Developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are increasingly influenced by human-induced environmental changes. It is crucial that sustainable development be based on insights into these expanding processes--conservation as well as deterioration. Nature's Geography offers a new perspective on the geographical nature of these changes. The book reveals how human-environment relations must be understood at multiple scales and time frames. Editors Karl S. Zimmerer and Kenneth R. Young have forged an exciting group of case studies from distinguished geographers focusing on high mountains, tropical forests, and lowlands, as well as humid and arid-semiarid landscapes. Each chapter analyzes the implications for meshing environmental protection and sound resource use with development. The case studies evaluate three topics: spatial habitat fragmentation and forest dynamics; disturbances in mountain ecosystems; and the major activities of settled areas, chiefly farming, livestock-raising, and forestry. Included are analyses of interactions involving wildlife, such as primates and wild pandas; assessment of fire impacts and road-building; long-term forest management as well as recent techniques; and the role of environmental variation and ecosystem properties in agriculture and rangeland. Nature's Geography demonstrates the vital importance of advancing a new approach to geography. This definitive study of landscape change and environmental dynamics will have wide appeal for those interested in geography, ecology, environmental studies, conservation biology, and development studies.

International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Second Edition, Fourteen Volume Set embraces diversity by design and captures the ways in which humans share places and view differences based on gender, race, nationality, location and other factors—in other words, the things that make people and places different. Questions of, for example, politics, economics, race relations and migration are introduced and discussed through a geographical lens. This updated edition will assist readers in their research by providing factual information, historical perspectives, theoretical approaches, reviews of literature, and provocative topical discussions that will stimulate creative thinking. Presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage on the topic of human geography Contains extensive scope and depth of coverage Emphasizes how geographers interact with, understand and contribute to problem-solving in the contemporary world Places an emphasis on how geography is relevant in a social and interdisciplinary context

Zweifelsohne das Referenzwerk zu diesem weitgefächerten und dynamischen Fachgebiet. The International Encyclopedia of Geograph ist das Ergebnis einer einmaligen Zusammenarbeit zwischen Wiley und der American Association of Geographers (AAG), beleuchtet und definiert Konzepte, Forschung und Techniken in der Geographie und zugehörigen Fachgebieten. Die Enzyklopädie ist als Online-Ausgabe und 15-bändige farbige Printversion erhältlich. Unter der Mitarbeit einer Gruppe von Experten aus aller Welt ist ein umfassender und fundierter Überblick über die Geographie in allen Erdteilen entstanden. - Enthält mehr als 1.000 Einträge zwischen 1.000 und 10.000 Wörtern, die verständlich in grundlegende Konzepte einführen, komplexe Themen erläutern und Informationen zu geographischen Gesellschaften aus aller Welt enthalten. - Entstanden unter der Mitarbeit von mehr als 900 Wissenschaftlern aus über 40 Ländern und bietet damit einen umfassenden und fundierten Überblick über die Geographie in allen Erdteilen. - Deckt das Fachgebiet umfassend ab und berücksichtigt auch die Richtungen Humangeographie, Physikalische Geographie, geographische Informationswissenschaften und -systeme, Erdwissenschaften und Umweltwissenschaften. - Führt interdisziplinäre Sichtweisen zu geographischen Themen und Verfahren zusammen, die auch für die Sozialwissenschaften, Geisteswissenschaften, Naturwissenschaften und Medizin von Interesse sind. - Printausgabe durchgängig in Farbe mit über 1.000 Illustrationen und Fotos. - Online-Ausgabe wird jährlich aktualisiert.

A Companion to Environmental Geography is the first book to comprehensively and systematically map the research frontier of 'human-environment geography' in an accessible and comprehensive way. Cross-cuts several areas of a discipline which has traditionally been seen as divided; presenting work by human and physical geographers in the same volume Presents both the current 'state of the art' research and charts future possibilities for the discipline Extends the term 'environmental geography' beyond its 'traditional' meanings to include new work on nature and environment by human and physical geographers - not just hazards, resources, and conservation geographers Contains essays from an outstanding group of international contributors from among established scholars and rising stars in geography

Simply stated, geography studies the locations of things and the explanations that underlie spatial distributions. Profound forces at work throughout the world have made geographical knowledge increasingly important for understanding numerous human dilemmas and our capacities to address them. With more than 1,200 entries, the Encyclopedia of Geography reflects how the growth of geography has propelled a demand for intermediaries between the abstract language of academia and the ordinary language of everyday life. The six volumes of this encyclopedia encapsulate a diverse array of topics to offer a comprehensive and useful summary of the state of the discipline in the early 21st century. Key Features Gives a concise historical sketch of geography′s long, rich, and fascinating history, including human geography, physical geography, and GIS Provides succinct summaries of trends such as globalization, environmental destruction, new geospatial technologies, and cyberspace Decomposes geography into the six broad subject areas: physical geography; human geography; nature and society; methods, models, and GIS; history of geography; and geographer biographies, geographic organizations, and important social movements Provides hundreds of color illustrations and images that lend depth and realism to the text Includes a special map section Key Themes Physical Geography Human Geography Nature and Society Methods, Models, and GIS People, Organizations, and Movements History of Geography This encyclopedia strategically reflects the enormous diversity of the discipline, the multiple meanings of space itself, and the diverse views of geographers. It brings together the diversity of geographical knowledge, making it an invaluable resource for any academic library.

′Having just read this book, cover to cover, I can honestly say that I have not felt so excited about the discipline of geography since i was in my first year at college.... Overall, therefore, this is a truly wonderful book and the first comprehansive analysis of the cultural turn tha geography has taken, the pitfalls which lie ahead and the course which needs to be chartered. Innovative, invigorating, passionate and groundbreaking, it makes you feel great about being a cultural geographer, even if you never knew you were one′ -Space and Polity `I never expected to call a handbook compulsive reading, but this wonderful volume changed all my preconceptions of what cultural geographers can do. Absorbing and thought-provoking, this is collaborative intellectual work at its imaginative best; it situates, explains and questions cultural geography as a "style of thought" and in the process imparts such vitality and joy from thinking in that style that this reader wants to join in. This Handbook can inform and inspire anyone concerned in any way with cultural research today′ - Meaghan Morris, Chair Professor of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong `The Handbook of Cultural Geography lives up to its name. It is a book about where things are, how people live, what life means and why events happen. It should be carried at all times by anyone who is curious about the world. Crammed within its covers is a wealth of detail about the power to make history and shape geography. This is a catalogue of the disagreements and alliances that shape the world, and of the politics (and costs) of engaging with that world.The book is comprehensive yet has depth, accessible as well as experimental, and challenging without being too daunting. Each page contains something that seems highly familiar yet curiously strange. The message of course is that what we normally take for granted is so strange. The achievement is that after reading the Handbook, the world will never seem "normal" again′ - Susan J Smith, Ogilvie Professor of Geography, The University of Edinburgh `A richly plural and impassioned re-presentation of cultural geography that eschews everything in the way of boundary drawing and fixity. A re-visioning of the field as "a set of engagements with the world," it contains a vibrant atlas of ever shifting possibilities. Throbbing with commitment, and un-disciplined in the most positive sense of that term, it is exactly what a handbook ought to be′ - Professor Allan Pred, Department of Geography, University of California at Berkeley `A handbook with attitude and purpose, bristling with vitality, openness, and novelty. Dispelling with fixtures, canons, and retrofits, an imaginative cast in the hands of four of the most exciting contemporary cultural geographers opens up the cultural plural - culture as distribution of things, as a way of life, as meaning, as doing, as power - to a new spatial sensibility concerned with the fluid and mobile, the broadest ecology of spatial surfaces, the everyday lived, and the impetus of experimental forcings. A wonderful display of the confident maturity and originality that contemporary geography brings to cultural studies′ - Professor Ash Amin, Department of Geography, University of Durham The Handbook of Cultural Geography presents a state of the art assessment of the key questions informing cultural geography. Emphasizing the intellectual diversity of the discipline, the Handbook presents a comprehensive statement of the relationship between the cultural imagination and the geographical imagination while also looking at resonances between cultural geography and other disciplines. The work is cross-referenced throughout and presents a completely integrated overview of cultural geography. This will be an essential reference for any inquiry into how culture is spatially constituted and, equally, how geography is culturally constructed.

It can be argued that the differences in content and approach between physical and human geography, and also within its sub-disciplines, are often overemphasised. The result is that geography is often seen as a diverse and dynamic subject, but also as a disorganised and fragmenting one, without a focus. Unifying Geography focuses on the plural and competing versions of unity that characterise the discipline, which give it cohesion and differentiate it from related fields of knowledge. Each of the chapters is co-authored by both a leading physical and a human geographer. Themes identified include those of the traditional core as well as new and developing topics that are based on subject matter, concepts, methodology, theory, techniques and applications. Through its identification of unifying themes, the book will provide students with a meaningful framework through which to understand the nature of the geographical discipline. Unifying Geography will give the discipline renewed strength and direction, thus improving its status both within and outside geography.

This book charts the developments in the discipline of geography from the 1950s to the 1980s, examining how geography now connects with urban, regional and national planning, and impacts on areas such as medicine, transport, agricultural development and electoral reform. The book also discusses how technical and theoretical advancements have generated a renewed sense of philosophic reflection – a concern closely linked with the critical examination and development of social theory.

Charles Withers' book brings together work on the history of geography and the history of science with extensive archival analysis to explore how geographical knowledge has been used to shape an understanding of the nation. Using Scotland as an exemplar, the author places geographical knowledge in its wider intellectual context to afford insights into perspectives of empire, national identity and the geographies of science. In so doing, he advances a new area of geographical enquiry, the historical geography of geographical knowledge, and demonstrates how and why different forms of geographical knowledge have been used in the past to constitute national identity, and where those forms were constructed and received. The book will make an important contribution to the study of nationhood and empire and will therefore interest historians, as well as students of historical geography and historians of science. It is theoretically engaging, empirically rich and beautifully illustrated.

This book provides a practical guide for students and practising teachers as to how concepts can form the basis of geography teaching. This is particularly important at this time as the revised national curriculum for Geography (which takes effect from September 2008) has greatly reduced the prescribed 'content' to be covered and instead emphasises that geography is underpinned by a small number of 'key concepts' that provide the building blocks for curriculum planning. The 'new' national curriculum for geography identifies 7 concepts: Place, Space, Scale, Interdependence, Physical and human processes, Environmental interaction and sustainable development, and Cultural understanding and diversity and theses areas are reflected in the book's table of contents. This focus on concepts represents a significant shift in how geography is to be taught in schools, yet there has been little extended discussion of what a 'concept-led' approach to teaching and learning would entail. This book will provide geography teachers with a theoretically robust and practical approach to curriculum planning based on the concepts that underpin the subject..