This book examines the history and geography of science and the science of geography in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Britain and the British Empire. In considering the history and geography of the Association and of geography in local, national and imperial contexts, the book makes an important inter-disciplinary contribution to the history and geography of science and to the civic history of geography. Attention is paid to the Association's workings, to geography as a civic science in Britain and overseas and to the connections between education and citizenship in a period of interwar 'crisis' for geography and for science. This volume will greatly extend the knowledge of the British Association for the Advancement of Science as a leading body for the promotion of science as a public good and will engage social and cultural historians, historians of science and of empire and those with interests in disciplinary history, notably historians of geography.


Charles W. J. Withers is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Edinburgh