Elected: 2006
Discipline: Economics and Social Sciences
Professor Charles Withers
Professor Emeritus of Historical Geography, University Of Edinburgh
Charles W. J. Withers is Professor Emeritus of Historical Geography at the University of Edinburgh and the current Geographer Royal for Scotland. As Chair of the RSE Research Awards Committee, he has helped develop and manage the Society’s programmes of research awards by streamlining procedures for application and assessment.
He works on the historical geographies of science and of exploration, including the history of cartography. His research examines how ‘geographical thinking’ is shaped by the sites in which it occurs and by the processes and forms of its representation (writing, exploring, mapping). He is the author or editor of 30 books and over 150 papers and essays in edited collections. Recent publications include the award-winning Zero Degrees: Geographies of the Prime Meridian (Harvard University Press, 2017).
He works on the historical geographies of science and of exploration, including the history of cartography. His research examines how ‘geographical thinking’ is shaped by the sites in which it occurs and by the processes and forms of its representation (writing, exploring, mapping). He is the author or editor of 30 books and over 150 papers and essays in edited collections. Recent publications include the award-winning Zero Degrees: Geographies of the Prime Meridian (Harvard University Press, 2017).