The power of place : geography, destiny, and globalization's rough landscape

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Title:

Author:

De Blij, Harm J.

ISBN:

9780199754328

9780195367706

Personal Author:

De Blij, Harm J.

Publication Information:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2009.

Physical Description:

xiv, 280 p. : maps ; 24 cm.

General Note:

Formerly CIP.

Contents:

Globals, locals and mobals -- The imperial legacy of language -- The fateful geography of regligion -- The rough topography of human health -- Geography of jeopardy -- Places open and shut -- Same space, divergent destinies -- Power and the city -- Promise and peril in the provinces -- Lowering the barriers.

Abstract:

"In recent years a spate of books and articles have argued that the world today is so mobile, so interconnected, and so integrated that it is, in one prominent assessment, flat. But as Harm de Blij contends in The Power of Place, geography continues to hold billions of people in an unrelenting grip. We are all born into natural and cultural environments that shape what we become, individually and collectively. From our "mother tongue" to our father's faith, from medical risks to natural hazards, where we start our journey has much to do with our destiny, and thus with our chances of overcoming the obstacles in our way."

"Incorporating a series of revealing maps, de Blij focuses on the rough terrain of the world's human and environmental geography. The world's continuing partition into core and periphery, and apartheid-like obstructions to migration from the former to the latter, help explain why, in this age of globalization, less than 3 percent of "mobals" live in countries other than where they were born. Maps of language distribution suggest why English, the Latin of today may become as hybridized as its forerunner. The fateful map of religion casts a shadow of what he calls "endarkenment" over the future of the planet in a time of increasingly destructive weaponry."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject Term:

Human geography.

Globalization.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025513447	304.2 D286P 2009	1	Searching... Unknown
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025513405	304.2 D286P 2009	2	Searching... Unknown
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168025499092	304.2 D286P 2009	3	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

The world is not as mobile or as interconnected as we like to think. As Harm de Blij argues in The Power of Place, in crucial ways--from the uneven distribution of natural resources to the unequal availability of opportunity--geography continues to hold billions of people in its grip. We are all born into natural and cultural environments that shape what we become, individually and collectively. From our "mother tongue" to our father's faith, from medical risks to natural hazards, where we start our journey has much to do with our destiny. Hundreds of millions of farmers in the river basins of Asia and Africa, and tens of millions of shepherds in isolated mountain valleys from the Andes to Kashmir, all live their lives much as their distant ancestors did, remote from the forces of globalization. Incorporating a series of persuasive maps, De Blij describes the tremendously varied environments across the planet and shows how migrations between them are comparatively rare. De Blij also looks at the ways we are redefining place so as to make its power even more potent than it has been, with troubling implications.