Historical geography I : doom, danger, disregard – towards political historical geographies

Abstract

‘Doom’, ‘danger’ and ‘disregard’ are palpable sentiments in recent writing by historical geographers and give the subfield some decidedly political intonations. These three words have diverse, dis-quieting and expectant connotations and are tracked in this report through clusters of research on colonialism, racism, decolonisation, climate change, Earth history and political reaction and populism. This range of historical work within geography provokes more general questions about how the discipline, generally, sees itself today and at a time of profound uncertainty about the meaning and direction of history. At this time, it is easy to be despondent but vital to hope and work for change.