The essays in this first section demonstrate the complex and continuous inter-relationships among the various
elements that make up scholarly/intellectual thought, and highlight the then-emerging contentions within geography
over knowledge, politics, personnel, and practices and methods. These pieces represent formative statements
(some would say early, incendiary salvoes!) in debates that continue to resonate strongly within the discipline to
this day, and in each case the pieces have contributed to very productive, multi-directional conversations within the discipline and with cognate fields. The themes raised by these early works have matured and evolved over the
past 35 or so years in scholarly terms, and (as we shall explore in later sections of the book) in their ability to inform
progressive practices as well.