Marcel Aurousseau and the true tint of geography

Abstract

Summary In the broadest and most important sense, Marcel Aurousseau's geographical contributions extend over more than half a century. His ‘formal’ geographical papers on settlement patterns and population problems were published between 1918 and 1927. During this period his only appointment as a geographer was at the American Geographical Society of New York in 1923–4. He spent nearly four years in the U.S. and met some of the leading American geographers including Isaiah Bowman, Harlan Barrows, and Mark Jefferson. A biobibliographical approach is used to recount Aurousseau's contribution to professional geography in the 1920s. His own words tell us much about the period and how he saw himself as a geographer. Underestimating his achievements then and since, he recalls: ‘I was a rising star, so to speak. In fact I did not get very far above the horizon.’