Human Geography: Society, Space, and Social Science

Preface This book on human geography and its relationship to the other social sciences is designed primarily with undergraduates in mind. During the mid-1980s the three editors were given the responsi¬bility of introducing first-year geography undergraduates at Cam¬bridge to human geography. What we wanted to convey to students embarking upon their geography careers was not only a sense that geography had much to contribute to the other social sciences but that recent advances, particularly in critical theory, were pivotal to making sense of our geographical world. Armed with such theor¬etical insights, we attempted to convey the utility of such approaches to understanding the geographical restructuring of our economies, polities and societies. Given the rapidly changing nature of human geography, we also felt it important to expand the project to in¬clude leading geographers working in various sub-disciplines of the subject. This book is the product of this endeavour, and of our attempts to show how central the cross-fertilisation of ideas and concepts within the social sciences are to the continuing process of rethinking human geography and of the importance of a geo-graphical imagination to good social science....- CONTENTS: Introduction: Human Geography, Social Change and Social Science Derek Gregory, Ron Martin and Graham Smith; Part I: The Core of Human Geography: 2. Economic Theory and Human Geography Ron Martin; 3.Political Theory and Human Geography Graham Smith; 4.Social Theory and Human Geography Derek Gregory; Part II: Perspectives in Human Geography: 5. The Environmental Challenge Tim Bayliss-Smith and Susan Owens 6. The Transformation of Cultural Geography Linda McDowell 7. Images, Myths and Alternative Geographies of the Third World Morag Bell 8. Taking Aim at the Heart of the Region Nigel Thrift 9. Urban Geography in a Changing World Susan J. Smith 10. History, Geography and the 'Still Greater Mystery' of Historical Geography Chris Philo