,geography
A NEW LOOK AT THE FOUR TRADITIONS OF GEOGRAPHY J. Lewis Robinson
In the May 1964 issue of the JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY, William D. Pattison presented a brief and excellent statement concerning the main themes in geography.1 His four traditions article has been quoted widely since then, and it has helped to reduce the problem of defining the broad scope of the discipline in one or two sentences which would be acceptable to and understood by the public, teachers, and professional geographers. An obvious difficulty of any brief definition is what is omitted by a summary statement. Instead of trying to produce a definition which would receive general agreement, Pattison suggested that we should consolidate the concepts and themes of geography into those few which have been persistent throughout the development of the discipline in the past century. Thus he identified geography’s four traditions: spatial, area studies, man-land, and earth science. Many other people and numerous curriculum committees have listed the major concepts and principles of geography; each geography professor or teacher probably has his or her own list.2 Pattison’s four traditions are a happy compromise in learning scale between compiling a list of a dozen or more “main concepts” of geography and memorizing a frustrating single-sentence definition. Academics who are close to their subject sometimes forget that the intellectual problems of defining a discipline are not unique to geography. Because of the “knowledge explosion” of the past few decades, many disciplines are in a state of flux as attempts are made to compartmentalize knowledge into convenient boxes for study purposes. Where are the lines between geology and physics or chemistry; has the linking zone become the field of geophysics?
How can the boundaries of history be defined when it can deal with all events, over all time, in any area of the world? Do we know the
In the May 1964 issue of the JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY, William D. Pattison presented a brief and excellent statement concerning the main themes in geography.1 His four traditions article has been quoted widely since then, and it has helped to reduce the problem of defining the broad scope of the discipline in one or two sentences which would be acceptable to and understood by the public, teachers, and professional geographers. An obvious difficulty of any brief definition is what is omitted by a summary statement. Instead of trying to produce a definition which would receive general agreement, Pattison suggested that we should consolidate the concepts and themes of geography into those few which have been persistent throughout the development of the discipline in the past century. Thus he identified geography’s four traditions: spatial, area studies, man-land, and earth science. Many other people and numerous curriculum committees have listed the major concepts and principles of geography; each geography professor or teacher probably has his or her own list.2 Pattison’s four traditions are a happy compromise in learning scale between compiling a list of a dozen or more “main concepts” of geography and memorizing a frustrating single-sentence definition. Academics who are close to their subject sometimes forget that the intellectual problems of defining a discipline are not unique to geography. Because of the “knowledge explosion” of the past few decades, many disciplines are in a state of flux as attempts are made to compartmentalize knowledge into convenient boxes for study purposes. Where are the lines between geology and physics or chemistry; has the linking zone become the field of geophysics?
How can the boundaries of history be defined when it can deal with all events, over all time, in any area of the world? Do we know the