ABSTRACT
Charism and context, the interplay of personal insight and life milieu, may be the root explanation of great ideas in human history. In many ways Vidal personifies la gé ographie humaine in the uniqueness and universality of his appeal. La gé ographie humaine, style vidalien, was only one of the many streams of geographic thought that were being developed in France at the turn of the century. Temporality and spatiality are universal features of life, so historical and geographical study. Both share a quest for unity, and Vidal always warned about the dangers of splitting up for analytical convenience those parts of human and earthly reality that need to be understood in terms of their coexistence in space and time. Reflection on pioneering works should endeavor to probe the spirit underlying their approaches to knowledge and experience rather than slavishly seek to emulate their methods and practices.
