Some Geographical Traditions in Russia and AmericaAuthor(s): David HoosonSource: Area, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1969), p. 20Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20000300 .

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Annual Conference - Academic Sessions

neglected, topic for study in a continent that had not hitherto been considered by any previous president. Behind the overall population figures that suggested such a lack of people that economic development was sometimes inhibited, he suggested that there were considerable areas affected by population pressure in both West and East Africa. He referred to his own early studies in Sierra Leone and in Ashanti Ghana, and to work subsequently undertaken by other geographers which indicated in certain limited areas serious overcrowding and overworking of the land with soil deterioration and erosion and sometimes considerable emigration of the younger adults. With the rapid increase of population these problems were likely to be intensified in future notwithstanding the views of Colin Clark, Ester Boserup and others who argued that population growth was a major determinant of technological change in agriculture. Certainly so long as existing agricultural methods were followed, and in the absence of any major industrial revolution even in those countries with considerable hydro electric potential, the situation in areas affected by population pressure could not be viewed with complacency. Africa presents the world with a whole series of challenges - political, social, economic and technological; and geographers could help considerablv to meet these, especially if the best of geography of the past is combined with the 'new

methods and new opportunities that were never suspected before ... to give greater range and depth and precision to geographical studies.' The President was convinced that British geography was 'equipped academically and in other ways to make a worthy contribution to the advancement of knowledge and the progress of mankind', per haps especially in the Developing World affected as it is by some of the most critical issues facing humanity.

Some geographical traditions in Russia and America David Hooson, University of California, Berkeley

Major changes in emphasis in geographical thought in the two countries since the end of the nineteenth century are compared. By 1914 established Russian traditions such as a bio-climatic focus in physical geography, greater emphasis on man's impact on nature than vice versa and a preoccupation with regionalization are contrasted with those of the America of Davis and Semple. A marked convergence in the I920'S was followed in the Stalin period by a sharp divergence in emphasis with human geo graphy almost dying out in Russia and physical in America, coupled with a closing of personal contacts. Since de-Stalinization and the resumption of contact, there has been some evidence of a new convergence in ways of thought and of subjects em phasized. The expansion of human, though largely economic, studies in Russia has coincided with a resurgence of interest in America in ecological and heat-water balance studies, long central to Russian physical geography. The recent 'quantitative revolution' is also proving to be a bond between certain economic geographers in

America and Russia and the long Russian distrust of 'bourgeois' location theories is dissipating.

The general impression is that Soviet geography has regained contacts with its roots, whereas American geography has largely turned its back on the tendencies which marked its vigorous growth in the early part of this century. Politics permitting, the prospects for fruitful contacts between geographers in these and other countries, seem to be tolerably favourable.

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