Geography

An exploration of why humans share food, from chimpanzees at a kill to university professors at a formal feast, from a Roman banquet to the TV dinner. Spanning half a million years, this fascinating account reveals the history of the meal and its huge impact both on the society and ecology of the planet. -from the back cover

The many con men, gangsters, and drug lords portrayed in popular culture are examples of the dark side of the American dream.

All leaders are constrained by geography. Their choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Yes, to understand world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements...but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture.; To understand Putin's actions, for example, it is essential to consider that, to be a world power, Russia must have a navy. And if its ports freeze for six months each year then it must have access to a warm water port - hence, the annexation of Crimea was the only option for Putin. To understand the Middle East, it is crucial to know that geography is the reason why countries have logically been shaped as they are - and this is why invented countries (e.g. Syria, Iraq, Libya) will not survive as nation states.

"Depending on how one counts, it is likely that half of the world's languages will be lost over the next thirty years, a dramatic change in human history. Harrison explores dying languages, how they differ from stable languages, how they encode cultural information that is lost with them, how speakers behave, and much more. He tells a fascinating and tragic story of immense drama." -David W. Lightfoot, Assistant Director, National Science Foundation. (from the back cover)

An incisive portrait of the American landscape that shows how geography continues to determine America's role in the world. A westward traveler must "earn the Rockies" by driving--not flying--across the flat Midwest and Great Plains.

In Elixir, New York Times bestselling author Brian Fagan tells the story of our most vital resource and how it has shaped our history, from ancient Mesopotamia to the parched present of the Sunbelt. Fagan relates how every human society has been shaped by its relationship to our most essential resource. This sweeping narrative moves across the world, from ancient Greece and Rome, whose mighty aqueducts still supply modern cities, to China, where emperors marshaled armies of laborers in a centuries-long struggle to tame powerful rivers. As the earth’s population approaches nine billion and ancient aquifers run dry, we once again remember the importance of this vital resource. To solve the water crises of the future, we may need to adapt the water ethos of our ancestors, captured here in rich detail by Brian Fagan. -from the publisher

Know Geography presents a more complete portrait of our physical and political world. This book includes a glossary of foreign terminology, an update countries section with national flags, and comprehensive continents sections. It also features: Updated countries sections including flag, capital city, area, and population 85 pages of detailed physical and political maps 35 pages of human and physical world geography maps, graphs, charts, including information on plate tectonics, climate, environments, population, and economics Special continent sections exploring landforms, land cover and use, climate, and continent-specific issues and current events.

Mapping the World explores many rare and fascinating mapping artifacts, beginning with the first crude drawings and progressing to the stunning satellite views of today. Many of these examples will be unfamiliar even to serious cartographers and collectors. Thirty essays answer the questions map-makers have asked and reveal the roles their maps played in finding those answers. Color reproductions of beautiful maps and charts include: A Chinese map dated to 1229 that shows the city's bridges, pagodas and gardens A French 15th-century interpretation of the four corners of the Earth A painted silk map of the universe dating from the 1830s A modern "inverse" world map from Australia's perspective The cosmos as imagined in 1750. With 87 maps in all, Mapping the World will fascinate general readers, map collectors, geographers, cartographers and historians.

Cities Made of Boundaries presents the theoretical foundation and concepts for a new social scientific urban morphological mapping method, Boundary Line Type (BLT) mapping.

This introductory level text explores various theoretical approaches to human-environment geography, demonstrating how local dynamics and global processes influence how we interact with our environments.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Political Geography aims to account for the intellectual and worldly developments that have taken place in and around political geography in the last 10 years.