Messy Geography

I teach (or have taught) World History, United States History, United States Government, World Studies, and Geography.  I even did a year of Political Geography, so I am well-aware of the intertwinings of these social sciences, along with others (including economics) and that it can be difficult to separate them out.  

In Messy History, we talk about different geographical features, and places.  For example: the Alps, the Somme, the area of Alsace-Lorraine between France and Germany, Poland, and the mass of Eastern Europe come up often. These are physical features on a map.  Alternatively, we sometimes teach in terms of countries. You know, teachers often use phrases like “Britain did this to China” or “Germany did that to Russia” (or vice versa).  A problem with this approach is that though it is easy to teach who is on the land, what government is in charge, the effect of people on the physical landscape -  all of those change over time.

For example, though we tell peoples’ stories from many different places, we have recently been spending time with people in Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At that time, Germany had just become Germany (through the Franco Prussian War in 1870-71)  and Italy became unified over the course of a decade (1861-71).  Yet these were still fragile areas of land that just a couple generations previously, weren’t even countries.  

So, physical geography and political geography - though both useful in their own right - fail to fully convey actions of people in history.  Oftentimes, when I use the words “Italy”, “Germany”, “France”, etc., I am referring to the language that the person speaks but even that approach has its flaws.  For example, there was the time when the Germans gave the French in Alsace Lorraine the option to either learn to speak German or move off the land.  Yet another reason the French were more than ready to “punish” Germany after World War I.  Of course afterwards, it shifted back. 

After months of circling the best way to communicate what is going on, we finally realized that there isn’t a “best way” to categorize individuals and events, because they’re messy. History is propelled by individual people - people who often aren’t that different from you and I. They struggled with a changing (and often chaotic) world similar to the one we live in. I think it is important to remember that now, in 2026, more than ever.