About the Book

This volume of specially commissioned interpretative essays marks the centenary of the establishment of the International Geographical Union in 1922. Written by leading human and physical geographers from all parts of the world, A Geographical Century considers the history and present condition of geography as an international science.

Based on the latest research, A Geographical Century provides new and critical analyses of the different forms of geographical internationalism that emerged during the 20^th century; the changing relations between geography and cognate disciplines in the natural and social sciences; the geopolitics of international geographical collaboration; and the prospects of geography as a 21^st century international science.

About the Author: Vladimir Kolosov is Deputy Director of the Institute of Geography in the Russian Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences, Honorary Member of the French and Polish Geographical Societies and Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Le Havre in France. He has lectured and conducted research at universities in France, the USA, Finland and Germany. His research interests lie in the fields of political geography and geopolitics, social geography and world cities. From 2006 to 2020, he served on the Executive Committee of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and was President from 2012 to 2016. He has participated in many international projects.
Jacobo García-Álvarez is Professor of Human Geography at the Carlos III University of Madrid, which he joined in 2003. His research work has focused on the history of geography, historical geography, and political geography, with special attention to político-administrative divisions, boundary-making processes, and territorial identities and ideologies in Spain. He has lectured in several universities and research centers in Europe, Latin America, and the USA. He chaired the IGU Commission on the History of Geography and the International Union of History of Science and Technology from 2008 to 2016. He has coordinated the History of Geography, Historical Geography, and Political Geography Research Group in the Institute of Historiography at the Carlos III University of Madrid since 2012.
Michael Heffernan is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Nottingham. He has also taught at the universities of Cambridge, Loughborough, and UCLA and was Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg. He is Fellow of the British Academy, the Academia Europaea, the Royal Academy of Arts, and both the Royal Geographical and Royal Historical Societies. A former Vice-Chair of the IGU Commission on the History of Geography, he is interested in the histories of geographical and environmental thought from the eighteenth century to the present.
Bruno Schelhaas received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig. He is Head of the Archive for Geography at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig and the IGU's official archivist. He is member of the Steering Committee of the Commission History of Geography of the International Geographical Union. His interests include the history of geography and cartography, historical geography, and archival science. In 2020, he was corresponding Editor of Springer's Historical Geography and Geosciences volume Decolonising and Internationalising Geography.