Librarian for Geospatial Systems and Data
Introduction to Geography
Geography is the study of the Earth’s landscapes, environments, and the relationships between people and their environments. It bridges the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities by examining both the physical features of the Earth (such as landforms, climate, and ecosystems) and the human activities that shape and are shaped by these features (such as urbanization, migration, and geopolitics).
Geographers explore a wide range of topics, including the distribution of natural resources, the impact of climate change, the movement of people and goods, and the ways in which societies organize their spaces. By examining spatial patterns and processes, geography helps us better understand global issues like environmental sustainability, inequality, and cultural diversity.
As you begin exploring the field of Geography, having a solid understanding of key concepts and terminology can be helpful. Background information can provide valuable context and serve as a starting point for further research. Here are some resources you might find useful for gathering foundational knowledge on various geographical topics:
Encyclopedias and Dictionaries: These sources offer concise overviews of key geographical terms, theories, and figures.
International Encyclopedia of Human Geography by ISBN: 0081022964Publication Date: 2019-11-29International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Second Edition, Fourteen Volume Set embraces diversity by design and captures the ways in which humans share places and view differences based on gender, race, nationality, location and other factors--in other words, the things that make people and places different. Questions of, for example, politics, economics, race relations and migration are introduced and discussed through a geographical lens. This updated edition will assist readers in their research by providing factual information, historical perspectives, theoretical approaches, reviews of literature, and provocative topical discussions that will stimulate creative thinking.- Presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage on the topic of human geography- Contains extensive scope and depth of coverage- Emphasizes how geographers interact with, understand and contribute to problem-solving in the contemporary world- Places an emphasis on how geography is relevant in a social and interdisciplinary context
Encyclopedia of Geography by ISBN: 1452265178Publication Date: 2010-09-01Containing hundreds of colour illustrations and a map section, the six volumes of this encyclopedia cover a very diverse array of topics and give a useful summary of the state of the discipline in the early 21st century.
Subject-Specific Databases: Databases such as GeoRef, JSTOR, or Scopus provide access to scholarly articles, reports, and academic journals that cover the breadth of geographical studies.
- JSTOR: Provides image and full-text online access to back issues of selected scholarly journals in history, economics, political science, demography, mathematics and other fields of the humanities and social sciences.
- GeoRef: Contains nearly 2 million citations covering the geology of North America from 1785 and that of the rest of the world from 1933. Topics covered include geophysics and structural geology, economic geology, minerals and petroleum, palaeontology and stratigraphy, engineering and environmental geology, geomorphology, soils and quaternary geology, igneous and metamorphic petrology, hydrogeology, geochemistry, aerial geology and maps.
- Scopus: Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature: scientific journals, books and conference proceedings. Delivering a comprehensive overview of the world's research output in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social
- Web of Science: Citation database from journals and international conference proceedings. Cross-search of the Web of Science Core Collection, BIOSIS Previews, and the SciELO Citation Index (Latin America, Spain, Portugal, the Caribbean and South Africa).
Books and E-books: University library collections often include both general and specialized books on Geography, which can provide in-depth explanations and historical context.
Geographic Thought by ISBN: 9781118256480Publication Date: 2012-11-05This engaging and accessible introduction to geographic thought explores the major thinkers and key theoretical developments in the field of human geography. Covers the complete range of the development of theoretical knowledge of the field, from ancient geography to contemporary non-representational theory Presents theories in an accessible manner through the author's engaging writing style Examines the influence of Darwin and Marx, the emergence of anarchist geographies, the impact of feminism, and myriad other important bodies of thought Stresses the importance of geographic thought and its relevance to our understanding of what it is to be human, and to the people, places, and cultures of the world in which we live
Types of Geography
This branch studies the natural features of the Earth and processes that shape them. It includes landforms, climate, weather patterns, ecosystems, and biogeography, examining how these elements interact and evolve over time.
Physical Geography by ISBN: 9786613685230The physical geography of Earth is explained through the systems that shape the planet's lands, waters, and atmosphere. Written in an easy narrative style, each chapter combines text with more than 40 single-concept illustrations. The result is a distinctive design that weaves words and illustrations together into an integrated whole. The presentation is uncluttered to keep students focused on the main themes. An entire chapter is dedicated to climate change, its geographic origins, likely outcomes, and influence on other Earth systems. A distinctive illustration program includes summary diagrams at the end of chapters that recap concepts and reinforce the systems approach. Section summaries within chapters, along with end-of-chapter review points and questions, are provided to highlight key concepts and encourage thoughtful review of the material. The instructor's guidebook highlights the core concepts in each chapter and suggests strategies to advance a systems approach in teaching physical geography.
Our Environment by ISBN: 0471881937Publication Date: 1985-02-12A clear, accessible introduction to physical geography for non-majors. Explains climate changes, earthquakes, and seasonal changes with extensive illustrations. Includes new information on world climatic and geological events, such as acid rain and volcanic eruptions, specifically Mt. St. Helens.
This field explores the relationship between people and their environments. It covers topics such as population, culture, language, religion, urbanization, and economic activities, focusing on how human communities impact and adapt to their surroundings.
Human Geography: the Basics by ISBN: 9781136307195Publication Date: 2012-08-21Human Geography: The Basics is a concise introduction to the study of the role that humankind plays in shaping the world around us. Whether it's environmental concerns, the cities we live in or the globalization of the economy, these are issues which affect us all. This book introduces these topics and more including: global environment issues and development cities, firms and regions migration, immigration and asylum landscape, culture and identity travel, mobility and tourism agriculture and food. Featuring an overview of theory, end of chapter summaries, case study boxes, further reading lists and a glossary, this book is the ideal introduction for anybody new to the study of human geography.
Space and Place by ISBN: 9780816638772Publication Date: 2001-01-22A study of the ways in which people feel and think about space, how they form attachments to home, neighborhood, and nation, and how feelings about space and place are affected by the sense of time."Since it is the breadth and universality of his argument that concerns Yi-Fu Tuan, experience is defined as 'all the modes by which a person knows and constructs reality,' and examples are taken with equal ease from non-literate cultures, from ancient and modern oriental and western civilizations, from novels, poetry, anthropology, psychology, and theology. The result is a remarkable synthesis, which reflects well the subtleties of experience and yet avoids the pitfalls of arbitrary classification and facile generalization. For these reasons, and for its general tone and erudition and humanism, this book will surely be one that will endure when the current flurry of academic interest in environmental experience abates." Canadian Geographer
Bridging physical and human geography, environmental geography investigates the interactions between people and the natural world. It examines issues such as resource management, environmental conservation, climate change, and sustainability.
Silent Spring by ISBN: 0618249060Publication Date: 2022-02-01THE CLASSIC THAT LAUNCHED THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT "Rachel Carson is a pivotal figure of the twentieth century...people who thought one way before her essential 1962 book Silent Spring thought another way after it."--Margaret Atwood Rarely does a single book alter the course of history, but Rachel Carson's Silent Spring did exactly that. The outcry that followed its publication in 1962 forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson's passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world. As Carson reminds us, "In nature, nothing exists alone." The introduction by the acclaimed biographer Linda Lear, author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, tells the story of Carson's courageous defense of her truths in the face of a ruthless assault form the chemical industry following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death. "Wonder and humility are just some of the gifts of Silent Spring. They remind us that we, like all other living creatures, are part of the vast ecosystems of the earth of the earth...this is a book to relish: not for the dark side of human nature, but for the promise of life's possibility." --from the Introduction
Geography, Resources and Environment, Volume 1 by ISBN: 9780226425757Publication Date: 1986-01-01Over the course of half a century, Gilbert F. White's work has served to shape and, in several instances, establish many of the fields that have come to be known as the environmental sciences. In this collection of original essays, a companion volume to White's selected writings (volume I), leading scholars in areas such as water supply, environmental hazards, and natural resource management interpret changes in these fields since White's work and assess present and future problems. With volume 1, this collection presents a complete and cogent picture of Gilbert White's contribution and the work he inspired.
Fluid Geographies by ISBN: 9780226833958Publication Date: 2024-07-18An unprecedented analysis of the origin story of New Mexico's modern water management system. Maria Lane's Fluid Geographies traces New Mexico's transition from a community-based to an expert-led system of water management during the pre-statehood era. To understand this major shift, Lane carefully examines the primary conflict of the time, which pitted Indigenous and Nuevomexicano communities, with their long-established systems of irrigation management, against Anglo-American settlers, who benefitted from centralized bureaucratic management of water. The newcomers' system eventually became settled law, but water disputes have continued throughout the district courts of New Mexico's Rio Grande watershed ever since. Using a fine-grained analysis of legislative texts and nearly two hundred district court cases, Lane analyzes evolving cultural patterns and attitudes toward water use and management in a pivotal time in New Mexico's history. Illuminating complex themes for a general audience, Fluid Geographies helps readers understand how settler colonialism constructed a racialized understanding of scientific expertise and legitimized the dispossession of nonwhite communities in New Mexico.
This area looks at the spatial implications of political structures and power dynamics. It includes the study of borders, territorial disputes, geopolitical strategies, and the influence of political policies on regional and global scales.
The Space Between Us by ISBN: 1108359612Publication Date: 2017-11-29The Space between Us brings the connection between geography, psychology, and politics to life. By going into the neighborhoods of real cities, Enos shows how our perceptions of racial, ethnic, and religious groups are intuitively shaped by where these groups live and interact daily. Through the lens of numerous examples across the globe and drawing on a compelling combination of research techniques including field and laboratory experiments, big data analysis, and small-scale interactions, this timely book provides a new understanding of how geography shapes politics and how members of groups think about each other. Enos' analysis is punctuated with personal accounts from the field. His rigorous research unfolds in accessible writing that will appeal to specialists and non-specialists alike, illuminating the profound effects of social geography on how we relate to, think about, and politically interact across groups in the fabric of our daily lives.
Urban geography focuses on the spatial aspects of cities and metropolitan areas. It covers topics such as urban planning, transportation systems, housing, land use, social and economic challenges, and the development and growth of urban areas.
Urban Geography by ISBN: 1283883902Publication Date: 2012-01-01This text introduces both 'traditional' and contemporary approaches and perspectives in urban geography. This substantially revised edition of Urban Geography now features updates on recent urban policy initiatives and urban changes, including the influence of CCTV on the city and the impacts of Millennium projects. New sections contain: * an evaluation of the impact of place promotion * a discussion of new cultural geography and the city * a new chapter on sustainable urban development * boxed case studies * further reading suggestions * extensive illustrations.
Urban Geography by ISBN: 1405189797Publication Date: 2015-03-09Urban Geography a comprehensive introduction to a variety of issues relating to contemporary urban geography, including patterns and processes of urbanization, urban development, urban planning, and life experiences in modern cities. Reveals both the diversity of ordinary urban geographies and the networks, flows and relations which increasingly connect cities and urban spaces at the global scale Uses the city as a lens for proposing and developing critical concepts which show how wider social processes, relations, and power structures are changing Considers the experiences, lives, practices, struggles, and words of ordinary urban residents and marginalized social groups rather than exclusively those of urban elites Shows readers how to develop critical perspectives on dominant neoliberal representations of the city and explore the great diversity of urban worlds
Close-Up by ISBN: 9780226109459Publication Date: 1980-04-15"Grady Clay looks hard at the landscape, finding out who built what and why, noticing who participates in a city's success and who gets left in a 'sink,' or depressed (often literally) area. Clay doesn't stay in the city; he looks at industrial towns, truck stops, suburbs--nearly anywhere people live or work. His style is witty and readable, and the book is crammed with illustrations that clarify his points. If I had to pick up one book to guide my observations of the American scene, this would be it."--Sonia Simone, Whole Earth Review "The emphasis on the informal aspects of city-shaping--topographical, historical, economic and social--does much to counteract the formalist approach to American urban design. Close-Up...should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand Americans and their cities."--Roger Cunliffe, Architectural Review "Close-Up is a provocative and stimulating book."--Thomas J. Schlereth, Winterthur Portfolio "Within this coherent string of essays, the urban dweller or observer, as well as the student, will find refreshing strategies for viewing the environmental 'situations' interacting to form a landscape."--Dallas Morning News "Clay's Close-Up, first published in 1973, is still a key book for looking at the real American city. Too many urban books and guidebooks concentrate on the good parts of the city....Clay looks at all parts of the city, the suburbs, and the places between cities, and develops new terms to describe parts of the built environment--fronts, strips, beats, stacks, sinks, and turf. No one who wants to understand American cities or to describe them, should fail to know this book. The illustrations are of special interest to the guidebook writer."--American Urban Guidenotes
Co-Curating the City by ISBN: 9781800081833Publication Date: 2022-10-06A significant contribution to knowledge about university spatial development in urban contexts. Co-Curating the City explores the role of universities in the construction and mobilization of heritage discourses in urban development and regeneration processes, with a focus on six case study sites ranging from Sweden to Brazil. The book expands the field of critical heritage studies in the urban domain, arguing that universities should position themselves as significant institutions in the development of urban heritage narratives and heavily influence urban development. The case studies investigate how universities, as mixed communities of interest dispersed across buildings and urban sites, utilize strategies of engagement with local people and neighborhoods and ask how this could contribute to a reshaping of ideas, narratives, and lived experience of urban heritage in which universities have a distinctive agency.
This branch studies how culture—encompassing language, religion, ethnicity, and social practices—shapes and is shaped by space and place. It examines how cultural landscapes are formed and how cultural groups interact and change over time.
Displacing Territory by ISBN: 9780226827049Publication Date: 2023-07-14Displacing Territory explores the core concepts of territory and belonging--and humanizes refugees in the process. Based on fieldwork with Palestinian and Syrian refugees in Jordan, Displacing Territory explores how the lived realities of refugees are deeply affected by their imaginings of what constitutes territory and their sense of belonging to different places and territories. Karen Culcasi shows how these individual conceptualizations about territory don't always fit the Western-centric division of the world into states and territories, thus revealing alternative or subordinated forms and scales of territory. She also argues that disproportionate attention to "refugee crises" in the Global North has diverted focus from other parts of the world that bear the responsibility of protecting the majority of the world's refugees. By focusing on Jordan, a Global South state that hosts the world's second-largest number of refugees per capita, this book provides insights to consider alternate ways to handle the situation of refugees elsewhere. In the process, Culcasi brings the reader into refugees' diverse realities through their own words, inherently arguing against the tendency of many people in the Global North to see refugees as aberrant, burdensome, or threatening.
Imagined Geographies by ISBN: 9789888528653Publication Date: 2022-01-12A pioneering work in the study of history and geography of the pre-1800 world. Imagined Geographies is a pioneering work in the study of the history and geography of the pre-1800 world. In this book, Geoffrey C. Gunn argues that different regions astride the maritime silk roads were not merely interconnected waterways, but also "imagined geographies." Here he examines five such geographic imaginaries, specifically Indian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, and European including an imagined Great South Land. Drawing upon an array of marine and other archaeological examples, he offers compelling evidence of the intertwining of political, cultural, and economic regions across the sea silk roads from ancient times until the seventeenth century. By taking a broader civilizational approach, Gunn goes beyond simple national history and places the maritime realm within a greater spatial perspective to offer a decentered world regional history. This book will interest history lovers from all around the world who want to know more about how their forebears viewed their respective regions and how their region fits into world history with local uniqueness.
Maxwell Street by ISBN: 9780226604251Publication Date: 2019-03-18What is the nature of place, and how does one undertake to write about it? To answer these questions, geographer and poet Tim Cresswell looks to Chicago's iconic Maxwell Street Market area. Maxwell Street was for decades a place where people from all corners of the city mingled to buy and sell goods, play and listen to the blues, and encounter new foods and cultures. Now, redeveloped and renamed University Village, it could hardly be more different. In Maxwell Street, Cresswell advocates approaching the study of place as an "assemblage" of things, meanings, and practices. He models this innovative approach through a montage format that exposes the different types of texts--primary, secondary, and photographic sources--that have attempted to capture the essence of the area. Cresswell studies his historical sources just as he explores the different elements of Maxwell Street--exposing them layer by layer. Brilliantly interweaving words and images, Maxwell Street sheds light on a historic Chicago neighborhood and offers a new model for how to write about place that will interest anyone in the fields of geography, urban studies, or cultural history.
This type of geography looks at how economic activities are distributed across the planet and their impact on local and global scales. It includes the study of trade, industry, agriculture, globalization, and the location of resources.
Crisis for Whom? by ISBN: 9781800080799Publication Date: 2023-02-13A complex and nuanced interdisciplinary exploration of children in migration crises. Children are central figures in narratives of "migration crises." They are often depicted as either essentially vulnerable and in need of special protections, or suspiciously adult-like and a threat to national borders. This bilingual book, written in English and Spanish, challenges these simplistic narratives. Drawing on collaborations between young migrants, researchers, artists, and activists, this collection asks new questions about how crises are produced, mobility is controlled, and childhood is conceptualized. Answers to these questions have profound implications for resources, infrastructures, and relationships of care. The chapters offer insights from diverse global contexts, painting a rich and insightful tapestry about child migration. They stress that children are more than recipients of care and that the crises they face are multiple and stratifying, with long historical roots. Readers are invited to understand migration as an act of concern and love and to attend to how the solidarities between citizens and "others," adults and children, and between children, are understood and forged.
The Political Origins of Inequality by ISBN: 9780226236797Publication Date: 2015-12-23Inequality is the defining issue of our time. But it is not just a problem for the rich world. It is the global 1% that now owns fully half the world's wealth--the true measure of our age of inequality. In this historical tour de force, Simon Reid-Henry rewrites the usual story of globalization and development as a story of the management of inequality. Reaching back to the eighteenth century and around the globe, The Political Origins of Inequality foregrounds the political turning points and decisions behind the making of today's uneven societies. As it weaves together insights from the Victorian city to the Cold War, from US economic policy to Europe's present migration crisis, a true picture emerges of the structure of inequality itself. The problem of inequality, Reid-Henry argues, is a problem that manifests between places as well as over time. This is one reason why it cannot be resolved by the usual arguments of left versus right, bound as they are to the national scale alone. Most of all, however, it is why the level of inequality that confronts us today is indicative of a more general crisis in political thought. Modern political discourse has no place for public reason or the common good. Equality is yesterday's dream. Yet the fact that we now accept such a world--a world that values security over freedom, special treatment over universal opportunity, and efficiency over fairness--is ultimately because we have stopped even trying in recent decades to build the political architecture the world actually requires. Our politics has fallen out of step with the world, then, and at the every moment it is needed more than ever. Yet it is within our power to address this. Doing so involves identifying and then meeting our political responsibilities to others, not just offering them the selective charity of the rich. It means looking beyond issues of economics and outside our national borders. But above all it demands of us that we reinvent the language of equality for a modern, global world: and then institute this. The world is not falling apart. Different worlds, we all can see, are colliding together. It is our capacity to act in concert that is falling apart. It is this that needs restoring most of all.
This field explores the historical processes that have influenced the physical and human landscapes over time. It seeks to understand how past events, movements, and developments have shaped present-day geographical patterns and structures.
American Capitals by ISBN: 9780226080482Publication Date: 2014-01-10State capitals are an indelible part of the American psyche, spatial representations of state power and national identity. Learning them by heart is a rite of passage in grade school, a pedagogical exercise that emphasizes the importance of committing place-names to memory. But geographers have yet to analyze state capitals in any depth. In American Capitals, Christian Montès takes us on a well-researched journey across America--from Augusta to Sacramento, Albany to Baton Rouge--shedding light along the way on the historical circumstances that led to their appointment, their success or failure, and their evolution over time. While all state capitals have a number of characteristics in common--as symbols of the state, as embodiments of political power and decision making, as public spaces with private interests--Montès does not interpret them through a single lens, in large part because of the differences in their spatial and historical evolutionary patterns. Some have remained small, while others have evolved into bustling metropolises, and Montès explores the dynamics of change and growth. All but eleven state capitals were established in the nineteenth century, thirty-five before 1861, but, rather astonishingly, only eight of the fifty states have maintained their original capitals. Despite their revered status as the most monumental and historical cities in America, capitals come from surprisingly humble beginnings, often plagued by instability, conflict, hostility, and corruption. Montès reminds us of the period in which they came about, "an era of pioneer and idealized territorial vision," coupled with a still-evolving American citizenry and democracy.
The Red Atlas by ISBN: 9780226389578Publication Date: 2017-10-17Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, its legacy and the accompanying Russian-American tension continues to loom large. Russia's access to detailed information on the United States and its allies may not seem so shocking in this day of data clouds and leaks, but long before we had satellite imagery of any neighborhood at a finger's reach, the amount the Soviet government knew about your family's city, street, and even your home would astonish you. Revealing how this was possible, The Red Atlas is the never-before-told story of the most comprehensive mapping endeavor in history and the surprising maps that resulted. From 1950 to 1990, the Soviet Army conducted a global topographic mapping program, creating large-scale maps for much of the world that included a diversity of detail that would have supported a full range of military planning. For big cities like New York, DC, and London to towns like Pontiac, MI and Galveston, TX, the Soviets gathered enough information to create street-level maps. What they chose to include on these maps can seem obvious like locations of factories and ports, or more surprising, such as building heights, road widths, and bridge capacities. Some of the detail suggests early satellite technology, while other specifics, like detailed depictions of depths and channels around rivers and harbors, could only have been gained by actual Soviet feet on the ground. The Red Atlas includes over 350 extracts from these incredible Cold War maps, exploring their provenance and cartographic techniques as well as what they can tell us about their makers and the Soviet initiatives that were going on all around us. A fantastic historical document of an era that sometimes seems less distant, The Red Atlas offers an uncanny view of the world through the eyes of Soviet strategists and spies.
Feminist geography is an approach that examines the ways in which gender, power, and social inequalities shape spatial relationships and the use of space. It critiques traditional geographic methods by highlighting the experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups, focusing on how structures of power and gender dynamics influence access to resources, place-making, and the built environment.
A Companion to Feminist Geography by ISBN: 1280199520Publication Date: 2008-01-01"A Companion to Feminist Geography" captures the breadth and diversity of this vibrant and substantive field. Shows how feminist geography has changed the landscape of geographical inquiry and knowledge since the 1970s. Explores the diverse literatures that comprise feminist geography today. Showcases cutting-edge research by feminist geographers. Charts emerging areas of scholarship, such as the body and the nation. Contributions from 50 leading international scholars in the field. Each chapter can be read for its own distinctive contribution.
Demonic Grounds by ISBN: 0816697949Publication Date: 2006-01-01Demonic Grounds moves between past and present, archives and fiction, theory and everyday, to focus on places negotiated by black women during and after the transatlantic slave trade. Specifically, Katherine McKittrick addresses the geographic implications of slave auction blocks, Harriet Jacobs's attic, black Canada and New France, as well as the conceptual spaces of feminism and Sylvia Wynter's philosophies.
