Synopses & Reviews
Globalization and Diversity is an exciting contemporary approach to World Regional Geography that explicitly acknowledges the geographic changes that accompany today's rapid rate of globalization. Organizes each regional chapter into five thematic sections: Environmental Geography; Population and Settlement; Cultural Coherence and Diversity; Geopolitical Framework; Economic and Social Development. Features approximately 15 standardized maps in each regional chapter, including a chapter-opening map with countries and place names; a physical map, showing landforms hydrology, and tectonic boundaries; a climate map, with climograph call-outs giving temperature and precipitation data for specific cities; a "transformation of the Earth" map with call-outs to environmental issues and solutions within the region; a population map for the region; a map of regional languages; a geopolitical map with call-outs to current issues and tensions. For anyone interested in learning more about world geography.
About the Author
Les Rowntree teaches both Geography and Environmental Studies at San Jose State University in California, where he recently completed a term as the Chair of the interdisciplinary Department of Environmental Studies. As an environmental geographer, Dr. Rowntree's teaching and research interests focus on international environmental issues, the human dimensions of global change, biodiversity and conservation, and human-caused landscape transformation. He sees world regional geography as a way to engage and inform students by giving them the conceptual tools needed to assess global issues critically in their larger context. Dr. Rowntree has done research in Morocco, Mexico, Australia, and Europe, as well as in his native California. Current writing projects include a book on the natural history of California’s Central Coast, along with textbooks in geography and environmental science.
Martin Lewis is a lecturer in International Affairs at Stanford University He has conducted extensive research on environmental geography in the Philippines and on the intellectual history of global geography. His publications include Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital, and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, 1900-1986 (1992), and with Karen Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (1997). Dr. Lewis has traveled extensively in East, South, and Southeast Asia. His current research focuses on the geographical dimensions of globalization.
Marie Price is an Associate Professor of Geography and International Affairs at George Washington University A Latin American specialist, Marie has conducted research in Belize, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. She has also traveled widely throughout Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her studies have explored human migration, natural resource use, environmental conservation, and regional development. Dr. Price brings to Globalization and Diversity a special interest in regions as dynamic spatial constructs that are shaped over time through both global and local forces. Her publications include articles in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Geographical Review, Journal of Historical Geography, CLAG Yearbook, Studies in Comparative International Development, the Brookings Institution Series and Focus.
William Wyckoff is a geographer in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University specializing in the cultural and historical geography of North America. He has written and co-edited several books on North American settlement geography, including The Developer's Frontier: The Making of the Western New York Landscape (1988), The Mountainous West: Explorations in Historical Geography (1995) and Colorado: The Making of a Western American Landscape 1860-1940 (1999). In 1990, he received the Burlington Northern Corporation's Award for Outstanding Teaching. In addition, in 2003 he received Montana State’s Cox Family Fund for Excellence Faculty Award for Teaching and Scholarship. A World Regional Geography instructor for 18 years, Dr. Wyckoff hopes that the fresh approach taken in Globalization and Diversity will more effectively highlight the tensions evident in the world today as global change impacts particular places and people in dramatic and often unpredictable ways.
Table of Contents
1. Globalization and Diversity
2. The Changing Global Environment
3. North America
4. Latin America
5. The Caribbean
6. Sub-Saharan Africa
7. Southwest Asia and North Africa
8. Europe
9. The Russian Domain
10. Central Asia
11. East Asia
12. South Asia
13. Southeast Asia
14. Australia and Oceania