Epilogue

Abstract

This book derives its title from the Greeks. Horizon is one of their splendid words — a concept for the geographer, a metaphor for everyman. During the last generation, new horizons in geography have attracted a larger number of geographers than ever before. Nor have there ever been greater financial and technological opportunities to help them pursue their aims and publish their findings. Some idea of the volume and range of publication is measured by the bibliographies prepared for the successive meetings of the International Geographical Union, and by the fact that the specialist library of the Royal Geographical Society receives some 700 different geographical periodicals annually — a number which continues to grow. At the same time as geographers may be somewhat overwhelmed by the progress of their subject which this explosion of publication represents, they are faced with parallel developments in a range of cognate disciplines. ‘The additiveness of human capabilities’ — to use the phrase of Peter Medawar — helps in the assimilation; but for some, at least, the volume of material clouds the horizon.