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Geography
Livingstone's Geographical Tradition -- Should the history of geography be rated X
This is the first intellectual history of a subject that over the last five centuries has played a significant role in the development of Western civilization. The author describes the activities of the explorers and map-makers of Renaissance and early modern Europe; the role of geography during the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and the Darwinian Revolution; and the interactions between geography and empire building in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Throughout the book the development of geographical thought and practice is portrayed against the broader social and intellectual context of the times.
Since 1945 activity in the subject has been intense: David Livingstone provides a critical account of the trends, developments and occasional revolutions by which geography has emerged as a multi-faceted discipline offering unique and revealing perspectives on a wide range of pressing social and environmental issues. Livingstone identifies three key themes run through geographic studies.
1. The need for an explicit philosophical basis for investigations in both physical and human geography.
2. The way in which apparently simple decisions about how to undertake investigations in physical and human geography can lead to very different conclusions.
3. The recognition that almost all geographical investigation is surrounded by uncertainty and debate.
As for the X-rating, any study of man, and their desires for expand and conquer new areas, civilizations, or cultures as part of their own expansion is replete with human drama, and at times severe exploitation of one group by another. The study of geography without taking into account the human desires for power and control created an incomplete understanding of the motivations contained within the geographic shifts.
D Massey's Human Geography Today -- Issues and Debates
With its concern for space, place and nature -- human geography has moved to the center of much theoretical debate in the social sciences and humanities. Moreover, the exchange has been two-way -- the study of human...
This book takes up the promise and challenge of this new-found prominence and openness and explores the future for the discipline.
Massey's book brings together a range of internationally recognized authors, all of whom have explored this new interface, and each of whom here proposes future directions for their part of the discipline. The increasingly challenged dichotomy between the social and the natural is examined at length. The meaning and significance of the geographical imagination, the increasing prominence of debates over difference and identity and their relationship to spatial issues are working together to change the way geographers evaluate the use of space, land, and ecological resources. The issues concerning recognizing the thoroughly mutual constitution of spatiality and power, and how we might in these changing times most productively re-imagine space and place themselves. Since the other Seminole books written in this area in the late 70's and 80's, Human Geography offers an assessment of the state of the study in the late 1990s and its future directions. This text explores the developments and themes that have put the discipline at the heart of a number of important debates.
Geography and Geographers -- R.J. Johnston.
According to Johnston, the study of geography and those who evaluate the principles of geography, the geographers work in cloistered communities. Within the discipline, there is a strong peer pressure for conformity because the group maintains many of the same ideas, goals, and presumptions and is working toward the same conclusions. The scientific community's paradigm is rather homogeneous, and anyone working outside that paradigm, or who would introduce a new theory is considered a heretic, or radical within the field until his work is verified by others. Working within the designed structure brings attention, recognition, patronage, status and ultimately success. Therefore, the dominant norm for academic life is one of conformity. According to Johnston, "Science is not the constant search for novel discoveries but rather the careful application of agreed procedures to…
As these new paradigms evolved in the field of geographic studies, a change that affected the entire field was the influence of the scientific method. Because the discipline was strongly regimented against the acceptance of new beliefs these changed erupted slowly in individual papers published from different researchers. The apparent dissatisfaction with the current scientific trends which existed after the war was general and far reaching motivation toward these changes. Acceptance of the scientific method's influence was termed a growth in "systematic studies." After the desires for a more systematic approach to geographic studies took hold, geographers searched to identify a focus. Because geography is essentially a study of distance, and the means by which civilizations spanned the distances between them, the study of special systems was applied to the science. According to Haggett's schema for studying special systems, there are 6 elements: movement, channels for the movement to travel, central nodes, hierarchies of nodes, surfaces (geographic relief) and finally diffusion of movement which control the development of social organizations. (p. 95)
To this schema was added the influence of behavioralistic motivations. After all, men are creatures which can be studied on the basis of habit and behavior. The influence of mankind's desires to establish goals and specific behaviors must also be taken into account. Land use decisions, mental maps, and the desire to gain a more universal knowledge ultimately influenced civilization's spread across the globe in specific ways. As man's behavioral tendencies were added into the equation, modern trends became troublesome to geographers.
In the modern era, (from 1960 onward) mankind was in the process of an economic and ecological decline which geographers had not experiences prior. They became concerned that man was creating a severe state of frustration, even survival crisis, these conditions could only be solved by advancing nations, and that at the current rate of social advance would create severe ecological and geographic implications. In America and the west in general, the cultural revolution lead these doomsday theories to be accepted much more quickly into the mainstream geological studies. Since the late 70's, the study has returned to its snail pace for change, locking into its paradigm much of the 70's radicalism. The final chapter of the book, since it was published in 1979, is an evaluation of the radicals' influence, and an evaluation from within the study of where the science will go from the point of the author's writing.
Geography on Political, Cultural, and Economic Development of Early Civilization in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley The focus of this study is the effect of geography on the political, cultural, and economic development of early civilization in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus Valley. The characteristic that Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley all have in common is that they were all river valleys. Therefore, the geography of these locations
Martial Arts can be defined as a system organized into a code or it may be termed as the customs that revolve around practices that may give rise to conflict. This art is used by people for a number of reasons such as safety, championship, physical up gradation subliminal and divine development (Clements, 2006). People hold completely different perspectives towards the idea of Martial arts. A large number of people consider
In 1993 there were 155,704 recorded crimes of burglary and of these 20,200 were residential burglaries. Since the mid-1970s the level of recorded burglaries has fluctuated around a level of 130,000 to 150,000 crimes per year although during the three last years, 1991 to 1993, the level has been close to 155,000. The number of recorded car thefts in 1993 was 61,141 and of these 18,300 were attempts. During
A dominant healthcare practice for many Mexican-Americans is the hot and cold theory of food selection, where illness or trauma may require adjustments in the hot and cold balance of foods to restore body equilibrium. In lower socioeconomic groups is a wide-scale deficiency of vitamin a and iron, as well as lactose intolerance. Mexican-American birth rates are 3.45 per household compared to 2.6 per household among other minority groups (Chapa
Preaching is speaking the truth about the word of God. In the Second Edition of McDill’s now classic text, The 12 Essential Skills for Great Preaching, the author revises the original text to make it relevant to the next generation of preachers and to the general public interested in the fundamentals of delivering the good news. Just as scripture itself needs to be continually revisited to remain relevant to contemporary
Dr. David Livingstone seemed to epitomize this view, "These privations, I beg you to observe, are not sacrifices. I think that word ought never to be mentioned in reference to anything we can do for Him….Can that be a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay… it is a privilege." With this attitude of