaps either by calling
upon some appropriate statistical, cartographic or literary technique for support or by
employing some theoretical underpinning.
Individual sources can be fragmentary but collectively they are fulsome. The overall
pool of sources is expanding, both as additional materials are deposited in record offices
and as more documents already in them become available for public inspection with the
passing of time and the lapsing of rules restricting access to them on the grounds of
public secrecy or private confidentiality. Only exceptionally will any historical scholar
dare to claim that he/she has examined all of the evidence relating to a particular
research project, because both the variety and the volume of historical evidence are, from
a practical point of view, infinite. For that reason, inter alia, all historical generalisations
and judgements have at best only a provisional status, possibly only a conjectural status,
and certainly not a conclusive one. Work in historical geography is based on a set of
compromises (with the topic, with the period, with the place, with the sources, with the
analytical techniques, with the theoretical framework to a study) which are best stated
explicitly. The necessity for compromise should not be used, however, as an excuse for

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 A. R. H. Baker

not completing a piece of research, for not publishing its results, on the grounds
that "there is still some work to be done". There will always be more work to be
done.
Embarrassed by the wealth of sources, we have to select from among them those
which appear to be best suited to the purpose in hand. That is why the problem being
investigated should be precisely defined, otherwise a historical geographer can easily be
seduced into a series of affairs with enticing, one-off sources while productive research
demands a committed, long-term relationship with an interrelated family of sources. A
choice of sources will have to be made and the actual selection will need to be justified.
There is much to be said for working on a problem for which there can be identified an
inter-connected cluster of appropriate sources, permitting the problem to be approached
from a number of perspectives. A research project undoubtedly derives strength from
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source diversity, from using different sources not only individually but also compara-
tively, in an integrated study. This is not only the case when all (or most) of the sources
agree entirely with each other (which is likely to be rarely) but even when they disagree,
because it guards against the simplistic acceptance of the view to be found in any one
source, however 'major' it might appear to be. Research based upon clusters of sources
is both more challenging and more convincing than that based upon a single source. But
there is a tangible benefit to be gained if it is possible to select one major source, the
analysis of which will provide the firm skeleton for a project, and then to use other
sources to put flesh on those bones. Such a pragmatic approach can provide a research
project with a recognisable structure and help to make it both more manageable and
more comprehensible. For example, our knowledge of the historical geography of the
so-called 'Agricultural Revolution' in England has been substantially advanced by the
systematic, statistical and cartographical analysis of thousands of probate inventories.
The fundamental picture constructed from that major source has then been elaborated
with information derived not so rigorously from diverse other sources, such as estate
papers and the writings of agronomists and topographers (Overton, 1984, 1996). In my
own studies of the changing landscapes of two rural communes in France during the
nineteenth century, the research was structured around the detailed minutes of their
municipal councils and elaborated with other evidence derived from, for example,
cadastral maps and registers, censuses of population, and files of administrative corre-
spondence between mayors of the communes and the Prefects of their departement
(Baker, 1992, 1994). Evidence is best collected from a variety of witnesses and carefully
assessed; if there is a principal witness, so much the better.
Formulation of the research problem to be investigated and selection of the sources to
be interrogated requires judgement on the part of the researcher, who will have some
clear questions in mind which he/she wishes to pose to a particular source. Sources do
not initially speak for themselves but instead respond to questions. Like all witnesses,
however, once a source has been questioned it can itself address issues which go well
beyond the bounds of that question and it can even itself raise questions. The deep
interrogation of a source requires a researcher not only to ask questions but also to listen
carefully to the replies; the interrogation in effect becomes a dialogue which is likely to
suggest additional lines of enquiry to that initially in the mind of the researcher.

Interpretations
Establishing even the 'simple facts' about the geographies of places in the past deserves
credit. This is not special pleading. Nor am I referring simply to the exceptionally

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time-consuming process of data collection in historical geography: so many of its

sources are unpublished manuscripts, in unfamiliar styles of (often hardly legible)
handwriting, possibly in a foreign language and almost certainly not employing modern
English usage, documents which are often faded and torn and which have not always
been professionally catalogued, so that working on a file or bundle of manuscripts can
be even more of a lottery than the chance survival of historical records inevitably makes
it to some extent. Such difficult, time-consuming working conditions have to be taken
for granted by historical geographers. The discovery of new 'facts' of historical
geography and making them available to a wider audience is an intrinsically worthwhile
exercise. Publication of transcriptions of medieval taxation records provides a good
illustration of this point, even though it is their interpretation which will command most
interest (Glasscock, 1973, 1975).
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The 'facts' of historical geography are not always easily established and there is often
as much debate about them as about their interpretation. But without basic 'facts' about
the historical timing and geographical distribution of a phenomenon or process it would
be very difficult to say much of interest about it. One view of historical geography as
a discipline is that it emphasises an approach in which the data are historical but in
which the method is geographical. This tradition emphasised the importance of seeking
out unpublished sources which could be mapped in order to demonstrate regional
differences at some times in the past and changing landscapes during periods in the past.
Other traditions have subsequently been developed within historical geography but the
cartographic tradition remains important (Baker, 1985). The "cartographic manifestation
of economic and social conditions in times past is central to historical geography"
(Clout, 1980, p. 8). None the less, such cartographic representation remains a largely
unexamined aspect of the discourse of historical geography and we should treat such
maps as texts rather than as mirrors of reality (Harley, 1989). Such 'cartographic facts'
reflect perceptions of sources, interpretations of evidence.
We return, then, to fundamental principles of historical method, agreeing with G. R.
Elton (1967, p. 65) that there are "only two and they may be expressed as questions,
thus: exactly what evidence is there, and exactly what does it mean?". Marc Bloch (1954,
p. 71) had earlier been satisfied with one deceptively simple but comprehensive question
because in his view "every historical book worthy of the name ought to include a chapter,
or if one prefers, a series of paragraphs inserted at turning points in the development,
which might almost be entitled: 'How can I know what I am about to say?' ".
This involves a familiar but fundamental inferential problem. It has been written about
a great deal but never better than by E. H. Carr in his search for an answer to the
question "What is history?". In a phrase which resonates in the geographical mind, Can-
argued that
"the relation of man [sic] to his environment is the relation of man to his
theme. The historian is neither the humble slave nor the tyrant of his facts. The
relation between one historian and the facts is one of equality, of give and take.
As working historians know, if they stop to reflect on what they are doing as
they think and write, they are engaged in a continuous process of moulding
facts to interpretation and interpretation to facts. It is impossible to assign
primacy to one over the other.
It is worth heeding Carr's warning that:
if you try to separate them [fact and interpretation], or to give one priority over
the other, you fall into one of two heresies. Either you write scissors-and-paste

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 A. R. H. Baker

history without meaning or significance; or you write propaganda or historical

fiction, and merely use facts of the past to embroider a kind of writing which
has nothing to do with history. (Carr, 1964, pp. 28-29)
But how is a balance between fact and interpretation to be achieved? One answer lies
in an explicit attempt to distinguish between permissible and non-permissible inferences
drawn from the available evidence. Given the overwhelming role of indirect evidence in
historical enquiries, we need to ask two questions of any particular inference: first, is the
reasoning on which the inference is based correct?; second, is it the only inference which
might reasonably be drawn from the facts and used to interpret them? (Kitson Clark,
1967, p. 57). An explicit and rigorous acceptance of such limits requires us to define our
objectives in historical geography with strict reference to the potentialities of the
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available evidence, for it leads to the view that it is only the questions to which evidence
can provide answers which can productively be asked, because other questions will
remain as pure (or impure) conjecture. Of course, 'answers'i.e. inferences from
evidencecan have attached to them varying degrees of certainty and it is essential
to try to differentiate the evident fact, the probable deduction and the likely guess
(Kitson Clark, 1967, p. 58). All 'conclusions' should really be qualified in this way
(Baker, 1976).
While such a procedure acts as a kind of quality control on historical enquiry it should
not preclude the exercise of a disciplined imagination upon seemingly intractable
sources. Researchers need also to be critically aware of the intellectual 'baggage' being
brought to an enquiry by virtue of their education and experience, because the
researchers' own past significantly shapes their historico-geographical interpretation.
Historical facts have to be converted into geographical interpretations of history.
Research in historical geography should be theoretically informed in at least two ways:
it needs to draw upon the range of theories available to a practitioner working in the
present as an indirect observer of the past but it also needs to endeavour to recover the
concepts, the mentalites, of the historical actors of the period (Butlin, 1987; Gregory,
1990; Pred, 1990; Harris, 1991; Burke, 1992; Hochberg & Earle, forthcoming). We need
to try to make sense of the past while recognising that people in the past also tried to
make sense of their own 'present'. The two perspectivesof the observer and of the
actorare bound to be different and it creates room for an application of the concept of
'false consciousness' on the part of individuals and groups in the past. There will be not
one but many possible and appropriate interpretations of a past geography. It is important
to know not only how people acted but also how they thought, not only what they did
but also what motivated them (Berkhofer, 1969). And despite the numerous constraints
on historical research covered hereand the list is not offered as a fully comprehensive
insurance for those motoring the historico-geographical highwaywe can know both
more and less about the past than the past knew about itself.

Writing Historical Geography

Both researching and writing historical geography involve constructing a series of
balances between fact and interpretation, between the particular and the general, between
the empirical and the theoretical, and between the objective and the subjective. Perfec-
tion might be the ideal but compromise will be the reality. Gaps in the evidence and in
our own imaginations impose constraints upon both research and writing, but there is one
additional and significant limitation on the writing of historical geography: the patterns

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 "The Dead Don't Answer Questionnaires"

and processes of the past being described and analysed themselves existed and changed
holistically, simultaneously and interconnectedly, in a multidimensional way, whereas
our writing about them has to proceed in a simple, linear manner, line by line and
paragraph by paragraph. For all of these reasons, "in the writing of historical geography
there is no such thing as success, only degrees of unsuccess" (Darby, 1960, p. 155).
The extent to which an article, a book or a dissertation in historical geography will be
judged a success will depend not only upon the quality of the evidence and of the
argument presented, not only on the combination of testimony and logic, but also on the
rhetoric deployed. The validity of a piece of historical work depends not simply on the
case it makes and the proof adduced in its support, but also on the acceptance of those
arguments and evidence by one or more scholars competent to judge them. Historical
writing involves the art of persuasion. The impossibility of final proof of any historical
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generalisation must be conceded, given the absolute complexity of the past and the
relative simplicity of the evidence surviving from it, so that argument and controversy
are integral to work in historical geography. Some of the most recent, lively debates have
been about the historical geography of feudalism and of capitalism, of modernism and
of postmodernism, and of the experiencing and imagining of time and space (Dodgshon,
1987; Gregory, 1991, 1994; Harvey, 1985, 1989).
Having 'concluded' a piece of research, the question arises: how to write about it?
Given our concern not only with description but also with explanation, not only with
synthesis but also with analysis, not only with chorology but also with chronology, not
only with depiction but also with narration, that question is susceptible to multiple
answers. Much discussion about the methodology of historical geography has revolved
around the search for a solution to Whittlesey's (1945, p. 32) puzzle of how to write
"incontestable geography that also incorporates the chains of event necessary to under-
stand fully the geography of the present day". To this fundamental problem of
geographical description Darby identified six possible solutionssequent occupance,
introductory narrative, parenthesis, footnote, retrospective cross-section and the use of
the present tensewhile at the same time recognising that variants and combinations of
those six methods provided challenges to literary skill and ingenuity (Darby, 1962).
These were essentially literary devices, but Darby also came to be the principal advocate
of a broader methodology which intercalated 'horizontal' cross-sections of past geogra-
phies with 'vertical' accounts of geographical change (Darby, 1960). There is, however,
no single solution to Whittlesey's puzzle and it is for each author to decide upon a
solution to it while recognising that part of the task is both to justify the selection of that
solution and to convince readers of the appropriateness of it to the task in hand. Of
course, historical geographers would do well to be aware of the variety of answers being
provided by historians to what they identify as the problem of narrative (Burke, 1991).
It is impossible to deal simultaneously with all aspects of the period, place and
problem being investigated: as in the conduct of research, so too in writing it up, the
process will involve selection. As in research so too in writing, that selection process
should be both explicit and justified. The immenseat first sight seemingly insurmount-
abletask of ordering and communicating the results of research has to be reduced to
manageable proportions. One way of doing this is to restrict the project in terms of the
time period covered or in terms of the size of the place studied or in terms of the range
of topics included in the analysis. This might have to be done in a somewhat arbitrary
way but it might also emerge logically from the evidence itself. For example, given a
phenomenon chosen for study, it can sometimes be instructive to plot graphically its
occurrence through time and cartographically its distribution over space; in this way the

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basic pattern of its historical geography can be established and the description of the
phenomenon on graphs and maps might suggest which particular periods and places
would repay more detailed treatment in order to reveal the micro-scale generating
processes which underlie the macro-scale patterns. The surviving evidence might not
permit even such an apparently straightforward approach but the principle on which it
is based remains valid: just as historico-geographical generalisations about processes
need to be established at different temporal and spatial scales, so too the written account
of a project can sometimes be productively organised around treatments of the topic at
different scales. Similarly, the topic being investigated will itself be more manageable if
it is broken into its component parts rather than considered as a whole: for example, the
cultural geography of late Georgian and early Victorian England has been approached
through the general concepts of hegemony, class and power and viewed through the
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specific institutional window of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society

(Billinge, 1982, 1984).
There are other pragmatic disciplines to which the writing of historical geography
often has to submit, notably those of time and word limits. Although often externally
driven, such disciplines are best self-taught from the outset. Time and space are scarce
resources for the active historical geographer and some rational allocation of them will
tend towards their optimal use. It makes good sense to work to a self-imposed time limit
which is well in advance of any externally imposed deadline, because it is important to
provide an opportunity to reflect uponand to revisewhat has been written. It also
makes good sense not only to plan the general framework of a piece of writing, but also
to have an idea about how many words to allocate to each specific section before
beginning the writing. What is being advocated here is not a rigid structure but a flexible
framework; writing, like researching, is a creative activity and the end cannot be entirely
foreseen at the beginning.

The Pleasures and Purposes of Historical Geography

There is much personal pleasure to be derived from pursuing research in historical
geography: for me, the hours rarely pass more rapidly and more enjoyably than they do
spent in record offices, engrossed in files of unpublished documents, engaged in a
dialogue with the evidence, and contemplating a debate with other historical scholars
about interpretations of it, seeking answers and finding questions. It would be easy to
become self-indulgent. Some scholars do become so, and even try to find justification for
that by claiming that the historian's only duty is to study the past for its own sake (by
which some really mean for their own sake). While trying to understand the past in its
own right and on its own terms must indeed be the first duty, there are other
responsibilities, not least those of interpreting that past to and in the light of the present,
and of making that past not only available to other scholars specifically but also
accessible to society generally.
Historical geography is indeed a historical study: its focus of interest lies in the
geography of some past time or in geographical changes in some past period. As such
it shares the intellectual and moral legitimacy of all historical studies. But historical
geography is fundamentally a geographical study: its asks geographical questions about
the past, it offers a geographical perspective upon the past. It makes a distinctive
contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the past, doing so quintessentially
as geography and not as history, but as historical geography in its many forms and not
exclusively as geohistoire or geographical history, whichas the study of the influence

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of physical geographical conditions and/or of locational and spatial relationships upon

the course of historyis merely one form of historical geography (Earle, 1992; Philo,
1994).
While historical geography is focused upon the past, this is not to argue either that it
must only be so or that it has no relation to the study of contemporary human geography.
There are many contemporary human geographers who view the past as a laboratory, as
one means of extending the testing of their generalisations or models and so, along with
comparative cultural studies, making them more robust. Similarly, there are many
contemporary human geographers for whom the 'present' is in practice a thick concept
which incorporates not just 'today' or even the last few years but decades, perhaps as
much as half a century or so. Such contemporary human geographers will encounter,
coming in the other direction, historical geographers who bring their own studies through
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to the present, as part of the well-established tradition of historical geography as

retrospective human geography which draws upon the past in order to provide expla-
nation and understanding of the present. Moreover, in recent years there have been
powerful calls for deeper historical understanding in contemporary human geography,
which was dominated from the 1960s to the 1980s by non-historical, functionalist modes
of explanation. The growing plea to 'bring history back in' to human geography, Driver
has argued,
... implicates arguments which lie at the very heart of contemporary debates
within human geography. For this reason, if no other, any division between
non-historical human geography, oriented to the present, and an historical
geography oriented to the past can no longer be sustained. As human
geography is profoundly historical ... thinking historically is no luxury; on the
contrary, it is an essential part of doing human geography. (Driver, 1988,
p. 504)
The relation between historical geography and contemporary human geography lies
less in the temporal propinquity of the recent past and the immediate present, and
more in their common quest for historical understanding. On that broader basis the
dialogue includes medievalists as well as modernists and postmodernists (Dodgshon,
1987).
Furthermore, researching and writingtogether with the teaching ofhistorical
geography are themselves inevitably and unavoidably part of the process of the making
of history. 'Doing' historical geography is part of history itself, even if it is done within
the confines of academe. But committed historical geographers will also both recognise
and accept the twin opportunity and challenge of projecting their studies to a wider
audience, of bridging the gap between the profession and the public.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my current research student, David Patton, and to my former research
student, Dr Caroline Windrum, for their helpful comments upon a draft of this essay.
This paper in part reworks some material previously published in the Japanese journal
Chiri Shiso (Baker, 1996) and I am grateful to the editor of that journal for permission
to draw upon that article.

Correspondence: Dr Alan R. H. Baker, Department of Geography, University of

Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN UK. Fax: 01223 333392. Email:
arb1000@cam.ac.uk

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 A. R. H. Baker

NOTE
This paper is one of four written about practical experiences of geographical research to help undergrad-
uates working on dissertations and postgraduates working on theses to plan and implement their research.
See also Adams and Megaw (this volume) and forthcoming papers by McDowell and Warrington.

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