Approaching Human Geography: An Introduction to Contemporary Theoretical Debates

This book provides an accessible and informed introduction to the development of new theoretical approaches to human geography. It sets out to explain the key features of these new approaches, and to trace their antecedents and implications. The authors also highlight points of comparison and contrast, inter-connection, and dissimilarity.An introductory chapter describes and accounts for the theoretical diversity present within twentieth-century human geography, and particular attention is paid to the transition from environmental and regional approaches to the `spatial science' of the 1960s. Later chapters deal systematically with different post1960s approaches: Marxism, humanism, structuration, realism, and postmodernism. Each of these chapters deals with the chronological development of the appropriate literature, describes the key claims and arguments, and indicates the particular sorts of substantive concerns that these theoretical materials help to illuminate. The principal chapters of the book are framed by both a preface and an epilogue, which address questions about `relativism' in approaching human geography, while also stressing the need for continued commitment and critical sensitivity in geographical inquiry.The book is written in an easily accessible style with generous expositions of key claims and arguments, and with thorough cross-referencing between chapters.