ABSTRACT
For many years, economic geography was mainly concerned with descriptive geographies of commerce, trade and Empires. However, during the 1950s some economic geographers, along with regional scientists such as Walter Isard, re-discovered the deductive location theories of von Thunen, Weber and Lösch and began again to get more seriously interested in issues of explanation and theorising why economic activities are located where they are. From the perspective of contemporary economic geography, characterised (inter alia) by a plethora of theoretical perspectives and vigorous debates as to the most appropriate forms of theory and explanation, this may seem to have been a pretty modest move forward. However, at the time it was seen as a radical and sharply contested move. More importantly, longer-term it had massive implications for the development of economic geography.
