This book tracing the foundations of modern British geography is based upon the first-hand recollections of some of those active in the discipline between the wars and after. The contributors show how geography evolved from fragile institutional foundations in British universities, and how from the outset the subject generated both controversy and considerable diversity of opinion. The volume discusses not only the growth of geography as a specific academic discipline but also the relationship between geography and national planning that played such an important role in post-war reconstruction. Two younger scholars, trained as geographers in the years after the Second World War, assess the significance of this period in the context of the state of geographical knowledge in Britain.