ABSTRACT
At the end of the Second World War the era of national schools of geography was not yet over. In Germany, for example, the emphasis was on geomorphology and settlement, with an historical approach ; the coordinating theme was landscape, and much time was spent in microscale studies, some in Germany but most abroad . In France , on the other hand, the regional theme dominated. The doctorat d'Etat, which opened the academic career, was traditionally a monograph on either a part of France or some section of the French Empire. The French emphasis was on evolution, on ways of life and on territorial organisation. And in the United States there was not one dominant school but two. Mid-west geographers started with the land-use map and minute economic observations; their main theoretical inspiration was from economics and social ecology and they stressed the present. At Berkeley, Carl Sauer had developed a very different discipline; as in Germany the emphasis was on landscape features , but the connection with cultural anthropology was stronger and the historical dimension less conspicuous.
