Summer Assignment In the book “Why Geography Matters More Than Ever”, the author, Harm de Blij, discusses the importance of geography, how it can affect us in any place or any time, and why it matters. But most importantly, he succeeds to advance our perception of the world’s geography. Throughout the book de Blij highlights the many benefits of being educated about geography. He explains that it is important that we are informed about this topic so we can be more prepared for the events happening around the world. This book illustrates just how essential it is to be well-educated when it comes to geography. Throughout the book, Harm de Blij brings to our attention how illiterate Americans are when it comes to geography. He brings us This is an example of absolute location not to be confused with relative location because here, de Blij uses coordinates to indicate where the capitals are located. “Now the possibility arises that further global warming, speeded up by human pollution of the atmosphere, will cause a further rise in sea levels”(134). This quote is a great representation of human-environment interaction because it demonstrates how our actions as humans can have a large impact on the environment. “The Black Death swept over an already weakened Europe in waves that often killed half the population or more…”(pg 130). This quote provides an example of movement because it shows that not only humans move, other things such as disease, ideas, and recourses travel around just as much. “Just as americans use geographic references such as ‘Midwest’ and ‘Great Plains,’ so do Russians refer to their vast country’s broad physiographic regions”(pg 273-274). Here, de Blij briefly explains what a region is and takes us through some of the regions of Russia. These themes help provide a more organised way of learning about
them to. This example is significant to the topic because it shows that the geography of the
“Longitudes and Attitudes”, written by Thomas Friedman, is a collection of columns, broken by September 11th’s great catastrophe and including material from his diary. The book displays his outstanding strengths as a commentator along with a few weaknesses.
In the book The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape, the author, Harm de Blij, argues that where we are born and our geography can affect who we are and what we will become. He applies his knowledge of geography and other relatable information such as health, economy, languages, and several other areas of subject. De Blij categorizes the earth into three subdivisions: locals, globals, and mobals. He defines locals as “those who are poorest, least mobile, and most susceptible to the power of place” (pg-notes). Globals are those who “whether in government, industry, business, or other decision-making capacities, flatten
The book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah has a setting, which coincides with “Geography Matters” (Chapter 19 of How to Read Literature like a Professor). This chapter explains how geographical location can explain how a novel will turn out to be. Geography also sets circumstances and limitations in a novel. Themes, symbols, plot, and most important character development can all be introduced from geographical location.
During the 1950’s a revolutionary movement influencing everyday life and the city; members of Situationist International Guy Debord and Asger Jorn founded psychogeography and defined the research as: "the study of the precise effects of geographical setting, consciously managed or not, acting directly on the mood or behaviour of the individual." (International Situationniste, 1958) These areas were mainly perceived as a new domain of experiment with the prospect of analysing the everyday familiarity of society and exploring the alienation highly involved within class society and capitalist production; infiltrating the fabrics of our social and cultural lives as we know it. There is the understanding of the “precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of
The ways in which people are placed within “time space compression” as highly complicated and extremely varied. For instance, in the book Nickel and Dimed, Barbara said, “ Something is wrong, very wrong, when a single person in good health, a person who in addition possesses a working car, can barely support herself by the sweat of her brow. You do not need a degree in economics to see that wages are too low and rents too high”(127). Barbara has a car so that she can drive to her workplace and save the time from waiting public transportation, and she also can go to different cities whenever she is free. Therefore, she has more control of her mobility. The social relations would change when she went to another city. Different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility: some people are more in charge of it than others, like Barbara; some initiate flows and movement, others do not; some are more more on the receiving-end of it than others. Instead of thinking of places as areas with boundaries around, they can be imaged as articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings, but where a large proportion of those relations, experiences and understandings are structed ona far larger scale than what we happen to define for that moment as the place itself, whether that be a street, or a region or even a continent. We can see that from her different work experiences in different places. And this in turn allows a sense of place which is extroverted, which includes a consciousness of its links with the wider world, which integrates ina apositive way the global and the
The Five Themes of Geography are: Location – Absolute points on a map or grid or Relative to where something may be; Place – The physical and/or human characteristics of a locations; Human/Environment Interactions – How humans have impacted the landscape or environment; Relationship between places Movement – How humans interact on the earth (i.e. how they communicate over distance (short or long)) and Regions – a unit of space that has commonalities defined by physical, human and environmental geography. The Explorers of the New World may have not known what the Five Themes of Geography were but they quickly learned. Of the five themes the ones that they all took advantage of was the physical Location and Place as they learned to navigate to and from as well as through their new environments. Over Time the explorers began to discover the relationships within their environments and original occupants of the lands as well as the regions in which they now occupied.
This paper contains several applicable national standards for geography. Liechtenstein's position in the Alps and on the Rhine apply to analyzing the spatial organization of people, places, and environments on Earth's surface. Because of the modern trend of globalization, and consolidation, many people have never heard of Liechtenstein. This applies to how culture and experience influence people's perceptions of places and regions. Liechtenstein's diminutive size can be applied in using geography to interpret the past, to interpret the present, and plan for the future.
Since the beginning of humankind, the study of geography has captured the imagination of the people. In ancient times, geography books extolled tales of distant lands and dreamed of treasures. The ancient Greeks created the word "geography" from the roots "ge" for earth and "grapho" for "to write." These people experienced many adventures and needed a way to explain and communicate the differences between various lands. Today, researchers in the field of geography still focus on people and cultures (cultural geography), and the planet earth (physical geography).
Document 7 says “Recent world events lend a sense of urgency to geographic inquiry. Geography’s spatial perspectives help to relate economic changes in Europe, the Middle East, and other regions to the spatial distributions of cultural features...population growth and migration…”. The statement is saying that the locations of cities and countries or regions contribute or affect to other places. For example, places in the Eastern hemisphere might have the same languages. The language spreads throughout the land as migration takes place, causing languages, cultures, and religions to spread. Places might be where they are today because of the spread of those things into that region thousands of years ago. In document 8, the author states “Maps and mapping, of course, play a key role in how geographers analyze and portray the world. They are also key in introducing to others geographers’ ideas about the way that places and regions are made and altered.” From the text, you can see that the author is saying that without maps and mapping of the land, other geographers might not be able to see what other geographers see, people may not know what the world looks like. Therefore, without maps, humans would not know what the Earth actually looks like from above without going into space which is most likely impossible for most people. Geographers would not know where things are located on the surface and they would not be able to understand why places are at the locations that they
‘Through identifying places and organizing them, we make sense of the world we inhibit’ (Unwin,
The claim being discussed here is that the only way a map or a way of representing things can be useful is if it simplifies the knowledge that the actual territory gives, that is, if it reduces the salient i...
The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in 1830 was established in London and in 1859 received the royal charter from Queen Victoria. The purpose was to explore ‘unknown’ lands for the purpose of scientific investigations and to share discoveries of the exploration with other geographers. The society was established in order to advance Geography as a subject and science it is viewed as vital in shaping the past and future of Geography. The society was also a heavy influence in establishing Geography as an actual academic subject when Oxford ratified a readership of Geography in 1887 (Bonnett, 2008). This essay will discuss the influence the Royal Geographical Society (with the institute of British Geographers) had on the history of geography and how that in turn has formed and shaped the geography of today.
To counter balance Cartesianism Hirsch puts forward Vico’s argument of ‘sensory topics’ which places imagery of shared identities and interactions at the heart of the landscape. The relationship between the physical and the metaphorical whilst very separate can be united. Only when the physical place or subject oriented (‘indexical’) place can be examined then the metaphorical space, non-subject orientated (‘non-indexical’) can begin to be understood (Gell, 1985). Thus the development of the indexical (e.g. maps) can lead to the understanding of the non-dexical (e.g. images). Mutually related.
De, Blij Harm J., and Peter O. Muller. Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. New York: J. Wiley, 1997. 340. Print.