Theory, explanation and references in geography: Comparing two seminal books by David Harvey and Henry Yeung

This article aims to present how the comparative bibliometric analysis of seminal books’ reference lists reflects, and enables scrutinising, some fundamental structural characteristics of the functioning of Geography as a scientific discipline in different periods. It employs David Harvey’s Explanation in Geography, a magnum opus of Geography’s quantitative revolution from 1969, and Henry W. Yeung’s Theory and Explanation in Geography from 2024, a comprehensive conceptual work whose title consciously evokes Harvey’s volume, as case studies. After discussing the possibilities and limits of investigating books as imprints of changing academic practices and addressing methodological questions, the paper reveals a significant increase in the number of references and referenced publications between the two books. It reaffirms the rising share of journal articles (instead of books) and multi-author publications (instead of single-author ones) as structural outcomes of ‘academic neoliberalisation’, while revealing that books, book chapters and single-author publications still make a difference and have a considerable impact on academic discourses. It presents that ‘Geography’ as a term has become rather a synonym of ‘Human Geography’ in certain contexts, instead of containing both Human and Physical Geography. The results prove a significant growth in the impact of publications by female authors and the visibility of scholars outside the UK and the USA, including the Global South. At the same time, they still indicate a firm male dominance and the hegemony of Anglo-American authors and English language publications in the discipline.