The early years

Abstract

William Bunge’s monograph Theoretical Geography was the most sophisticated and evangelical of the early writings on geography’s quantitative revolution. By the time Bunge received the results of his comprehensive exams, he already had plans to be a visiting student at the University of Washington, Seattle. He knew that some in that Department were carrying out the kind of “nascent mathematical geography” he wanted to pursue. Theoretical geography as Bunge used the term meant deploying a formal mathematical vocabulary to reduce complex spatial relationships to simpler geographical patterns that could then be theoretically explained. Bunge’s Theoretical Geography was a radical experiment. Bunge struggled especially with the last of these tasks. Partly this was because of his personality and the biographical baggage he brought to his project. Partly it was because he was the first person to set out a systematic monograph-length account and justification of what was a strikingly different kind of academic geography.