Name: Why Geography Now?
Brand: LIBRAIRIE COREENNE
SKU: 162460
Price: 32.00 EUR
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Why Geography Now?

€32,00

Why Geography Now?

Description

Book Introduction

A must-read for diplomats, recommended by the U.S. State Department!
Following "The Clash of Civilizations" and "Guns, Germs, and Steel," this is a unique book that sharply analyzes the essence of the modern international order!

Now, nothing that happens on Earth is a story of someone else's country.
As nations across the globe become more interconnected and interact, understanding the geography and culture of other nations is essential to understanding, or even surviving, the increasingly complex international relations of the 21st century.
This is why geographical knowledge is more important now than ever.
In this context, the book Why Geography Now by Harm de Blei, a world-renowned geographer recently published by Social Criticism, interprets and examines the international trends of the 21st century through the unique perspective and thinking of geography.

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index

Into the book

Of course, geographers aren't the only ones who use spatial analysis to explain how the world works.
As the paper shows, the spatial perspective is often relegated to the background in other academic fields, but economists, anthropologists, and other social scientists also sometimes adopt a spatial perspective.
Geographers were amused when prominent economists like Paul Krugman began writing columns for the New York Times, reimagining spatial models that had long since been superseded in geography.
--- p.23

Modern epidemiologists also use maps to track epidemics, predict future spread, and plan vaccination campaigns.
In this context, GIS technology has transformed the utility of ‘medical information maps.’
When you have critical information, you can get it in minutes, allowing you to make decisions with greater confidence.
But on the other hand, new technologies also create new challenges.
Because jet travel has made global travel so fast, a group infected with a dangerous virus can spread in a matter of hours, and once they arrive at their destination airport and disperse, tracking their location and alerting local populations to the danger is nearly impossible, even with the most sophisticated surveillance systems.
--- p.97

After 9/11, there is no need to ask what Westerners did that led 15 middle-class Saudis and four other Muslims to carry out a horrific suicide attack that shook the civilized world and killed more than 3,000 people.
In the annals of history, what the West has done to Islam and Muslims is nothing more horrific than what European (and Arab) slave traders did to Africans, American settlers to Native Americans, the Belgians to Congolese, and the Germans to Jews (and many other acts of plunder too numerous to list here).
But Africans didn't carry out suicide attacks in Brazil, Native Americans didn't bomb American cities, Congolese people didn't attack Brussels, and Israelis didn't plant bombs on German commuter trains.
If the entire world were to directly resolve its long-held historical grudges, this Earth would no longer be a place worth living in.
--- p.251

There are many records of the number of people who survived the unimaginable voyage across the Atlantic after being captured as slaves in Africa, the destinations they sought in the New World, and the miserable treatment they received.
The number of slaves traded between 1700 and 1810 is estimated to be between 12 million and more than twice that number, but no one knows the exact figure.
Little is known about the consequences of slave hunting in Africa.
The population of sub-Saharan Africa in the early 18th century probably did not exceed 90 million (the world population in 1700 was estimated at 650 million).
So even if we assume that the number of forced migrants was 15 million, that would mean that one-sixth of the entire African population was taken to the Americas.

--- p.449

Publisher's Review

A must-read for diplomats, recommended by the U.S. State Department!
Following [The Clash of Civilizations] and [Guns, Germs, and Steel], this is a unique book that sharply analyzes the essence of the modern international order!

In recent years, humanity has faced a variety of events, including extreme climate change, the emergence of extremist terrorist groups, international conflicts of all sizes, and economic crises occurring around the world.
Each time, the world economy faltered, and conflicts between some countries often developed into incidents that threatened the stability of not only neighboring countries but also the entire international system.
As we can see from the recent MERS outbreak and the economic crisis in Greece, nothing that happens on Earth is a story of someone else's country anymore.
Today's world is so closely connected and interacts so closely.
Is there no way to understand and predict this rapidly changing world? In this book, author Harm de Blei answers this question with a single word: "geography."
The author emphasizes that all events that drive international relations have spatial probability, making it impossible to understand their essence without viewing them through a geographical perspective.
It is that seemingly unrelated factors, such as climate change and historical events, natural phenomena and political developments, and the natural environment and human destiny, are spatially connected.
This book deeply explores the rapidly changing international situation through a wealth of geographical knowledge and insight spanning from physical geography to human geography.
It also provides clear insights into how an understanding of space can play a role in effectively responding to future global crises.

A world that is closely connected,
You can't talk about the 21st century world without geographical insight!

In 2015, our country experienced two unfamiliar experiences that we had never experienced before.
One is the MERS outbreak that threw South Korea into chaos over the past month.
This strange disease, which originated in Southwest Asia on the other side of the world, has been terrifying South Korea for nearly a month, and has actually claimed dozens of lives.
Another thing is that when it became known that a student from our country had joined the Islamic militant group called ISIS, we realized that we too can never be free from the threat of Islamic terrorist groups, which had previously seemed like a distant story.
What these two facts tell us is that nothing that happens on Earth is a story of someone else's country anymore.

As nations across the globe become more interconnected and interact, understanding the geography and culture of other nations is essential to understanding, or even surviving, the increasingly complex international relations of the 21st century.
This is why geographical knowledge is more important now than ever.
In this context, the book "Why Geography Now?" by world-renowned geographer Harm de Bley, recently published by Social Criticism, interprets and examines the international trends of the 21st century through the unique perspective and thinking of geography.

Geography determines more than you might think.

The world is not actually flat.

As a discourse in defense of globalization, is there anything more vivid than Thomas Friedman's statement, "The world is flat?"
However, the book argues that the foundations of globalization we share are extremely limited and that the world is not 'flat'.
By the accident of our birth, we live in very different environments. Some of us are born in areas of peace and stability, while others face chronic conflict in their home countries.
While increasing global interconnectedness may make migration to better places possible, there are many challenges for would-be migrants to navigate the barriers of globalization.
Harm de Blei argues that while talk of the world being flat or becoming flat may be encouraging to intellectuals who occupy the "core," it is not so for many who remain outside the high walls of globalization.

In fact, Ellsworth Huntington's environmental determinism, put forward in the mid-20th century, is an extreme example of this.
The core argument is that there is a clear correlation between a thriving culture and its climate, with people in mid-latitude regions with distinct seasons gaining an advantage over people in other parts of the world and leading the way.
This was heavily criticized at the time for suggesting not only that people in mid-latitudes were superior but also that they implied the Nazi ideology of a "master race." However, Jared Diamond later made a similar argument in Guns, Germs, and Steel, stating that a certain group's advantage persists when "a combination of natural conditions creates a favorable environmental opportunity that benefits them over a long period of time."

The world situation has entered a new phase with the advancement of technology.
We interpret the emerging aspects of conflict through geography.

There are frequent reports of young people from various countries, including Russia and the United States, trying to join the Islamic militant group ISIS, including a Korean high school student who is believed to have crossed into Syria.
While terrorist groups used to have a strong geographic identity and tended to operate within a limited geographical area, their members and areas of activity are now becoming more diverse. The development of social media has made it easier to interact with people from other regions and has enabled the rapid spread of provocative information, leading to a new phase in the composition and attack patterns of terrorist groups.

This book discusses terrorism from the ground up, arguing that human geographic factors must be taken into account to predict the occurrence of terrorist attacks.
For example, when the colonial powers decided to divide Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1884, they paid no attention to the religious dividing lines that ran east to west across the continent.
The 'Islamic Front' in Africa, which stretched east to west across borders, later became a conflict zone that threatened the unity of the country and encouraged terrorist and rebel activities.
Sudan's Muslim government split into Sudan and South Sudan in a 2011 referendum after a long war with the predominantly Christian and animist south of the country, while Nigeria continues to see riots and political tensions between the predominantly Muslim north and the predominantly Christian south.
It is no coincidence that in this context, the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram emerged in 2009 and became a major variable in Nigeria's security issues.

In a time when nothing is certain, the best we can do is to read the nature of the world and adapt to the changes and trends in technology.
This book systematically examines the history of the Earth, the various events that humanity has experienced, the locations of each continent, and the situations faced by its people. It clearly describes how an understanding of space can help us cope with the global crises of the future.
Why we need to pay attention to geography now more than ever: a geographer's view of the world will enable a clear interpretation of the world.

GOODS SPECIFICS

- Date of issue: July 6, 2015

- Page count, weight, size: 516 pages | 735g | 153*224*35mm

- ISBN13: 9788964357774

- ISBN10: 8964357779