ABSTRACT

The Land Utilisation Survey of Britain, made in the 1930's, was an important achievement of geographical study, yet it is on the way to becoming as much a document of history as the county reports of the Board of Agriculture in the years around 1800. While the term 'historical geography' was thus being limited by geographers to connote only the geography of a past period, some historians had already found it necessary to attempt such reconstructions as part of particular tasks before them. Just as historians and geographers have portrayed the geography of a past age for their own purposes, so have pre-historians. One atlas that constitutes a high-water mark of achievement is the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States. It appeared in 1932, and its aim, we are told, is to illustrate the 'essential facts of geography and history that condition and explain the development of the United States'.