Through troubled times: reflections on Ron Johnston’s Geography and Geographers: Anglo-American Human Geography since 1945 (1979) and Peter Taylor’s Political Geography: World Economy, National-State and Locality (1985)

This article introduces the commentaries and rejoinders collated in this collection about the longevity and contemporary relevance of two landmark textbooks in human geography: Geography and Geographers and Political Geography. After putting the emergence of both books in their historical context we discuss their meandering route through the development of geographical thought since. Reflecting on the commentaries and the rejoinders, the impossibility of writing a contemporary textbook with even a veneer of comprehensiveness takes centre stage. Resultanly we debate the future of the geography textbook and what strategies can be surmised to brigde the increasingly self-referential siloes in geographical thought.