Contested Worlds. An Introduction to Human Geography
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Author(s): M. Phillips (Ed.)
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 0754641120
Format: hardback
464pp
Price: £55.00, $99.95
Review Date: 10 February 2006
Review: This book looks at the different worlds that are currently being contested in many different ways. The twelve chapters look t on the topic from different angles and viewpoints. The first part of the book begins by looking at types of contestation and, in particular, contestations over the subject of geography. The philosophical debates that have surrounded human geography in recent years are aired and the different ways of ‘doing geography’ are outlined. The second part explores issues that are seen to be international, such as the development of the Third World and population–environmental relationships. The third part deals with regions as partitions or aggregations, looking at whether the EU is partitioned by social inequalities, the role of national cultures in responding to globalization, and how former-USSR countries have been impacted by the dissolution of the communist nation-states. Issues of spatial and social differentiation form the basis of Part 4, which examines ideas of social and spatial centrality and marginality. The last chapter looks at New Zealand as a (literally) marginal space at the other side of the worlds from the colonial power, Britain.