Nature - autonomous learning

50 the ‘nature’ of geographyof its subject matter he had to emphasise its distinctive perspective on the world.This explains Mackinder’s vision of geography as a ‘unifying’ subject thattraces the interactions not only among human and physical phenomena butalso between them. Geography was to make a virtue out of not being aspecialist subject at a time when academic specialisation was the trend.If a wedge was being driven between the study of society and the nonhumanworld during the late nineteenth century, geography would fill thenascent gap.William Morris Davis (1850–1934)Davis was a Harvard University geologist who, from the 1890s, had a majorimpact on American geography. Unlike Mackinder, his influence began notwith a keynote speech but with a steady stream of research publications,textbooks, and memberships of university committees – as well as a rolein the new Association of American Geographers (AAG). However, likeMackinder, he saw geography as that discipline which studied the ‘relationsbetween physiographic controls and ontographic responses’ (Davis1906: 70). As a geologist he was keen that the physical dimensions ofgeography not be assimilated into the natural sciences. His strategy wasto emphasise ‘the unbroken chain of causation linking the physical phenomenaof the earth’s surface, the organic realm and human society’(Leighly 1955: 312).In light of this, it is ironic that Davis is best known as a pioneer of physicalgeography – and specifically geomorphology. His lifelong interest inthe evolution of landforms was no doubt a legacy of his geological training.It was also a reflection of his American upbringing. Unlike Britain with itsempire, the American experience of ‘new territories’ in the nineteenthcentury was dominated by westward expansion into the great plains andthe Rockies.Though peopled by indigenous societies, the American westwas a vast terrain of mostly natural landcapes. Describing and cataloguingthose landscapes was a prime task of the United States Geological Survey.It was in this context that Davis, with his geological education, agitatedon behalf of geography. Davis was well aware of the works of James Huttonand Charles Lyell. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, these hadrevolutionised understandings of the earth.They showed that the earth’ssurface and its underlying geology were the product of natural processesoperating over very long timescales. Hutton’s and Lyell’s writings