University of Toronto
TORONTO 5. CANADA

DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY
273 BLOOR STREET WEST

23rd April 1947

Dear Huntington,

I was pleased to receive your note, and to find that you are much interested in my study of civilization. It follows different lines from your own, and indeed the book is in a sense the summary of my work during the last 20 years on Cultural geography. I wrote a long review of your last for the Can. Geog. Journal - which I hope helped to make it known in Canada. It is kind of you to promise a review for the Saturday Review, and I hope it will appear there. We have no publisher in U.S.; though Oxford University is publishing it in U.K.

I am having interesting discussions on these topics, i.e. with our President (Sidney Smith). He says the world needs more appreciation of humanities, if the world is to improve. I say that by the time the young folk have learnt Latin, Greek, and Philosophy - which is the standard approach, they have no time to get to real world problems! My panacea is to give them Cultural geography - i.e. right on to world problems, in which they are all keenly interested. They are all bored with the other approach.

Did you notice Platt's paper on Environmentalism? He claims that there's only a tinge of belief in environmental control left among geographers; and that all respectable geographers have long dropped it! I don't understand his point of view - What replaces environment as the dominant

control in his opinion I wonder? See pages 347-3 in my Civil^ book.

I hope to have my big book on Canada here any day. I have seen
page proof, but it takes time to get it from London U.K.

Methuen's are also publishing my Urban Geography which they accepted
(as you Yanks say) 'sight unseen'. But I dont know when it will be out. It
is 600 pages; as expanded from the two chapters in the Civil^ book.

I have been asked to edit a largish book on Twentieth Century
Geography. Primarily to develop the ideas on fields, trends and aims of
Geography; not the usual descriptive or economic aspects.

It is to be done by 20 thirty authors, each doing a chapter.

Naturally I thought of you first of all. Would you do a chapter
about 20 or 30 pages - say, -on your ideas as to the limits of geography?
We both have heterodox ideas on the way in which geography can help all
other disciplines... and such an essay by you would be very illuminating.
They offer 100 copies of your paper, and a copy of the book, so that it
compares with the usual conditions for an article in most journals. There
is no actual payment.

I thought of trying to get Stamp and Fawcett to do something, as they
will be at the McGill Summer school next July - where I talk too.

Do help me in the Philosophy book.

G.T.

University of Toronto

TORONTO 5, CANADA

5th May 1947

Dear Huntington

I am enclosing a very tentative list of the chapters for the proposed book on the philosophy of Geography - which I mentioned to you in my last letter.

I want you to criticise the allotment of subjects and authors. I have not yet approached most of them, so dont divulge my proposed list.

I especially want you to write a section. If I can get the promises of one or two leaders, it will go a long way with the others.

Your chapter - if you will agree to collaborate - will only take you a few hours, as I expect you can't work in some of your vast list of researches.

The title is of course quite open to alteration, but you have wandered about on the borders of geography to as great a degree as I have, and yet in rather different physical and industrial and climatic aspects. It is these that I think would make a very good addition to the sections contributed by others. I am sure you could do half the chapters, but no one else could do the section I hope you will contribute.

Please answer soon, and in the affirmative.

G.T.

-2-

13-14. Political
15. Race
16. Climate
17. 18. Social Geography
19. Climate
20. Political
21. Surveys and Society
22. Political

It seems to me that it would be much better to make a somewhat different arrangement. In the first place, I think there ought to be a chapter on relief. Thirty or forty years ago relief was the dominant theme, at least in American geography, and to a similar extent all over the world. Now it has been supplanted by climate. I think this fact should be brought out. Therefore, I would put in a chapter on relief before the chapter on soil. Then right after the present three climatic chapters, I would put 16 and 19, that is, "Geography and Arctic Lands", and "Meteorological Approach". If Surveys come next, it seems to me that the Geographical Society should follow them. Urban Geography might well come next, then the Racial chapter, and the Sociological Approach, and after that, the chapters which have a political slant. I think that such an arrangement as this will give a greater unity than the present outline.

I hope my answer will be of some value to you, even though I cannot say as much as I would like.

I have bad news for you in one respect. I have found that the Saturday Review of Literature hasn't space for a review of "Our Revolving Civilization". Because of limited space, it does not review books published outside the United States.

I was interested in what you said about Platt's paper on "Environment". I haven't read it, but must do so. It seems incredible that he should believe that environmental control has almost vanished from the opinion of geographers. Disbelief in environment seems to me evidence of poor thinking. I think you go farther than I do in being an environmentalist. I believe that in some respects we are completely at the mercy of environment, but in other respects we are free, and all the time we are improving our control over environment. Of course, I believe also that hereditary qualities are highly important.

Yours sincerely,

Ellsworth Huntington

EH:OBS

Dr. Huntington

GEOGRAPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
A STUDY OF GROWTH, FIELDS, TECHNIQUES, AIMS AND TRENDS
by Twenty Authors

The list of chapters and the various authors will be much as follows:

| Topics | Authors |
|---|---|
| 1. Introduction | Taylor |
| 2. Content and Aims of 19th Century Geography | Tatham |
| 3. The French School of Geography |  |
| 4. The German School of Geography | Van Valkenburg |
| 5. Limits of Modern Geography | Huntington |
| 6. Human Geography: Environmentalism vs. Possibilism | Tatham |
| 7. Climatic Control | Visher |
| 8. Soil Science, and Geography | Putnam |
| 9. Pioneer Fringe | Bowman |
| 10. Geography and Arctic Lands | Washburn |
| 11. Geography and the Tropical Problem | Pelzer |
| 12. Regional Planning | Gilbert |
| 13. Land Survey in Britain | Stamp |
| 14. Geography and Imperial Problems | Fawcett |
| 15. The Slav School of Geography | Roucek |
| 16. The Place of the Laboratory and Field Work | Putnam |
| 17. Sociological Aspects of Geography | Watson |
| 18. Aims of Urban Geography - Town Planning | Taylor |
| 19. Ecology and Racial Research | Taylor |
| 20. Military Aspects, Logistics | Weldon Gibson |
| 21. Geography in Government Service | Rose |
| 22. Geography and World Peace | Taylor |
| 23. The Field of the Geographical Society | Wright |

The authors in the list have all agreed to contribute.
Each chapter to be about 25 - 30 pages (8,000 to 10,000 words).
Manuscripts (in duplicate) to be completed June 30, 1948.
Each author will receive 100 separates of his chapter, and a copy
of the book. But it is hoped that obvious value to geographical
workers of such a collection of studies of our philosophy and
aims will be the chief inducement to collaborate.

The publisher is the Philosophical Library, New York, a firm
which is well known for many books in allied fields.

Griffith Taylor
Editor

P.S. One to six maps or diagrams in each chapter will be acceptable.

TWENTIETH CENTURY GEOGRAPHY

A STUDY OF GROWTH FIELDS, TRENDS AND AIMS

by Twenty Authors

It is hoped that chapters will deal with some or all of the following topics.

| Topics | Tentative Authors |
|---|---|
| 1. Introduction | Taylor |
| 2. Content and Aims of Medieval Geography | Tatham |
| 3. The French School of Geography | Dagenais |
| 4. The German School of Geography | Van Valkenburg |
| 5. Limits of Modern Geography | Huntington |
| 6. Determinism versus Possibilism | Tatham |
| 7. Soil Science and Geography | Putnam |
| 8. Geography and the Tropical Problem | Pelzer |
| 9. Pioneer Fringe | Bowman |
| 10. Climatic Control | Visher |
| 11. Regional Surveys | Gilbert |
| 12. Land Survey in Britain | Stamp |
| 13. Geography and Imperial Problems | Fawcett |
| 14. Geographical Problems of the Slavs | Roucek |
| 15. Ecology and Racial Research | Taylor |
| 16. Geography and Arctic Lands | Cressey |
| 17. Aims of Urban Geography - Town Planning | Taylor |
| 18. Sociological Approach | Watson |
| 19. Meteorological Approach | Kimble |
| 20. Geography in the Recent War | Poole |
| 21. The Field of the Geographical Society | Wright |
| 22. Geography and World Peace | Taylor |

- 2 -

The authors suggested in the list are being approached by the editor.
Each chapter to be about 25 - 30 pages (10,000 words).

Each author will receive 100 separates of his chapter and a copy of
the book. But it is hoped that obvious value to geographical workers
of such a collection of studies of our philosophy and aims will be
the chief inducement to collaborate.

Griffith Taylor
Editor

15th November 1947

Dear Miss Paxton

I was very sorry to see the report of the death of my old friend Dr. Huntington, and I wrote expressing my sympathy to Mrs Huntington. Geography has lost one of its greatest exponents.

I much regret that Dr. Huntington did not carry out his kind promise to help us in the book on the Philosophy of Geography. He wrote much on this topic, and indeed branched out in many new directions in Geography.

It occurs to me that he might have published an article within the last few years which is connected with his ideas on the limits of geography. As a matter of fact he wrote a short criticism on the relations of history and geography in the Canad. Jnl. Economics which I could borrow, if Mrs Huntington were willing; but I should greatly value any information you could give me as to reprinting some cogent article in the proposed "Geography in the Twentieth Century" (by 20 eminent geographers) of which I am editor.

G.T.

For about 5000 words

INDIANA UNIVERSITY
BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA

November 24, 1947

Dear Mrs. Paxton:

In reply to yours about Griffith Taylor's book. I venture to suggest
that you send him a copy of the somewhat modified edition of the article
"Geography and Aviation" and also a somewhat modified copy of the chapter
"The Conservation of Man" recently submitted to Guy-Harold Smith for the
modified conservation text. I also suggest that you suggest that Griffith
Taylor use in the chapter of his book, in Dr. Huntington's name, whatever
he wishes to use of these two things.

I am not writing direct to Dr. Taylor because he will need to see the
copies just mentioned before he can decide.

If neither of these things appeal to him, I have another suggestion:
that he reprint the "principles" (now in italics) in the "Principles of
Economic Geography." I have a copy of them.

With respect to the bibliography for the *Annals* of the A.A.G., a copy
of which was sent to you last week--if you can supply the *pagation* or other
missing data, I shall be pleased, and will insert them in the galley proof.