The SAGE Handbook of Biogeography is a manual for scoping the past, present and future of biogeography that enable readers to consider, where relevant, how similar biogeographical issues are tackled by researchers in different 'schools'. In line with the concept of all SAGE Handbooks, this is a retrospective and prospective overview of biogeography that will consider the main areas of biogeography researched by geographers, detail a global perspective by incorporating the work of different schools of biogeographers, explore the divergent evolution of biogeography as a discipline and consider how this diversity can be harnessed, examine the interdisciplinary debates that biogeographers are, and are not, contributing to within Geography and within the biological sciences.