The modern discipline

Historical geography proliferated as a university discipline in the early twentieth century. This chapter examines how research in historical geography has been shaped by three overarching developments during the course of the twentieth century: first, a gradual broadening of research perspectives from an emphasis on regional geography in the early decades to include more studies on cities, nation-states, and supranational regions that were shaped by a territorial approach but incorporated changing perspectives on nature and culture and became thematically more specialized; second, a growing interest in comparative studies of different places, as well as imperial and transnational relations and networks; and third, mutually enriching conversations across disciplines, countries, and axes of social difference that have created a refreshingly diverse epistemology, especially in exchange with history, anthropology, and science studies, across Anglophone countries, and through a growing attention to women and other minority scholars as contributors to geographical knowledge production.