Four Centuries of Special Geography

Book excerpt: Geography as an academic discipline dates back to the last few decades of the nineteenth century. However, during the preceding centuries a large body of English-language literature relevant to the field of special geography was published. Four Centuries of Special Geography lists all the works published before 1888 and includes descriptions of each entry and notes on later editions. Francis Sitwell has written an extensive introduction in which he provides a detailed guide to the organization and contents of the bibliography. He also evaluates special geography as a genre which contributed to scholarly discourse from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. In addition, he examines the genre as a whole and discusses its relation to the evolving world of ideas during the same time period. The result of several years of data-gathering, this book will be a valuable research tool for anyone seeking to examine aspects of the development of the field of geography in the years before it was defined as a distinct academic discipline. It will also be useful to those whose research focuses on the acquisition and transmission of geographical knowledge prior to the twentieth century, in particular on the place of geography in educational curricula.