In this paper the possibilities and hazards of a critical perspective on the history of geographical knowledge are considered. The focus is on the relations between modern geography and European colonialism during the ‘age of empire’ (circa 1870–1914). For writers as diverse as Joseph Conrad and Halford Mackinder, this was a moment of decisive importance for the making of the modern world. Although the interplay between geography, modernity, and colonialism has recently attracted attention from the historians of geography, it is argued in this paper that they have often conceived the role of geographical knowledge in somewhat narrow terms. The work of Edward Said is discussed at some length, as it highlights some of the key issues and dilemmas facing those who would rewrite critical histories of geographical discourse. A totalising view of ‘imaginative geographies’ (such as those of Orientalism) is argued against, and instead the heterogeneity of geographical knowledges is emphasised. The paper concludes with a more general question: Why have histories of geography at all, in these (post)modern times?
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