ENCYCLOPAEDISM, MODERNISM AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

This article considers something of the relationships between the orde ring of geographical knowledge, classification as an intellectual ente rprise and the place of geography in (the) Enlightenment. Particular c onsideration is given to the situated position of geography within the two major modern encyclopaedias of the eighteenth century: Ephraim Ch ambers' Cyclopnedia (1728) and Diderot and d'Alembert's Encycloedie (1 751-65). A final section examines connections between encyclopaedism, geography and 'high' modernism in the writing of H G Wells. Three prin cipal claims are made and examined: the ontological ordering of the di scipline in encyclopaedias, dictionaries and universal grammars should be considered an important part of geography's history; ideas of reas oned utility and modernity that have been held to distinguish 'the Enl ightenment project' must themselves be historically and socially situa ted; and the 'universal geography' texts of the 1700s should be seen a s part of attempts to order all knowledge as socially useful.