Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
of change moving across territory and time. Another imperative is to
open the conversation about spatial history to a wider audience than
specialists in HGIS. The opening offered here, imperfect as it is, starts by
framing the problem through the eyes of a contemporary observer and
then continues by incorporating GIS-related findings into an accessible
narrative about historical change. Narrative, after all, remains the lingua
franca of most historians and readers of history.
Finally, there is the urgent task of interesting historians in spatial
relationships and renewing their regard for geographical thinking. This
does not require GIS, and to presume that it does may be more hindrance
than aid. A salutary reminder in this regard is to recall the insistent belief
shared by some geographers and historians in the 1960s and 1970s that
quantitative methods were
the
keys to the kingdom.
Concerning the promise of interconnected spatial history, R ichard
Jefferies, in some sense, showed us a way forward. A keen observer of
agricultural change in Britain and abroad, he recognized both the in-
ternational connection between American and British farmers and the
regional and local significance of rapid and convenient transportation in
the age of growing globalization. True, as an advocate for British farm-
ing interests he was apt to stretch the truth in his characterizations of
American and French rivals and of the inadequacies of rural rail service
in Britain in order to inspire ingenuity and resolve to restore British
agriculture to its proper place in the world. Although he overstated the
challenge of moving crops from farm gate to station platform, he antici-
pated the day when gasoline-powered trucks and automobiles would ply
the roads of rural Britain. An ardent observer of Britain's agrarian world
in an international perspective, he was a visionary too.
Acknowledgments
This article is based on research supported
by a Collaborative Research Grant from
the National Endowment for the Human-
ities (RA-50577-060). We would like to
thank the following for their support in
producing the GIS data on British railways
from M. H. Cobb's remarkable work
he
Railways of Great Britain: A Historical At-
las,
2 vols. (Shepperton: Ian A llan, 2005):
Meritxell Gallart, Mateu Morillas, and
J. Martí-Domínguez. This work was part
of a European Science Foundation initia-
tive (Eurocores) and the project within it,
“Water, Road and Rail: The Development
of European Waterways, Road and Rail
Infrastructures: A Geographical Informa-
