Historical EmpiricismAuthor(s): John PattenSource: Area, Vol. 4, No. 4 (1972), pp. 256-258Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20000701 .

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256 Conference Reports

The Anglo-Romanian Geographical Seminar, September, 1972 On the sponsorship of the Great Britain-East Europe Centre and through the joint initia tive of the Royal Geographical Society and the Institute of British Geographers, the

first Anglo-Romanian Seminar was held on 14 and 15 September, 1972 in the Council Room of the Royal Geographical Society.

In December 1971, an invitation was extended to Dr Horia Grumesescu of the Academy of Sciences in Bucharest to send a team of six Romanian geographers to England to engage in an exchange of papers and views on a topic of interest to the Romanians. The theme chosen was Modern methods and techniques in geographical research, and it was agreed that the languages should be English and French. The Romanian partici pants-all members of the Geographical Institute of the Academy of Sciences-were Ion Bacanaru, who presented a paper on ' Principes et mdthodes concernant la typologie des etablissements ruraux en Roumanie '; Lucian Badea, ' Influences des mouvements neotectoniques pleistocenes sur le modelage due relief de la Roumanie (methodes geomorphologiques de recherche) '; Dan BMlteanu, ' Some investigations of the present day slope processes in the Romanian Subcarpathians'; Petre Gatescu, ' Some prob lems of the chemical composition of water and ice in Romania's lakes during winter'; Ion lordan, ' Le processus d'urbanisation dans la zone periurbaine de Bucarest '.

Miss Cristina santa, a biogeographer, also accompanied the team and assisted with translation. The six papers offered by British participants were as follows: Alan Baker, ' British historical geography and the new paradigms of history and geography ';

Roy Drewitt, ' Contemporary methods in urban geography'; Kenneth Gregory, ' Drainage basin characteristics '; David Hauser,' Some problems in the use of stepwise regression techniques in geographical research '; Richard Munton, ' Uncertainty and agricultural response'; Kenneth Warren, 'The location of British heavy industry: problems and policies'.

During the London visit hospitality was offered by the Great Britain-East Europe Centre, the Royal Geographical Society, the British Council, the London School of Economics, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies and University College London. Following the London seminar, a programme of visits was arranged to the Universities of Nottingham (Prof. R. H. Osborne), Leicester (Dr David Turnock), Oxford (Mr J. H. C. Patten and Mrs I. M. Cosgrove) and Cambridge (Dr Alan Baker). From Nottingham, the Romanian visitors had the opportunity of excursions into the Peak District and from Leicester, they visited Corby New Town. The London organ izers (Dr Ian Hamilton, Mr F. W. Carter and Prof. W. R. Mead) are immensely gratel ul to the considerable number of well-wishers who by their willing co-operation and very practical help, made the venture economically viable as well as academically stimulating. It is hoped that the seminar will be the basis for continuing co-operation witf lg.eographical colleagues in Romania.

W. R. Mead

Historical empiricism

Report on the meeting of the Urban History Group of the Economic History Society held at Rutherford College, The University of Kent at Canterbury, 6-7 April, 1972, before the 1972 Economic History Society Conference.

An increasing number of geographers belong to, and attend the annual meetings of, the Urban History Group; indeed the lists of Research in Progress published once a

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Conference Reports 257

year in the Urban History Newsletter carry growing information on work by geographers of concern to urban historians. It was thus interesting, particularly in the light of recent concentration on sources by historical geographers, to have the introductory discussion-on 'The accessibility and preservation of urban archives '-led by Mr P. Laxton (Liverpool). He examined the growing demand for urban archives, particu larly for the nineteenth century, and in discussing the sometimes deplorable condition of archival services in urban areas suggested that ' as a general rule the distribution of resources for archival administration in England and Wales is inverse to the distribu tion of the major urban areas created since the late eighteenth century (with the excep tion of London) '. In the ensuing discussion such solutions as a survey of archives in boroughs without archivists, and the production of a guide to urban archives as an aid to researcher and archivist alike, were put forward. Ever-growing attention to the econo

mic, social and political issues of urban areas, especially since the industrial revolu tion-the very period from which the increased rate of production and, therefore, accumulation of urban archives dates-is likely to make their accessibility a pressing problem in the near future.

After a session devoted to ' Urban politics in nineteenth-century Britain ', the group's attention was turned to ' The city and its region, 1660-1800 '. The Chairman, Prof. F. J. Fisher (London), talked refreshingly in a way almost unheard of at meetings of learned historical societies even a very few years ago, stressing the im portance of regionalization, regional systems and model building in economic history; he compared the work done hitherto on regional economies in England most unfavour ably with that by French economic historians on their country under the Ancien Regime. His most challenging prediction was that regional studies based on individual cities as their nexus might be a valuable preliminary way of integrating approaches in economic history until now usually split into either local, or aggregate national studies. Two papers, by Penelope Corfield (Bedford College, London) on ' A city and its region, 1660-1800; Norwich and East Anglia' and by David Hey (Sheffield) on ' Shef field and its region, 1660-1800 ', illustrated the ways in which some younger economic historians are now tackling such problems. Both sometimes struck familiar notes to geographers present, with such observations as ' . . . the contours of a city's region are related to its function as well as to its size, and also to the presence or absence of competition from other urban centres'. Miss Corfield in particular stressed the importance of contrasting urban centres and their regions in the eighteenth century in order to get some kind of comparative framework, though no more theoretical impli cations were suggested. In her view, for the eighteenth century a city's region could be best discussed in terms of the movement of people and goods and the provision of services. All of these she illustrated with regard to Norwich, equally thereby illustrating the problems involved with lack of detailed information for the eighteenth century, in many ways in the present writer's eyes a ' dark age' compared even with what survives for earlier centuries, and certainly with that for the census era that followed.

The city was seen as still very clearly separated from the countryside in physical terms, just as its citizens cultivated their sense of separate identity and urban conscious ness-but despite this, the life of the city was closely linked with that of its region; which conclusion was also reached for the then smaller, less important, but growing manufacturing town of Sheffield. In contrast to the study of Norwich as a distribution centre and social capital for its region, Mr Hey's interest focussed on the role of the surrounding rural communities in the industrial development of the town, which have generally received even less attention than the economic and social structure of such towns as Sheffield themselves. The role of such communities in the period of proto industrialization needs urgent examination, the state of Wiltshire and Suffolk in the eighteenth century on the one hand shows that a broad base of pre-existent craft manu facture did not automatically produce a subsequent ' industrial revolution ', but in the case of Sheffield on the other Mr Hey stressed that the necessary ' matrix of industrial ization' for it, and its surrounding region, had already been formed by the late

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258 Conference Reports

seventeenth century. Both papers served, then, to illustrate the way in which Professor Fisher had hoped city-based studies might begin to help to integrate studies in econo mic history between the local and national levels. The discussion around these papers was sometimes fierce, between guardians of the old order and protagonists of a more quantitative though not yet more theoretical, economic history; geographers' voices were not unheard, but very often they simply made the preliminary kinds of observa tions on urban fields, for example, that might have been unnecessary had many of the discussants read some geographical literature. It is hoped that it would not be thought impertinent for a geographer to suggest that this might be beneficial; just as our subject has gained much from other disciplines-not the least, history, in its approach to and treatment of source materials. Nonetheless, this was a most interesting meeting, which demonstrated just how much members of the same field of interest, but from different disciplines, might still offer each other.

John Patten

A vicious circle? - The con sequences of von Thunen in tropical Africa Richard Jackson, Makerere University, Uganda

Summary. The validity of von Thiinen's views on land-use zonation are assessed in the context of evidence from tropical Africa.

Since the publication of Michael Chisholm's classic Rural settlement and land use' the concept of optimal locations for land use being determined by distance has gained wide acceptance amongst geographers. For rural Africa, as opposed to peri-urban land use,2 there are few studies which directly seek to test the validity of Chisholm's argu

ments. Notable exceptions include Morgan's recently re-published essay3 which draws on Prothero's work in northern Nigeria.4 There is, on the other hand, an enormous volume of observations on land use in Africa which provides ample, if indirect, material evidence.

At first sight, it would seem likely that, in some areas of Africa at least, the zoning of cultivation is indeed compatible with Chisholm's views. There are for instance many references to the manured and permanently cultivated garden or home field.5 However, some of these are known to be of recent origin (the jarete of the Sotho for example), many of the others cover only a handful of square metres, and in others, 'even this limited amount of manuring is not general '. In theory, the cost of transport in Africa should be reflected in land use. The peasant farmer operating his holding is still almost totally dependent upon porterage which has been shown to be, on average, 8 6 times as costly as motor vehicles per ton kilometre of movement.7

Chisholm lists the consequences which could be expected to occur if von Thunen's method of analysis were valid.8 These will be examined against the evidence from rural Africa.

1. The pattern of cropping on each field on each farm should be so arranged as to maxi mize the net return of each field

This consequence reflects one of Chisholm's basic assumptions that any reasonable farmer will wish to maximize returns in terms of land to which he has some sort of personal right. The tables and data given by Chisholm are concerned with yield per

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