Description: Broad in scope and edited by two massive names in geography, this is a critical exploration of how the field has emerged and fared over the course of its modern institutionalization.
Brief description: Agnew is currently Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles(UCLA). From 1975 until 1995 he was a professor at Syracuse University in New York. Dr. Agnew teachescourses on political geography, the history of geography, European cities, and the Mediterranean World.
Review Quotes: If we are to take seriously the idea that events, practices, and ideas should not be divorced from their historical and geographical context, then geographical knowledge itself needs to be temporally and spatially situated. Motivated by that proposition, Agnew and Livingston have put together a Handbook that recasts geography's history in original, thought-provoking ways. Eschewing the usual chronological march through leading figures and big ideas, the Handbook looks at geography against the backdrop of the places and institutional contexts where it has been produced, and the social-cum-intellectual currents underlying some of its most important concepts. The result is a book that fleshes out often-neglected aspects of the discipline's history, even as it consistently encourages thinking about the relationship between geographical practices and the places, circumstances, and understandings in which those practices are embedded
Alexander B. Murphy
Department of Geography, University of Oregon
The Handbook provides a refreshingly innovative approach to charting geographical knowledge. A wide range of authors trace the social construction and contestation of geographical ideas through the sites of their production and their relational geographies of engagement. This creative and comprehensive book offers an extremely valuable tool to professionals and students alike
Victoria Lawson
University of Washington