ABSTRACT
Introduction: self-centred geographies? Some people say that you should not judge a book by its cover. However, it is often interesting to pause and reflect on why books, organizations or in this case subjects such as geography are represented by particular ‘cover’ images. Figure 5.1 shows the cover of the 1994 Annual Report of the Royal Geographical Society, which is the organization representing academic and non-academic geographers in Britain. The image was designed to show geography in a positive light, as a subject that causes adventurous individuals to embark on exciting expeditions of learning in which they can discover the secrets of far-flung places and understand the lives of exotically different people. It is the ‘us here’ subjecting the ‘them there’ to serious geographical scrutiny.
