Richard Hartshorne's adaptation of Alfred Hettner's system of geography

E. Plewe, Alfred Hettner. Seine Stellung und Bedeutung in der Geographie, in: F. Tichy (Ed.), Alfred Hettner. Gedenkschrift zum 100. Geburtstag, Heidelberg, 1960, 15–27; U. Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie. Zur Genese und Struktur von Alfred Hettners Konstrukt der Geographie, Stuttgart, 1995.

G.J. Martin and P.E. James, All Possible Worlds. A History of Geographical Ideas, New York, 1993; S. van Valkenburg, The German school of geography, in: G. Taylor (Ed.), Geography in the Twentieth Century, London, 1953, 91–115.

R. Hartshorne, The Nature of Geography, Fifth Printing, Lancaster, PA, 1956, 98.

Letter sent 26 November 1938 from Hartshorne (in Vienna) to Hettner. Also cited in Ostermeier, De opvattingen van Alfred Hettner, 141.

K.W. Butzer, Hartshorne, Hettner and The Nature of Geography, in: J.N. Entrikin and S.D. Brunn (Eds), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography, Washington, D.C., 1989, 35–52.

Hartshorne, 1979, Notes toward a bibliography of The Nature of Geography, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 69, 63, 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1979.tb01231.x

Hartshorne, 1988, Hettner's exceptionalism: fact or fiction?, History of Geography Journal, 6, 1

Cf. F. Lukermann, The Nature of Geography: Post hoc, Ergo propter hoc?, in: Entrikin and Brunn (Eds), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography, 53–68;

Sherman, 1999, Methodology in geomorphology: traditions and hypocrisy, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89, 687, 10.1111/0004-5608.00169

Butzer, Hartshorne, Hettner and The Nature of Geography, 35–52.

N. Smith, Geography as museum: private history and conservative idealism in The Nature of Geography, in: Entrikin and Brunn (Eds), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography, 91–120; G. Tatham, Geography in the nineteenth century, in: G. Taylor (Ed.), Geography in the Twentieth Century, London, 1953, 28–69.

D. Harvey, Explanation in Geography, London, 1969, 64.

Butzer, Hartshorne, Hettner and The Nature of Geography, 35–52.

Butzer, Hartshorne, Hettner and The Nature of Geography.

J.F. Ostermeier, De opvattingen van Alfred Hettner (1859–1941) over de plaats van de geografie in het systeem van de wetenschapen. Een bijdrage tot sijn intellectuele biographie, Nijmegen, 1986; U. Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie. Zur Genese und Struktur von Alfred Hettne's Konstrukt der Geographie, Stuttgart, 1995.

J.F. Ostermeier, De opvattingen van Alfred Hettner, 335.

T.H. Elkins, Human and regional geography in the German-speaking lands in the first forty years of the twentieth century, in: Entrikin and Brunn (Eds), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography, 17–34.

Biographical material in this section is based on the analysis presented by Ute Wardenga in Geographie als Chorologie, 25ff.

Plewe, Alfred Hettner. Seine Stellung und Bedeutung in der Geographie.

The term Ursächlichkeit signifies a conception of geographical knowledge as composed by the deductive construction of patterns of meaning rather than simply an encyclopaedic collection of information. It also reflects a concern with morphological relationships as described by Goethe (see C.F. von Weizsäcker, Goethe and modern science, in: F. Amrine, F.J. Zucker and H. Wheeler (Eds), Goethe and the Sciences: A Reappraisal, Dordrecht, 1987, 115–132).

Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie, 35.

Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie, 38.

Wardenga, Die beiden Südamerikareisen Alfred Hettners 1882–1884 und 1888–1890 im Spiegel seiner Reiseaufzeichnungen und Briefe in die Heimat, in: E. Plewe and U. Wardenga (Eds), Der junge Alfred Hettner. Studien zur Entwicklung der wissenschaftlichen Persoenlichkeit als Geograph, Laenderkundler und Forschungsreisender, Stuttgart, 1985, 27–80.

A more detailed analysis is presented in Elkins, Human and regional geography.

Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie, 46ff.

Schmitthenner, 1941, Alfred Hettner (Nachruf), Geographische Zeitschrift, 47, 441

Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie, 64. Hettner's original discussion appears in A. Hettner, Über den Begriff der Erdteile und seine geographische Bedeutung, Verhandlungen des Deutschen Geographentags, Stuttgart, Berlin, 1893, 188–198.

For examples see A. Kirchhoff, Laenderkunde von Europa, Wien, Prag, 1887–1907; N. Krebs, Länderkunde der oesterreichischen Alpen, Stuttgart, 1923.

Hettner, 1903, Grundbegriffe und Grundsätze der physischen Geographie, Geographische Zeitschrift, 9, 21

Hettner, 1905, Das System der Wissenschaften, Preussische Jahrbuecher, 122, 251

Hettner, 1905, Das Wesen und die Methoden der Geographie, Geographische Zeitschrift, 11, 545

Hettner, 1908, Die geographische Einteilung der Erdoberfläche, Geographische Zeitschrift, 14, 1

U. Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie – Alfred Hettners Versuch einer Standortbestimmung, in: D. Barsch, W. Fricke and P. Meusberger (Eds), 100 Jahre Geographie an der Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, 1996.

Hettner, 1905, Das System der Wissenschaften, Preussische Jahrbuecher, 122, 251

See Hettner, Das Wesen und die Methoden der Geographie.

Hettner, Die Geographie, 215.

Hettner, 1895, Geographische Forschung und Bildung. Mit einer Karte der kartographischen Darstellung der Erde, Geographische Zeitschrift, 1, 1

A. Hettner, Grundzüge der Länderkunde. Band 1: Europa, Leipzig, 1907.

A. Hettner, Das Europäische Rußland. Eine Studie zur Geographie des Menschen, Leipzig-Berlin, 1905.

A. Hettner, England's Weltherrschaft und der Krieg, Leipzig-Berlin, 1915.

First published in 1947 by Heinrich Schmitthenner it was also republished later: A. Hettner, Allgemeine Geographie des Menschen. Band 1: Die Menschheit. Grundlagen der Geographie des Menschen, Darmstadt, 1977.

Martin, 1994, Memorial to Richard Hartshorne, 1899–1992, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 84, 480, 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1994.tb01871.x

Hartshorne describes his ambitions at the beginning of The Nature of Geography and Perspective on The Nature of Geography. Hettner's goals for his system of geography are outlined in Hettner, Das System der Wissenschaften, and Hettner, Die Geographie.

Hartshorne refers to a social visit in Heidelberg at an unspecified time between 1933 and 1936 in Hartshorne, Notes toward a bibliography of The Nature of Geography.

See Martin, Memorial to Richard Hartshorne, for more information about Hartshorne's academic career.

Sauer, 1925, The morphology of landscape, University of California Publications in Geography, II, 19

Hartshorne, Notes toward a bibliography of The Nature of Geography.

Martin, Memorial to Richard Hartshorne, 1899–1992.

J.N. Entrikin, Introduction. The Nature of Geography in perspective, in: Entrikin and Brunn (Eds), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography, 1–15.

Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition, quotation from p. 307. See also Smith, Geography as museum; G.J. Martin, The Nature of Geography and the Schaefer–Hartshorne debate, in: Entrikin and Brunn (Eds), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography, 69–90.

A. de Souza, Series editor's preface, in: Entrikin and Brunn (Eds), Reflections on Richard Hartshorne's The Nature of Geography, vii.

Hettner, Das Wesen und die Methoden der Geographie, figures significantly in Hartshorne's citations of Hettner.

A. von Humboldt, Kosmos. Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung, Stuttgart and Tuebingen, 1845–1862.

F. Ratzel, Anthropogeographie, Stuttgart, 1882, 1891.

Marthe, 1877, Begriff, Ziel und Methode der Geographie und Richhofens China, Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde, 422

Hartshorne, Notes toward a bibliography of The Nature of Geography.

Hartshorne, Notes toward a bibliography of The Nature of Geography, 70.

Hartshorne, Notes toward a bibliography of The Nature of Geography, 74.

F. Stern, Dreams and Delusions, New Haven, CT, 1999 provides an invaluable account of the development of German science before and after World War I. Complementing this, George Mosse's classical study of the ideological sources of National Socialism, although not thorough in the development of geographical concepts, examines the roots and development of anti-Semitic dominated Nazi ideology from völkisch ideology, G.L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology, New York, 1998.

D. Murphy, Space, race and geopolitical necessity: geopolitical rhetoric in German colonial revanchism 1919–1933, in: A. Godlewska and N. Smith (Eds), Geography and Empire, Oxford, 1994, 173–187.

An early example of this shift is S. Passarge, Vergleichende Landschaftskunde, Berlin, 1921; later publications become ideologically more interwoven with the national socialist interpretations of Geopolitik, for example E. Banse, Landschaft und Seele. Neue Wege der Untersuchung und Gestaltung, München, 1928; Herb, Under the Map of Germany discusses the holistic geo-organicist concept, 53f.

K. Ringer, Die Gelehrten. Der Niedergang der deutschen Mandarine 1890–1933, Frankfurt a. M., 1987.

F.W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, New York, 1911;

Schultz, 2000, Die ‘Ordnung der Dinge’ in der deutschen Geographie des 19. Jahrhunderts, Die Erde, 131, 221

Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie. Penck's observation is referred to in van Valkenburg, The German School of Geography, 105.

O. Schlüter, Die Ziele der Geographie des Menschen, München-Berlin, 1906.

A. Hettner, Letter to Hermann Wagner, Nachlass H. Wagner UB, Goettingen, 1921.

Wardenga, Geographie als Chorologie, 177.

H. Spethmann, Dynamische Laenderkunde, Breslau, 1928; Elkins, Human and regional geography.

Elkins, Human and regional geography in the German-speaking lands, 29.

Ostermeier, De Opvattingen van Alfred Hettner quotes a letter from Spethmann to Henze, dated 13 June 1931: ‘The Hettner corporation and his doings are a true cultural disgrace … This so-called philosopher among the geographers, who is neither geographer nor philosopher, but a hot air maker of unhealthy influence on the geography. We would be far further in geography when this honorable looking Jack from Neckar-Derwischbad would not always put his effective brake shoe on the wagon's wheels.’ Quotation from p. 242f, translated by the authors.

H. Schrepfer, Einheit und Aufgabe der Geographie als Wissenschaft, in: J. Petersen and H. Schrepfer (Eds), Die Geographie vor neuen Aufgaben, Frankfurt am Main, 1934, 61–86.

In Neue Illustrierte Länderkunde. Landschaftliche und seelische Umrisse von Ländern und Völkern der Erde, Braunschweig, 1931, E. Banse wrote as follows: ‘This is the Landschaft, what surrounds man everywhere and determines his perceptions. Landschaft pulses in his veins and steers the tact of his footsteps. Landschaft is mirrored in his consciousness [Gesinnung] and effects his children's children, even if they have moved in the meantime to completely different surroundings. Landschaft has become such a part of the flesh and blood [Fleisch und Blut] of man, that he needed a thousand years to recall it.’ Quotation from p. 23f.

Cited by Ostermeier, De Opvattingen van Alfred Hettner, 56.

Ostermeier, De Opvattingen van Alfred Hettner, 72 [authors’ translation].

Ostermeier, De Opvattingen van Alfred Hettner, 126 [authors' translation].

Hartshorne, 1988, Hettner's exceptionalism: fact or fiction?, History of Geography Journal, 6, 1

A selection of letters from the period between 1936 and 1940 are available at the American Geographical Society Archive in Milwaukee, Wisconsin [hereafter AGS].

Hettner writes Hartshorne: ‘In Bezug auf Humboldt und Ritter habe ich meine Auffassung nicht geändert. Ich verstehe nicht, worauf Leighly seine Ansicht begründet. Teleologie in der Wissenschaft und Naturphilosophie sind meinem Denken ganz fremd. … die Arbeit von Döring (stellt) die Bedeutung Humboldts für die Geographie ebenso wie meine Stellung dazu, nach der Sie fragen, wohl richtig dar. … Ich kann Ihnen nur raten, sich in Humboldts Werke selbst zu vertiefen … Sie werden die reichste Anregung darin finden. (Hettner to Hartshorne, Letter dated 12 Dec, 1938, AGS).

Hartshorne, Notes toward a bibliography of The Nature of Geography, 76.

Spethmann, Dynamische Laenderkunde.

Spethmann, Dynamische Laenderkunde.

Spethmann, Dynamische Laenderkunde.

In a letter to Hettner, Hartshorne reflected on his motivations: ‘You may be interested to know of the incident that started my study. At a national meeting of geographers a colleague objected to political geography as a field for geographers and threw certain names against me, including yours. … My impression is that, like most American geographers, his knowledge or your work came only from Sauer, and Sauer has told us only of what he agreed with.’ In the following paragraph he suggests that ‘the main purpose of the study was really for self-discipline – to outline for myself what I felt should be the field in which I want to work’: Hartshorne to Hettner, Letter, May 1936 (AGS).

Hartshorne, The Nature of Geography, 95.

Letter from Hartshorne to Hettner, May 1936 (AGS).