Felix Driver
Biographic Data
| ID | 141541 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Felix Driver |
| GIVEN NAMES | Felix |
| FAMILY NAME | Driver |
| SIGNATURE | DRIVER F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Royal Holloway University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0318-4282 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 78 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 770 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 75 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
What Have We Here? Re-discovering colonialism at the British Museum
This essay is prompted by What Have We Here?, an exhibition by Hew Locke, Isabel Seligman and Indra Khanna at the British Museum, 17 October 2024 to 9 February 2025. The accompanying book was published by The British Museum Press in 2024
Oral Histories of the Environmental Movement: Making an Activist Archive
This article considers the making of an archive of environmental activism through the life histories of 100 campaigners involved in environmental protest, projects and policy-making in the UK since the early 1970s. It explores the challenge of representing the diversity of the environmental movement during this period, the value of oral history in illuminating the experience of campaigning and the career trajectories of activists, and the wider s…
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Medals and Awards celebration 2023
The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) annual Medals and Awards recognise achievements in researching, communicating, and teaching a wide range of geographical knowledge. The speeches and citations are a record of the 2023 celebrations, which occurred at the Society on 5 June 2023, with contributions from Andrew Mitchell, Felix Driver, Anson Mackay, Jos Barlow, Harriet Fraser, and Noel Castree
Mobile Museums
Specimens Distributed’
This paper presents research on the dispersal of objects from the Museum of Economic Botany at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (rbgk) from 1847 to 1914. Established by William Hooker, the museum received thousands of objects from around the world, the display of which was designed to illustrate plants’ properties and economic potential. The paper argues that the conventional focus in museum studies on processes of acquisition and accumulation capt…
Material memories of travel: The albums of a Victorian naval surgeon
This paper considers the visual archives of maritime scientific exploration, from coastal sketches to ethnographic observation. It focuses on seven albums of John Linton Palmer, a British naval surgeon who served in the Pacific in the 1850s and 1860s, which are today part of the collections of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). Through their drawing, recording and collecting, naval surgeons like Linton Pal…
Kew Gardens and the Emergence of the School Museum in Britain, 1880–1930
The idea of the school museum as an active resource for object-based learning played an important but now neglected part in programmes of educational reform during the closing decades of the nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth. In this article we focus on the role of the Kew Museum of Economic Botany in supplying schools with botanical specimens and artefacts for their own museums during this period, to support a broad var…
Index
Imperial cities: Overlapping territories, intertwined histories
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the role of imperialism in shaping the history and geography of a variety of modern European cities. It shows how imperial preoccupations entered into debates over the reconstruction of a key ceremonial site at the heart of London in the opening years of the twentieth century. The book emphasises the ways in which imperi…
General editor’s introduction
When the Studies in Imperialism series was founded in 1985, it was dedicated to the study of the effects of empire and imperialism upon the home societies in Europe.While the focus has inevitably been principally upon Britain, the series has also been concerned to demonstrate the manner in which imperialism was a Europe-wide phenomenon and the extent to which these reciprocal influences had to be carried well beyond the conventional climax of the…
Photography and Tibet
Reading Magnum: A Visual Archive of the Modern World
Historical geography at large: Towards public historical geographies
Sobre a Geografia Como Uma Disciplina Visual
Post Scriptum
Research in historical geography and in the history and philosophy of geography in the UK, 2001–2011: An overview
This report, commissioned by the UK's Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) as part of an international review of research in human geography in the UK, considers the quality and impact of research within two related fields of particular interest to readers of this journal: historical geography and history of geography. The report, submitted in March 2012 and published here for the first time (with a new introduction) provides an account of t…
Hidden histories made visible? Reflections on a geographical exhibition
This paper addresses the potential of public exhibitions to challenge long taken‐for‐granted assumptions about the history of exploration and geography. The Hidden Histories of Exploration exhibition, originally held in 2009, was based on historical research in the Royal Geographical Society’s extensive collections, including manuscripts, books, maps and atlases, artefacts, artworks, photography and film. The exhibition was designed to reveal the…
"Reading Matthew Farish's "The Contours of America's Cold War
Visualizing Africa in Nineteenth-Century British Travel Accounts, by Leila Koivunen * Representing Africa: Landscape, Exploration and Empire in Southern Africa, 1780-1870, by John McAleer
The representation of Africa in text and image is a subject which has attracted much attention within the fields of postcolonial studies and visual culture over the last twenty years. The non-specialist historian seeking guidance on the role of printed illustrations in the representation of Africa might therefore expect to find a substantial body of research available. However, as Leila Koivunen points out, such work is surprisingly rare: while t…
Historical geography: Referees and players
The 15th International Conference of Historical Geographers: Prague, 2012
Historical geography at large
In Search of The Imperial Map: Walter Crane and the Image of Empire
Journal Article In Search of The Imperial Map: Walter Crane and the Image of Empire Get access Felix Driver Felix Driver Felix Driver is an editor of History Workshop Journal and author of Geography Militant (Blackwell, 2001). He is professor of human geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. He recently organized an exhibition on 'Hidden Histories of Exploration' at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), available online at www.rgs.…
History Workshop Journal: Widening the Circle
Type ‘workshop’ into any one of today’s online dictionaries, and you’ll find it combines two meanings: one refers to a space where manual or light industrial work is done, the other to the idea of a small-scale creative or educational event, usually involving the informal exchange of ideas between a small number of participants. As an expression of the aspirations of the founders of this journal in 1975, the word could hardly have been bettered; …
Charles Darwin and the Geographers: Unnatural Selection
There is no abstract for this paper
Geography's Empire: Histories of Geographical Knowledge
In this paper the possibilities and hazards of a critical perspective on the history of geographical knowledge are considered. The focus is on the relations between modern geography and European colonialism during the 'age of empire' (circa 1870-1914). For writers as diverse as Joseph Conrad and Halford Mackinder, this was a moment of decisive importance for the making of the modern world. Although the interplay between geography, modernity, and …
Moral Geographies: Social Science and the Urban Environment in Mid-Nineteenth Century England
This paper examines a theme in the history of geographical thought: the role played by conceptions of the urban environment in nineteenth-century social science. Nineteenth-century social inquiry was committed to social action and moral improvement, and this commitment was shaped by contemporary attitudes towards the environment. The concept of 'social science' emerged at the confluence of several streams of thought, including sanitary science, m…
Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire
Book synopsis: The contrast between the temperate and the tropical is one of the most enduring themes in the history of the Western geographical imagination. Caught between the demands of experience and representation, documentation and fantasy, travelers in the tropics have often treated tropical nature as a foil to the temperate, to all that is civilized, modest, and enlightened. Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire explores images of the tropi…
Power, Space, and the Body: A Critical Assessment of Foucault's Discipline and Punish
The work of Michel Foucault has recently been subjected to considerable scrutiny. This paper is an examination of his book, Discipline and Punish, which describes an historical transformation in the exercise of power. The themes (section 2) and the significance (section 3) of the book are discussed in terms of Foucault's conception of history and power. In the rest of the paper, its implications are examined more closely, through four categories:…
Power and pauperism: The Workhouse System, 1834-1884
"Power and pauperism aims to provide a new perspective on the place of the workhouse in the history and geography of nineteenth-century society and social policy. The workhouse system is set in the "wider context of relationships of social and political power in an age associated, paradoxically, with both laissez-faire and increasing state regulation. The study pays particular attention to conflicts over Poor Law policy and workhouse design. Dr. …
Imperial cities: Landscape, display and identity
Imperial cities explores the influence of imperialism in the landscapes of modern European cities including London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Marseilles, Glasgow and Seville. Examines large-scale architectural schemes and monuments, including the Queen Victoria Memorial in London and the Vittoriano in Rome. Focuses on imperial display throughout the city, from spectacular exhibitions and ceremonies, to more private displays of empire in suburban garde…
Heart of Empire? Landscape, Space and Performance in Imperial London
In this paper we address the ways in which global processes of imperialism helped to constitute the cultural geography of the capital cities of Europe. London is our focus, not least because its representation as an imperial city during the modern period was particularly fraught with difficulty. In the first section of the paper we consider the value and limitations of a 'post-colonial' perspective, and specifically the extent to which the discou…
Hidden histories made visible? Reflections on a geographical exhibition
This paper addresses the potential of public exhibitions to challenge long taken‐for‐granted assumptions about the history of exploration and geography. The Hidden Histories of Exploration exhibition, originally held in 2009, was based on historical research in the Royal Geographical Society’s extensive collections, including manuscripts, books, maps and atlases, artefacts, artworks, photography and film. The exhibition was designed to reveal the…
Imagining the Tropics: Views and Visions of the Tropical World
On Geography as a Visual Discipline
Sub-Merged Identities: Familiar and Unfamiliar Histories
I was prompted to write this paper by the recent debate over the merger of the Institute of British Geographers with the Royal Geographical Society. For historians of geography, what was especially striking about the debate such as it was were the divergent meanings placed on the proposed administrative union, and especially the way in which the history of geography its institutions and ideas became something of a battleground (or perhaps just a …
Discipline Without Frontiers? Representations of the Mettray Reformatory Colony in Britain, 1840-1880
The agricultural colony founded at Mettray, France, in 1839 rapidly acquired an international reputation as an exemplar of the 'family system' of moral training, in which inmates were dispersed into separate 'houses' rather than being concentrated in large buildings. Many foreign visitors portrayed Mettray as a place where the fruits of the new reformatory science had been realised in practice. The paper aims to show how the Mettray model came to…
Political geography and state formation: Disputed territory
Henry Morton Stanley and His Critics: Geography, Exploration and Empire
HENRY MORTON STANLEY AND HIS CRITICS: GEOGRAPHY, EXPLORATION AND EMPIRE Get access Felix Driver Felix Driver Royal Holloway and Bedford New CollegeLondon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 133, Issue 1, November 1991, Pages 134–166, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/133.1.134 Published: 01 November 1991
Shipwreck and salvage in the tropics: The case of HMS Thetis, 1830–1854
Distance and Disturbance: Travel, Exploration and Knowledge in the Nineteenth Century
How should information about distant places be collected? How should it be made available to the reading public? And how far could it be trusted? Such questions were posed by the expansion of exploration and travel during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. According to the leading scientific authorities, the making of accurate observations, the use of precise instruments, the methodical collection of specimens and the writing of narratives …
Biography and the history of geography: A response to Ron Johnston
Capital and Empire: Geographies of Imperial London
Visualizing geography: A journey to the heart of the discipline
The historical geography of the workhouse system in England and Wales, 1834–1883
The historicity of human geography
Geographical education and citizenship: Introduction
Consciousness and the Urban Experience: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization
The Geography of English Politics: The 1983 General Election
Rethinking the Idea of Place
Journal Article Rethinking the Idea of Place Get access Felix Driver, Felix Driver Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Raphael Samuel Raphael Samuel Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar History Workshop Journal, Volume 39, Issue 1, SPRING 1995, Pages 1-t–1, https://doi.org/10.1093/hwj/39.1.1-t Published: 01 March 1995
State Apparatus: Structures and Language of Legitimacy: Review and Reply, Theorising State Structures: Alternatives to Functionalism and Reductionism
Power, Space, and the Body: A Critical Assessment of Foucault's Discipline and Punish
The work of Michel Foucault has recently been subjected to considerable scrutiny. This paper is an examination of his book, Discipline and Punish, which describes an historical transformation in the exercise of power. The themes (section 2) and the significance (section 3) of the book are discussed in terms of Foucault's conception of history and power. In the rest of the paper, its implications are examined more closely, through four categories:…
The Geography of English Politics: The 1983 General Election
The historicity of human geography
The British Empire at its zenith
Moral Geographies: Social Science and the Urban Environment in Mid-Nineteenth Century England
This paper examines a theme in the history of geographical thought: the role played by conceptions of the urban environment in nineteenth-century social science. Nineteenth-century social inquiry was committed to social action and moral improvement, and this commitment was shaped by contemporary attitudes towards the environment. The concept of 'social science' emerged at the confluence of several streams of thought, including sanitary science, m…
Consciousness and the Urban Experience: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization
The historical geography of the workhouse system in England and Wales, 1834–1883
The political geography of contemporary Britain
Discipline Without Frontiers? Representations of the Mettray Reformatory Colony in Britain, 1840-1880
The agricultural colony founded at Mettray, France, in 1839 rapidly acquired an international reputation as an exemplar of the 'family system' of moral training, in which inmates were dispersed into separate 'houses' rather than being concentrated in large buildings. Many foreign visitors portrayed Mettray as a place where the fruits of the new reformatory science had been realised in practice. The paper aims to show how the Mettray model came to…
Political geography and state formation: Disputed territory
History and totality: Radical historicism from Hegel to Foucault
New Maps for Old Times
Journal Article New Maps for Old Times Get access DENIS COSGROVE & STEPHEN DANIELS (eds), The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments, Cambridge University Press, 1988.ISBN 0521-32-43-78, £30 hardback, £12.95 paperback. C. WITHERS, Gaelic Scotland: The Transformation of a Culture Region,Routledge, 1988ISBN 0415-00-45-94, £50 hardback. FELIX DRIVER FELIX DRIVER Search for other works by …
Henry Morton Stanley and His Critics: Geography, Exploration and Empire
HENRY MORTON STANLEY AND HIS CRITICS: GEOGRAPHY, EXPLORATION AND EMPIRE Get access Felix Driver Felix Driver Royal Holloway and Bedford New CollegeLondon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 133, Issue 1, November 1991, Pages 134–166, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/133.1.134 Published: 01 November 1991
Geography's Empire: Histories of Geographical Knowledge
In this paper the possibilities and hazards of a critical perspective on the history of geographical knowledge are considered. The focus is on the relations between modern geography and European colonialism during the 'age of empire' (circa 1870-1914). For writers as diverse as Joseph Conrad and Halford Mackinder, this was a moment of decisive importance for the making of the modern world. Although the interplay between geography, modernity, and …
Power and pauperism: The Workhouse System, 1834-1884
"Power and pauperism aims to provide a new perspective on the place of the workhouse in the history and geography of nineteenth-century society and social policy. The workhouse system is set in the "wider context of relationships of social and political power in an age associated, paradoxically, with both laissez-faire and increasing state regulation. The study pays particular attention to conflicts over Poor Law policy and workhouse design. Dr. …
People, Power and Place: Perspectives on Anglo-American Politics
This volume attempts to provide a practical discussion of local governments and the consequences of their policies for the public. Keith Hoggart discusses the general character and key issues of local politics, attempting to answer the central questions of who gets what, when, where and why. Recognizing the need to understand the factors which shape local political systems and activity, the author examines the interaction of social structures wit…
Back to the Future of Geography
Imperial Camp
New perspectives on the history and philosophy of geography
Making space: Territorial themes in the history of science', a conference organized by the British Society for the History of Science, held at the University of Kent, Canterbury, 28-30 March 1994
Visualizing geography: A journey to the heart of the discipline
Visualizing Landscape
Sub-Merged Identities: Familiar and Unfamiliar Histories
I was prompted to write this paper by the recent debate over the merger of the Institute of British Geographers with the Royal Geographical Society. For historians of geography, what was especially striking about the debate such as it was were the divergent meanings placed on the proposed administrative union, and especially the way in which the history of geography its institutions and ideas became something of a battleground (or perhaps just a …
Popular science: Science Popularization
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