Abstract
There is a strong temptation to see clear goals which charted a conscious course from the ‘then’ to the ‘now’ in one’s own development. Since, no doubt, I shall succumb to the temptation, let me preface what I say by stressing that, while certainly there were firmly developed interests which quickened my pulse and provided a litmus to determine my reactions to events and ideas, it is clear how small a part in my own development seems to have been played by clearly guided aims and how much has been contributed by the collage of rather random influences and serendipitous events to which I both responded and contributed. The same, I am sure, can be said of the subject as a whole. Direction and purpose tend largely to be imposed retrospectively on this jumble of circumstances. Perhaps, then, the only neutral shape can be imposed by time. It is for this reason that I want to look at developments essentially chronologically, and to begin by painting a brief picture of my own experiences against the background of Geography and its apparat in the 1950s and 1960s.
I dreamt I was in love again With the one before the last, And smiled to greet the pleasant pain Of that innocent young past.
Rupert Brooke
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Notes and References
Which included Ellen Semple and Elsworth Huntingdon. Richard Hartshorne, The Nature of Geography (Pennsylvania: Ass. Am. Geog., 1939) was the usual avenue of approach to much of the wider literature, and the chief British reference was A.F. Martin. Richard Hartshorne, The Nature of Geography (Pennsylvania: Ass. Am. Geog., 1939) was the usual avenue of approach to much of the wider literature, and the chief British reference was A.F. Martin, ‘The necessity for determinism’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 17 (1951) pp. 1–12.
D.J. Bogue, The Structure of the Metropolitan Community: A Study of Dominance and Subdominance (Ann Arbor, 1949).
P. Haggett, Locational Analysis in Human Geography (London: Arnold, 1965).
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R.E. Park and E.W. Burgess, The City (University of Chicago Press, 1925);
and the seminal collection of papers in G. Theodorson (ed.), Studies in Human Ecology (New York: Harpe & Robson, 1961).
L. Wirth (ed.), Eleven twenty-six: A Decade of Social Science Research (London: Arnold, 1940).
Which was embodied in B.T. Robson, Urban Analysis: A Study of City Structure With Special Reference to Sunderland (Cambridge University Press, 1969).
J.H. Robb, Working-class Anti-semitism: A Psychological Study in a London Borough (London, 1954);
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Papers which resulted in K. Cox and R.G. Golledge (eds), ‘Behavioral problems in geography: a symposium’, Northwestern University Studies in Geography (1969) no. 17.
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© 1983 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Robson, B.T. (1983). A Pleasant Pain. In: Billinge, M., Gregory, D., Martin, R. (eds) Recollections of a Revolution. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17416-4_7
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