The Current State of Geography: National Comparisons

“What will you be doing in Oslo?” an official at Dublin airport asked as I boarded the plane yesterday. “Giving a lecture”, said I. “On what?” he queried. “On the current state of geography” I almost hesitated to inform him. “Oh, you mean ecology and things – very important subject these days”, he reassured me. Previous worries about the scope of the lecture were amplified: how to set limits on the “current”, how to define “geography”, and finally, on what terms “national comparisons” might be broached. On the flight I again glanced over the 13-page full colour supplement to the Irish Times, entitled Networks of Power which had appeared last week and then understood why the airport official knew exactly about “the current state of geography”.