Cultural Encounters with the Environment: Enduring and Evolving Geographic Themes

In Cultural Encounters with the Environment, a distinguished group of contributors offers a fresh and original view of contemporary geography. The authors explore the role of four traditional themes in the “new cultural geography”: the interplay between the evolution of particular biophysical niches and the activities of the culture groups that inhabit them; the diffusion of cultural traits; the establishment and definition of culture areas; and the distinctive mix of geographical characteristics that gives places their special character in relation to one another. By examining how cultural space is constructed; how environment is remade, understood, and imaged as a consequence; and how people lay claim to place, this volume establishes a compelling case for the importance of these enduring concepts to present and future trajectories in cultural geography.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction: Encounters with Environment and Place Part 2 Part I: Constructing Cultural Spaces Chapter 3 Domestic Architecture in Early Colonial Mexico: Material Culture as (Sub)Text Chapter 4 The Clash of Utopias: Sisterdale and the Six-Sided Struggle for the Texas Hill Country Chapter 5 The Struggle for Urban Public Spaces: Disposing of the Toronto Waterfront in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 6 Place Your Bets: Rates in Frontier Expansion in American History, 1650–1890 Part 7 Part II: Remaking the Environment Chapter 8 Wittfogel East and West: Changing Perspectives on Water Development in South Asia and the United States, 1670–2000 Chapter 9 Wetlands as Conserved Landscapes in the United States Chapter 10 Navigability of American Waters: Resolving Conflict through Applied Historical Geography Chapter 11 Environmental History: From the Conquest to the Rescue of Nature Part 12 Part III: Claiming Places Chapter 13 Place Metaphor and Milieu in Hemingway's Fiction Chapter 14 Cultural and Medical Geography: Evolution, Convergence, and Innovation Chapter 15 Language and Identity in Russia's National Homelands: Urban-Rural Contrasts Chapter 16 Sharing Sacred Space in the Holy Land Chapter 17 An Absence of Place: Expectation and Realization in the West Bank Chapter 18 Conclusion: Contemplating Enduring Themes and Future Trajectories Chapter 19 Epilogue: Each Particular Place: Culture and Geography Part 20 Index Part 21 About the Contributors

About the Author :
Alexander B. Murphy is professor of geography and holds the Rippey Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon. Douglas L. Johnson is professor of geography at Clark University.

Review :
A large audience will find the book useful as well as absorbing and provocative. This is an impressive document: scholarly, informative, and literate. The Murphy and Johnson volume stands out as being singularly important, and though it will be read by cultural geographers, it should be read by practitioners from other sub-disciplines as well, particularly those who have been less than impressed, and terribly enamored, of cultural geography in the past. There is much to be learned from this volume, in no small way because it involves contributions by the best cultural geographers. The collection does not contain a flat article. The papers in this collection make a genuine effort to bring their words to a level of understanding that will cause future encounters with the environment to gain some new meaning if good cultural geography is practiced and applied in response to such encounters. It should go without saying that all cultural geographers should read this book. Portions will be of interest to other geographers as well as scholars in other fields. Both the editors and the publisher should be commended. The individual papers chosen by the editors are both meritorious and variously interesting. The quality of the essays is high, and they make important contributions to scholarship in cultural geography.