Human Geography: An Essential Anthology [Paperback]

John A. Agnew (Editor), David J. Livingstone (Editor), Alisdair Rogers (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 16, 1996 | ISBN-10: 0631194614 | ISBN-13: 978-0631194613 | Edition: 1

This book provides students in human geography with a vital resource - a collection of writings critical to understanding the field as a whole and revealing the interactions of its component parts. It is designed to give students ready access to the literature their studies are most likely to lead them to consult.

The book is divided into five parts. Parts I and II describe the nature of the enterprise and show the origins and current state of thinking on central issues. Part III is concerned with interactions between nature, culture and landscape. Part IV considers area differences and geographic units such as region, place and locality. Part V provides insights into the concepts of space, time and space-time. The editors have provided a general introduction, introductions to each part and contextual notes for each chapter. Each part concludes with sections of further reading by subject and the volume ends with a time chart of the main developments in geography.

This collection of seminal articles aims to be revealing, challenging and engaging. It amply demonstrates why human geography is a subject worthy of the student's engagement and provides a vital and rewarding resource for its understanding.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is an immensely useful book, aimed primarily at the undergraduate level. The editors have invested the readings with a coherence and sense of purpose that reflects very clearly their own powerful rendition of geographical tradition." Geography

"... this anthology of human geography has it all. Covering a period of over 150 years, much care has been paid to include a variety of the most eminent geographers and a selection of the most important geographical concepts, making this anthology well worth waiting for." The Geographical Journal

"This is a large, comprehensive, and excellent anthology. The editors are to be applauded for their care and judgement in selecting from the best of geographical writings from the last 150 years. In short, I strongly recommend this wonderful anthology." Robert D. Sack, University of Wisconsin

"Human Geography is an ambitious project which confronts the positive, enlightenment view of human behaviour and the processes that yield spatial patterns. Excellent value." Bryan H. Massam, York University, Canada

"The book is for all who are seriously interested in the way their subject has developed and in the origins of ideas and approaches now so familiar as to be taken for granted. Teachers and students of undergraduate ideas and methods courses will find this invaluable." Times Educational Supplement

"This is a large, comprehensive, and excellent anthology. The editors are to applauded for their care and judgement in selecting from the best of geographical writings from the last 150 years." Robert Sack, University of Wisconsin

From the Back Cover

This book provides students in human geography with a vital resource - a collection of writings critical to understanding the field as a whole and revealing the interactions of its component parts. It is designed to give students ready access to the literature their studies are most likely to lead them to consult.

The book is divided into five parts. Parts I and II describe the nature of the enterprise and show the origins and current state of thinking on central issues. Part III is concerned with interactions between nature, culture and landscape. Part IV considers area differences and geographic units such as region, place and locality. Part V provides insights into the concepts of space, time and space-time. The editors have provided a general introduction, introductions to each part and contextual notes for each chapter. Each part concludes with sections of further reading by subject and the volume ends with a time chart of the main developments in geography.

This collection of seminal articles aims to be revealing, challenging and engaging. It amply demonstrates why human geography is a subject worthy of the student's engagement and provides a vital and rewarding resource for its understanding.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 712 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (July 16, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631194614
• ISBN-13: 978-0631194613
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #253,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An intelligent, well-presented selection., January 13, 2002

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"the_last_naiad" (Dunedin, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Paperback)

There are a number of things that make this anthology an excellent departure point for further thought and study. As a third year Geography student, bored with practical geography that felt like fourth form social studies and hungry for theory, this anthology provided me with an expansive, comfy place to rest as I worked out my own ideas and principles, recognising the things that attracted me to Geography, and understanding the things that will keep me attached to the discipline as my life and job change over the years.

Clarence Glacken said in Traces on the Rhodian Shore, his magnum opus about the way nature and the environment have been viewed over the centuries, that there have always been three key ideas about the environment in the history of Western Thought. The editors of this anthology have taken a similar approach to the way they have organised their readings under general themes or concepts that have always been relevant to Geographers: Region, Nature, Culture, Time, Space, and Place. This allows them to gather extracts taken from fundamentally important essays in a way that is useful and informative, in ways that are both historical and practical. The chapters allow you to contrast different approaches that Geographers have taken to key concepts, producing an anthology that is supremely functional, as all great anthologies should be. The readings are challenging, but manageable, and have been selected carefully to provide a budding Historical or Theoretical Geographer with not only the most well known, but also the formally overlooked, providing a well-rounded and fairly un-biased collection. The different paradigms carry equal weighting, allowing you a sense of the struggle that has occured between quantitative and qualitative schools over the years.

There's something for everyone. Kropotkin, Mackinder, Sauer, Glacken, Haagerstrad, Tuan, Anne Buttimer, Aldo Leopold. The anthology also has helpful introductory pages for each thinker with well written, concise biographies outlining their contribution to the discipline, as well as theoretical influences and heirs. Anything but dry, and as useful as any social research methods handbook. Don't discount or neglect the theory when it's been presented in such a stimulating and accessible format as this!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a must have for HUMAN geographers, February 26, 2010

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Erica (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Human Geography: An Essential Anthology (Paperback)

The articles in this book are very dense. If you're into human geography, it's a must have (according to all of my professors) but I wouldn't buy it if it wasn't mandatory reading for my class. I'm much more of a physical geographer.