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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]

The year 2013 marked the sesquicentennial of the birth of Ellen Churchill Semple, at one time a towering figure in American geography. Like almost all of her geographer contemporaries in the first decade of the twentieth century, she was a stout defender of 'geographic influences' in history. This article examines a failed attempt by professional historians to give geographers a hearing at the American Historical Association in a critical 'Conference' on the relevance of geography to history, in 1907. Organized by Frederick Jackson Turner, it was the first time professional historians in America had given Miss Semple a public opportunity in which to defend her views. How and why it turned out to be an intellectual disaster, and how its major participants changed their views later, is the subject of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This fragment of an ongoing research project into the historical relations of geography and classics introduces a minor but significant scholar, Henry Fanshawe Tozer (1829-1916). Tozer's lectures on the geography of ancient Greece as part of an effort to modernize Oxford University's curriculum; his exploratory travels in the Balkans, the Aegean, and Asia Minor that resulted in three classic volumes; his book of selections from Strabo as an alternative to standard classical texts; and his well-regarded History of Ancient Geography entitle him to consideration from geographers. Most of his books have been reprinted (from 75 to 135 years after their initial publication), and he was regarded in his own time as a geographer. Yet few Anglo-American geographers today know his work. His selection for the Dictionary of National Biography's "Missing Persons" volume in 1993 and his omission from more recent surveys, such as those in the 2003 British Academy volume on British geography, suggest how much more we have yet to learn about the nineteenth-century roots of our discipline. [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]

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) had a lifelong interest in geography. Except for his role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and a few references to his Notes on the State of Virginia, however, geographers have taken a relatively slight interest in this aspect of his thought, despite his having sometimes been referred to as "one of the greatest American geographers." This essay suggests that we need to reexamine Jefferson as a geographical thinker. Reviewing some of the more important literature thus far, it suggests where such topics may profitably be extended and points to some aspects of his geographical interests not yet incorporated into the geographical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strabo of Amasia (ca. 64 B.C.-ca. A.D. 23) wrote the first comprehensive geography of the world known to the Greeks and Romans. Interest in Strabo and his Geography, which survives nearly intact in seventeen books, has fluctuated over the centuries among both classicists and historians of geography. After some historical background on Strabo and his reception, this essay considers the contribution of two significant recent English-language treatments, as well as Strabo's Geography itself, and suggests ways in which the Strabonic model may have renewed relevance to the geographer's task of interpreting the oikoumene in the contemporary world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]