Is the book a perfect answer to the question of geography’s future in school curricula?
No, the book is not even ‘complete’. We are conscious that in selecting a range of concepts we may not have struck the right balance for some tastes. We have been very motivated to capture in some way the significant movements that have taken place in the discipline of geography in recent years. Geography is not an island. It influences other disciplines and has for example encouraged a spatial turn in the social sciences generally. Similarly it is influenced by other disciplines, notably in recent years by cultural studies. But in doing so we may have disregarded to some extent what for some is the vital characteristic of the subject – its desire to keep the physical and human worlds together. We can claim to have achieved this in some ways, tackling ‘sustainable development’ for example, but for many readers there will be a lack of ‘physical geography’. Maybe this is a future project. It is certainly a matter for debate.
