Geographies of the Book: Review and Prospect

Abstract

This paper traces the origins and recent history of the geography of the book: an interdisciplinary focus of study for geographers, book historians and historians of science. In describing this field's twin concern with geography in books and with the geography of books, the paper examines the ways in which printed texts matter to the study of geography's discursive and disciplinary histories and the contributions that geography, in turn, can make to explaining the circulation and reception of knowledge in print. Through an attention to the making and movement of texts, the paper examines how questions of geography inform understandings of the uneven diffusion and varied reception of knowledge and ideas. In addressing geography's print culture, and in examining geographies of reading, the paper reflects on the significance of books to the making of geographical knowledge and to the significance of geography in accounting for the making of textual meaning.

Books, bothies and thinking in place: a new contribution to geographies of the book

“…Therefore, despite the 'electronic revolution', 50 in line with the use of increasingly divergent resources, 51 efforts must still be made to heed Keighren's call to 'expand the range of material forms and genres which usefully can be subject to geographical interpretation'. 52 It is on this basis that the following work began, in search of a new means to understand a series of books which were, and still are, an understudied source.…”

Plagiarists, enthusiasts and periodical geography: A.F. Büsching and the making of geographical print culture in the German Enlightenment, c.1750–1800

“…Like other print forms, periodicals must be understood as the product of interwoven geographies of scientific practice, commerce and power operating across scales. Such geographies must be understood in relation to geography books narrowly understood, travel writing and geographical speech (Ogborn and Withers , 19; Keighren , 752–3). Yet, I have argued that periodicals also create their own geographies of authorship, reading and epistemic credit through their material form and periodicity.…”

“…Such calls have emanated from the growing literature on the ‘geography of the book’, which has shown that understanding where books were made, printed and read, and how books circulated within and across boundaries, is crucial for understanding how print and geography shaped one another (Keighren ; Ogborn and Withers ). Scholars have primarily focused on ‘a specific material form: the printed (non‐fiction) book’ (Keighren , 752), and especially books of travel (Driver ; Henderson ; Keighren et al . ; Rupke ), geography books narrowly understood (Keighren ; Mayhew ), atlases (Withers ) and books by Darwin and Newton (Livingstone ).…”

“…In addition, scholars have studied the place of manuscripts in the geographical print culture of the British Empire (Ogborn ). Yet, as one leading commentator has rightly argued, ‘there is nevertheless an important opportunity to expand the range of material forms and genres which usefully can be subject to geographical interpretation’ (Keighren , 752).…”

Spatializing design history: Considerations on the use of maps for studies on print culture

“…Building on the pioneer work of François de Dainville on book publishing in France between 1764and 1945(Bousquet-Bressolier 2002, Febvre and Martin base their discussion of the geography of the book and of publishing on two maps, showing the location of printing offices in Europe up to 1500, which are used as visual evidence for their arguments on the spread of printing. In a recent literature review on the geography of the book, Keighren (2013) calls for a wider approach, that would not be limited, as 'much (although not all) extant scholarship', on 'the printed (non-fiction) book ' (p. 752).…”