What is the purpose of Geography? What do geographers study and why? How do they seek to shape the world they interrogate?

This book addresses these questions by examining the lives and works of individual geographers, both past and present. Like all disciplines, Geography is no more nor less than the collective endeavours of researchers and teachers operating in specific contexts. The contexts both shape, and are shaped by, these individuals. This book’s biographical and autobiographical chapters transport readers to the times and places where geographers have sought to make Geography matter. The result is a more vivid, grounded understanding of the discipline than the many high-level surveys of geographic thought paradigms currently written for university students.

This book’s accessible essays each conclude with a study task. Making Geography Matter is aimed at university students and their teachers who wish to understand the goals, history and evolving practice of Geography. It provides an alternative perspective – both concrete and engaging – to the many student-focussed texts that map out numerous ‘isms and ologies’.