Horizons in Physical Geography

It is now more than twenty years since Richard Chorley and Peter Haggett compiled their path-breaking survey of Frontiers in Geographical Teaching (1965), which, together with Models in Geography published just two years later (1967), did so much to consolidate the foundations of what had come to be called the 'New Geography'. The intervening two decades have seen further (and, on occasion, dramatically different) developments in the discipline. Indeed, one of the lasting contributions of both Frontiers and Models was to recognise and welcome change as the very life-blood of intellectual inquiry.
To be sure, many of these changes collided awkwardly with individuals, institutions and even governments which, in their various ways, sought to impose some sort of stability or direction - a semblance of order - on the shifting kaleidoscope of discovery and debate. But there can be no doubt that since 1965 geography has continued (and is continuing) to change, and Horizons in Human Geography and Horizons in Physical Geography are intended to introduce some of the most exciting challenges of the contemporary subject to a wider audience. Like Frontiers, the Horizons volumes are directed primarily at teachers, although we naturally hope for a wider readership. We regard geography in the schools and geography in the colleges, polytechnics and universities as parts of a corporate project. Their aims and audiences are of course different, and it would be quite wrong to think of school geography as no more than a conveyor belt into further and higher education. But each has a measure of responsibility for the other, and we hope that the contributions to these volumes will help to promote a sustained dialogue between them.