Progress: Geographical Essays

"The connection between geography and progress is fundamental," writes Robert Sack in the introduction to the present volume. Touching on both moral and material progress, six of the world's leading geographers and environmental historians explore differing aspects of this connection. Thomas Vale discusses whether progress is discernible in the natural realm; Kenneth Olwig examines fundamental changes that occurred to the notion of progress with the rise of modernity, while David Lowenthal and Yi-Fu Tuan discuss recent geographical changes that have resulted in an increasing societal disenchantment and anxiety. Nicholas Entrikin looks at progress as "moral perfectibility, and its connection to democratic places," a theme which Robert Sack further explores by prescribing ways in which geographers and citizens can evaluate and create places that increase our awareness of reality in its variety and complexity. Contributors: J. Nicholas Entrikin, University of California-Los Angeles; David Lowenthal, University College, London; Kenneth Olwig, University in Trondheim, Norway; Robert David Sack, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Yi-Fu Tuan, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Thomas R. Vale, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction Robert David Sack 1 From Clements and Davis to Gould and Botkin: Ideals of Progress in Physical Geography - Thomas R. Vale 2 Landscape, Place, and the State of Progress - Kenneth R. Olwig 3 The Disenchanted Future - David Lowenthal 4 Progress and Anxiety - Yi-Fu Tuan 5 Perfectibility and Democratic Place-Making - J. Nicholas Entrikin 6 Geographical Progress toward the Real and the Good - Robert David Sack Contributors Index

About the Author :
Robert David Sack is Clarence J. Glacken and John Bascom Professor of Geography and Integrated Liberal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Homo Geographicus: A Framework for Action, Awareness, and Moral Concern and Place, Modernity, and the Consumer's World: A Relational Framework for Geographical Analysis, both available from Johns Hopkins.

Review :
The editor is to be congratulated on helping to focus such distinguished contributors on a subject of such normative significance . . . This book should be essential reading for anyone interested in the meaning of progress in geography. —David M. Smith, Progress in Human Geography Geography is defined as the understanding of how human beings transform the world and make it habitable Transformation nearly always raises the issue of progress, and central to the essays is the idea that progress is a moral issue. The book is most relevant to advanced undergraduate teaching especially in the philosophy of geography. —V. F. Costello, Geography