[转帖]What Can GIS Do to Save Geography?

What Can GIS Do to Save Geography?
During March 14-19, 2004, the Association of American Geog-raphers (AAG) will
return to Philadelphia, the site of the organization's first annual meeting 10
0 years ago (http://www.aag.org/annualmeetings /index.cfm). Judging by the con
stant stream of "AAGeograms" that have been landing in my e-mail folder, the c
entenary will be a huge celebration of a century of North American academic ge
ography.
It seems reasonable to ask, as geographers get ready for the occasion, just ho
w well the discipline is doing in North American and other universities.
Glory Days
Academic geography flourished in the 19th century in the United Kingdom. I not
ed in a previous "Edge Nodes" column (see "Traffic Safety Remains an Ongoing C
oncern," GeoWorld, June 2003, page 22; http://www .geoplace.com/gw/2003/0306/0
306ednd.asp) how Alexander Maconochie, after returning from his governorship o
f the Norfolk Island penal colony in Australia in 1843, was appointed professo
r of geography at University College in London.
Other British university appointments soon followed--it was the era of the Emp
ire and Darwin, geopolitics and trade, and survival of the fittest. Somehow ge                                          
ography seemed especially relevant.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Cambridge University's offspring, Harvard,
had long provided geography with a warm and well-respected home. Geoffrey Mart
in (1998) described how the settlers of New England brought with them the geog
raphical texts and concepts of European writers from Ptolemy to Varenius. Thes
e led to the development of geographical studies at Harvard and Yale almost fr
om their beginnings. Established in 1639, Harvard included geography in its "L
ist of Studies" by 1642.
In 1767, curriculum reorganization led to specialization by one of the four tu
tors in the areas of natural philosophy, mathematics, geography and astronomy.
 In 1803, admissions standards were raised, and proficiency was required in Gr
eek, Latin, arithmetic and geography. As Martin notes, by the 1770s, sophomore
s were required to read William Guthrie's New Geographical, Historical and Com
mercial Grammar. In 1789, this was replaced by Jedidiah Morse's The American G
eography.
Martin notes that other New England colleges had early geographic offerings, i
ncluding Brown (1899), Radcliffe (1904), Smith (1909) and Middlebury (1913). I
t's ironic that in 1892, Charles Eliot, president of Harvard, was placed in ch
arge of the "Committee of Ten," of which a subcommittee was charged with devel
oping the curriculum for school geography. A member of that subcommittee was W
illiam Morris Davis, also of Harvard, who was instrumental in founding AAG in
1903.
The Dark Years
American geography's dark years began in 1948, when the geography program at H
arvard was summarily and arbitrarily eliminated by the university's president,
 chemist James B. Conant. It was, as the famed urban geographer Jean Gottmann
stated, a "a terrible blow to American geography" and one from which "it has n
ever completely recovered." Neil Smith (1987) provides the definitive account
of the bitter personal intrigue that led to the demise of geography at Harvard
.
The decision at Harvard had far-reaching consequences that went further than r
emoving geography for reasons of financial exigency. Conant stated unequivocal
ly that the subject had no place within a university curriculum. These comment
s reverberated down the decades and have probably led to a string of other clo
sures and academic departmental mergers.
Geographer though he is, Smith lays much of the blame with the discipline of g
eography itself, which he says was vulnerable then and that things haven't cha
nged much in the ensuing 40 years.
At Harvard, geography claimed that its unique contribution was to provide a sy
nthesis offering a unified vision of "man and the environment." The Harvard co
mmittee reviewing geography's legitimacy as a discipline was unmoved, because
geography then, as now, was hopelessly divided between its physical and human
branches. How then could it offer a holistic view of the world when its practi
tioners were so bitterly divided and contemptuous of each other?
Yale introduced a full-fledged Depart-ment of Geography in 1949, but it was el
iminated within two decades. Strong, flourishing geography departments, such a
s at the University of Chicago, and small, outstanding departments, such as at
 the University of Michigan, have all gone the way of the Dodo bird.
Canada has fared no better. Departments of geography at the universities of Wi
ndsor, Concordia, McMaster and Alberta have all been merged with other departm
ents. Academic geography also appears to be having challenges in Australia, wh
ere it's having to come to various accommodations with environmental sciences.

It's surprising to me that few of those concerned have mourned the passing of
their academic homes, and the Internet is strangely silent as to their former
existence. They are gone and forgotten.
A White Knight?
Today, as in the mid-20th century, the academic discipline of geography appear
s to be under threat. This is true at locales as disparate as the United Kingd
om and India. The state of the discipline in India is discussed in a review in
 Anu Kapur's book, Voice of Concern (see http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/2002
0825 /spectrum/book7.htm). In the United Kingdom, Nigel Thrift (2002) has take
n an optimistic view of the discipline's future. Without ever mentioning GIS,
he argues that the discipline has a strong future, but he sees it as a future
in which human and physical geography go their separate ways.
In response to Thrift's paper, Ron Johnston (2002) argues that geography will
not survive such a schism. Johnston appears to have learned the harsh lesson t
aught by Conant 50 years earlier and elucidated by Smith. Johnston says that g
eography will survive because 1) it attracts a lot of students, 2) it's intell
ectually vital and alive, and 3) it provides students with a marketable skill:
 GIS.
Johnston feels that this is enough, but perhaps it's not. An additional, more
recent debate has taken place in the British geographical journal Area between
 Kevin Stannard and Alastair Bonnett (Stannard, 2003). The importance of linki
ng high school and academic geography appears to emerge from this debate as a
fourth issue for the survival of geography. A fifth concern, only partially re
cognized by any of the commentators, is the need to engage the popular media t
hat supports the discipline, including magazines such as National Geographic a
nd TV channels such as the Discovery Channel.
GIS is recognized as providing academic geography with an essential requiremen
t for its survival: a marketable skill. This (and political savvy) will do muc
h to ensure that AAG might be meeting in Philadelphia in 2104 to celebrate its
 second centenary.
At the 50th reunion of Harvard's class of 1948, veteran Foreign Service Office
r Carleton Coon offered this "single pearl of wisdom" to a packed symposium on
 foreign policy: "Reinstitute geography at Harvard!" Now that would be somethi
ng worth celebrating at any centenary.
References
Johnston, R. 2002. "Reflections on Nigel Thrift's Optimism: Political Strategi
es to Implement His Vision," Geoforum, Vol. 33, 421-425.
Martin, G.M. 1998. "The Emergence and Development of Geographic Thought in New
 England," Economic Geography, Vol. 74, AAG Special Issue, 1-13.
Smith, N. 1987. "Academic War Over the Field of Geography: The Elimination of
Geography at Harvard, 1947-1951," Annals of the Association of American Geogra
phers, Vol. 77, 155-172.
Stannard, K. 2003. "Earth to Academia: On the Need to Reconnect University and
 School Geography," Area, Vol. 35, 316-322.
Thrift, N. 2002. "The Future of Geography," Geoforum, Vol. 33, 291-298.

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