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Ellen Churchill Semple's last book, The Geography of the Mediterranean Region: Its Relation to Ancient History, is the least known of her three volumes on human geography. Its neglect by geographers, beginning not long after its publication, was accelerated during the 1930s. Reasons include the decline of interest in classical geography as a part of geography's task, the development of small-scale research methods and changing disciplinary objectives, and the designation of historical geography as either a responsibility of historians or, at most, permitting only cross-sections of the geographies of specific pasts, with little attention to historical processes. This essay examines Semple's Mediterranean project as a whole, including an analysis of her earlier Mediterranean work. It argues for the significance of the changing methods and emphases revealed in her late Mediterranean publications and book chapters and traces her struggle to complete the final product. It also traces the changing relations within American geography as later scholars, several of them women, have reassessed Semple's late work. The article closes with an argument: why today's geographers should read The Geography of the Mediterranean Region, as a model of how to write better geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Arnold Guyot's (1807-1884) studies of the physical geography of New England within the concept of "Humboldtian science." After a brief explanation of that framework, it discusses Guyot's work on the Smithsonian Institution's meteorological project and his measurement of the heights of New England mountains and their written and cartographic display. Guyot is shown to be a full participant in and a leading practitioner of Humboldt's methods during his New England years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]