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A contemporary of Mackinder, H. Robert Mill wrote a book Realm of Nature in which he discussed 'the Races of Man'.

The concept of 'region' was a popular theme for British geographers before the First World War. The British geographers were influenced by Vidal de La Blache, and the leading French sociologist F. Le Play. Sir Patrick Geddes, the Scottish geographer was a follower of Le Play-who carried on research on family life styles and family budgets. He recognized that family is dependent on family life style and family budgets. Le Play recognized that family life is dependent on the means of obtaining subsistence, i.e. work while the character of the latter is largely' determined by the nature of the environment, that is place. This led to the famous Le Play formula which is basic to his ideas-place, work 'family-which Geddes transformed into the slogan, place, work, folk as the basic concepts in the study of cities and regions.

In the letter parts of 19th century till the first world war geography in Britain was dominated by the man nature relationships. Forde published 'Habitat, Economy and Society' on primitive societies to show the influence of environment on the occupation and mode of life of the people. Forde put stress on cultural groups in 'their areal pattern, that are dependent upon culture and cultural contacts rather than' on direct impact 'of physical environment. The approach of 'environment determinism' as a central theme of selection and interpretation is flatly rejected in these studies.

Agricultural Geography. At the advent of the 20th century 'agricultural geography' became an important fields of geographical research, but it was in the twenties and thirties when land use survey attracted the attention of the British geographers. After the First World War it was realized that each unit of land should 'be used judiciously. In 1920, L.D. Stamp prepared the Land Use Maps of Britain. The land use maps prepared by Stamp were used for a variety of purposes in addition to planning of emergency crop expansion during war After the Second World War they were the basis for the reconstruction of Britain. In 1965 in recognition of his contribution Prof. L.D. Stamp was decorated with 'Sir 'and became 'Sir Dudley Stamp'. The geography of rural settlement and urbanization made little progress during the inter-war period. Fleure and his followers made some studies of the rural settlement but they 'cannot 'be considered as substantial contributions. Virtually no attention was paid to' the spatial structure of city.

Historical Geography. Historical geography was also a good hunting ground for the British geographers after the First World War. The foundation of Historical geography in Britain was laid down by Mackinder. He stressed that geographers should try to rebuild past geographies and show how sequence of change have led to the present observable features; otherwise geography would become a mere description of contemporary features. Historical geography evaluates through time the changing inter-connections of man and nature. During this period some of the prominent scholars who contributed in the field of historical geography are M.I. Newbegin, E.G.R. Taylor, E.W. Gilbert and H.C. Darby.

Contemporary Trends in British Geography. There has been a tremendous change in the philosophy, approaches and scope of geographical studies during the last three and a half decades. The major change was in the form of 'Quantitative Revolution'. In this period, scholars like Richard Chorley and Peter Haggett made enormous use of sophisticated statistical techniques, and formulated models and theories in the fields of human and social geography. In the post-war period, geography in Britain is recognized as a spatial science. Now geography is concerned with providing accurate, orderly, and rational description of the variable character of the earth surface. The quantitative revolution was started from the United States and was quickly diffused in Britain. The British geographers, consequently, focused their attention on quantification, multivariate analysis, statistical description of patterns formulation and testing of hypotheses. A number of books have been written by Haggett and Chorley which explain the space relations and locational analysis with the help of models. Some of the major works are 'Models in Human Geography' 'Locational Analysis in Human Geography' and 'Frontiers in Geographical Teaching'.

Some other aspects on which the British geographers are paying attention are inter-regional and intra-regional inequalities in the society, environmental degradation, ecological crisis and the environmental management. Public welfare, social amenities, medical geography and landscape ecology are some of the new areas in which the British geographers are breaking new grounds. Moreover, substantial contributions are being made in the fields of concepts, physical, regional, historical, economic, transport, agricultural and political geography.

Some of the new concepts which are drawing the attention of British geographers are 'Positivism', 'Pragmatism' Existentialism, Mealism, Realism, Environmental Causation, Radicalism and Dialectical Materialism. Positivism is an important approach on which the British geographers are focusing their attention. Positivism is a naturalistic-pragmatic trend in modern thought.

Some of the British geographers are concentrating on the philosophy of 'Pragmatism' to solve the problems of societies. The concept of Pragmatism was borrowed by the Britons from America. According to this philosophy' there should be more emphasis on 'practical problems'. A pragmatist believes that the 'concrete' or the particular situation is important to obtaining scientific knowledge and for understanding the world.

The concept of 'realism' is a new philosophy in the British geographical literature. In the Platonic-Socratic thought, the term realism was used in opposition to nominalism for the doctrine that universal and abstract entities have real objective existence.

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