Understanding the Cultural LandscapeUnderstanding the Cultural Landscape
Note: Many additional photographs related to the themes addressed in the book are available at the author's website (www.greatmirror.com.)
This compelling book offers a fresh perspective on how the natural world has been imagined, built on, and transformed by human beings throughout history and around the globe. Coverage ranges from the earliest societies to preindustrial China and India, from the emergence in Europe of the modern world to the contemporary global economy. The focus is on what the places we have created say about us: our belief systems and the ways we make a living. Also explored are the social and environmental consequences of human activities, and how conflicts over the meaning of progress are reflected in today's urban, rural, and suburban landscapes. Written in a highly engaging style, this ideal undergraduate-level human geography text is illustrated with over 25 maps and 70 photographs.
Note: Visit www.greatmirror.com for many additional photographs by Bret Wallach related to the themes addressed in this book.
This compelling book offers a fresh perspective on how the natural world has been imagined, built on, and transformed by human beings throughout history and around the globe. Coverage ranges from the earliest societies to preindustrial China and India, from the emergence in Europe of the modern world to the contemporary global economy. The focus is on what the places we have created say about us: our belief systems and the ways we make a living. Also explored are the social and environmental consequences of human activities, and how conflicts over the meaning of progress are reflected in today's urban, rural, and suburban landscapes. Written in a highly engaging style, this ideal undergraduate-level human geography text is illustrated with over 25 maps and 70 photographs.
Note: Visit www.greatmirror.com for many additional photographs by Bret Wallach related to the themes addressed in this book.
In this introductory textbook on cultural geography, Wallach (geography, U. of Oklahoma) takes an evolutionary and thematic approach to the topic. Anthropological foundations are examined in chapters on human evolution, diffusion, and culture; foragers; domestication; diffusion and development of early agriculture, and the emergence of civilization. Other historical developments are considered in chapters dealing with cultures in India and China, the rise of technological civilization, and globalization. The cultural geography of resource production, manufacturing, services, and transportation and communication is then explored, followed by discussion of social and environmental consequences of human activity. Finally, a section on "reading landscapes" looks at urban and rural landscapes in the United States and abroad. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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- New York : Guilford Press, c2005.
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