Of elephants and discipline: For a recursive history of geography

Abstract

This commentary suggests that the history of geography can best contribute to the future of geography through an open and recursive approach to the history of ideas about space and nature. I argue that the history of geographical ideas should develop in dialectical relation with how contemporary geography changes. To support this argument, I sketch what a recursive and anti-disciplinary history of geography might look like, as each new geographical innovation opens new paths for the history of geographical ideas to tread, and new histories of thinking to scrutinise.