Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores some relevant experiences undergone by the brothers Elie and Elisee Reclus in Britain and in Ireland following their initial exile, starting with their arrival in London on 1st January 1852. It considers the scholarly and editorial networks they developed in the British Isles in the following decades, which chiefly involved members of the Royal Geographical Society for Elisee Reclus and of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for Elie Reclus. The book addresses the scholarly editorial networks of Kropotkin, extending and deepening my former work on this subject, especially thanks to new sources identified in Moscow. It analyses the geographical output of both Elisee Reclus and Kropotkin concerning the British Isles. The book explains the importance of this geographical output lies in the authors' attempts to build early social, political and economic geographies of the British Isles.