I’ve been mainly pursuing various themes in the history of twentieth-century geography.

I’ve worked on the role played during the Second World War of several American geographers especially within the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner of the CIA). More recently, along with Elliott Child, UBC, we’ve looked directly at the roles of the CIA and geographers in the larger project of Cold War Area Studies.

At the same time, I’ve also been interested in a parallel group of German geographers during the same period who worked for the Nazis, particularly, the Haushofers, father and son, Walter Christaller, and August Lösch.

An interest in the mid-twentieth geographer William Warntz led me to research early computerization, and followed by an examination of its contemporary manifestation, Big Data. I’ve also been interested in early forms of Big Data during the Vietnam War, including as GIS. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, was a key promoter.

Most recently, I’ve looked at some of geography’s 1960s Vietnam War protestors, as well as those concerned with Civil Rights. The most important was Bill Bunge. I’ve published a series of papers specifically on Bunge’s life and works.

I am also involved in a larger project concerned to write about the history of North American radical geography from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s. A jointly edited book with Eric Sheppard, Spatial Histories of North American Radical Geography, is in preparation, due out in 2019. In early 2018 I published an experimental textbook in economic geography with Brett Christophers, Economic Geography: A Critical Introduction.

And finally, I continue to work with Tom Hutton, School of Community and Regional Planning, UBC, on the innovation economies of Vancouver and Seattle, recently writing briefing papers for Metrovancouver Planning Department.

Honours: Distinguished University Scholar, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and Fellow of the British Academy.

2023

Wynn, G. and T. J. Barnes. 2023. In Memorium/ Hommage: Cole Harris: Canada’s geographer. The Canadian Geographer 67(1): 4–9.

Barnes, T. J and J. Seidl, J. 2023. Into the Field. In In memory: Cole Harris. BC Studies 216: 130–131.

2022

Dufty-Jones, R. Gibson, C. and T. Barnes. 2022. Writing economies and economies of writing. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 54 (2): 370-381.

Barnes, T. 2022. The discipline that came in from the cold: American human geography becomes a Cold War social science. Environment and Planning F 1(2-4): 145-167.

Barnes, T. and M. Roche. 2022. The International Circulation and Dissemination of Geographical Concepts and Ideas. In A Geographical Century: Essays for the Centenary of the International Geographical Union, 49-62. Springer International Publishing

Barnes, T. 2022. The Nature of Space by Milton Santos. Journal of Latin American Geography 21 (2): 9-23.

2021

Bekaroğlu, E., and T. Barnes. 2021. Dictatorships and universities: The 1980 Turkish military coup d’état and Turkish geography. Political Geography 91. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102481

Dora, V. D. Barnes, T. Mitchell, D. and K.R. Olwig.  2021. The Meanings of Lanscape: Essays on Place, Space, Environment and Justice. Progress in Human Geography 45 (2): 404-406.

2020

Barnes, T. J. 2020. Rorty, conversation and the power of maps.  In The power of pragmatism: Knowledge production and social inquiry, edited by J. Wills and R. Lake, 102-116. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Child, E. and T. J. Barnes. 2020. State and Territory.  In The SAGE Handbook of Historical Geography Volume 2, edited by M. Domosh, M. Heffernan and C. W. J. Withers, 468-496. London: Sage.

Sidaway, J. D. Lin, S. Chouinard, V. Ferreti, F. Gibson, K. Kenney-Lazar, M. Philo, C. Van Meeteren, M. Wills, J., Wisner, B. Barnes, T. and E. Sheppard. 2020. Spatial Histories of Radical Geography: North America and Beyond. The AAG Review of Books 8(4): 236-258.

Child, E. and T. Barnes. 2020. American imperial expansion and area studies without geography. Journal of Historical Geography 66: 43-54.

2019

Barnes, T. J. 2019. Material for thought. Political Geography 69(March), 177-179.

Barnes, T. J. and B. Christophers. 2019. Book review forum response. The AAG Review of Books 7 (1): 64-67.

Child, E. C. and T. J. Barnes. 2019. American imperial expansion and area studies without geography. Journal of Historical Geography 66: 43-54.

Barnes, T. J. 2019. The importance of ‘being various’: a commentary on ‘Moving beyond Anglo-American economic geography. International Journal of Urban Sciences 23 (2): 170-176.

Barnes, T. J. 2019. Founder’s Medal. The Geographical Journal 185(3): 366-367.