Human Geography Books

How the States Got Their Shapes

Mark Stein

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Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why does Oklahoma have that panhandle? Did someone make a mistake?

We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.

How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.

How the States Got Their Shapes examines:

• Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of Pennsylvania
• Why Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to Michigan
• Why some Hawaiian islands are not Hawaii
• Why Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in size

Packed with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Jared Diamond

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Total reviews: 1064 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Guns, Germs & Steel 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I believe there are few individuals (I'm talking especially about laypeople like myself here) who won't benefit from reading Guns, Germs and Steel. While Diamond's hypothesis may not necessarily represent the *complete* picture, may be biased, and may not be indisputable, it indeed "lays a foundation for understanding human history" as Bill Gates reviewed it.

Diamond provides a convincing, well-worded argument leading the reader to believe geographical differences between continents played a major role in shaping the fates of human societies, at the very least.

Editorial Review:

Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.

The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography (9th Edition)

James M. Rubenstein

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Trusted for its timeliness and readability, this book introduces geography by emphasizing the relevance of geographic concepts to human problems. Two years after Rubenstein's Update Edition was created to encompass the events of September 11, 2001, this revision also begins the careful process of putting those events into perspective. Provides new "Global Forces and Local Impacts" boxes in each chapter that explore in depth an issue related to chapter material, focusing on particular regions of the world. Includes new material on medical geography, terrorism, mineral resources, sustainable development, conservation, and biodiversity. Presents new information on gender differences in development . Expands material on Ethnicity, relating ethnicity problems to political conflict; also incorporates material previously found elsewhere in the book, such as U.S. urban patterns and South Africa's history of apartheid. For anyone interested in learning more about world geography.

The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment

Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to change the current trajectory toward more climate change, increased famine, and epidemic disease?

Renowned Stanford scientists Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich believe that intelligently addressing those questions depends on a clear understanding of how we evolved and how and why we’re changing the planet in ways that darken our descendants’ future. The Dominant Animal arms readers with that knowledge, tracing the interplay between environmental change and genetic and cultural evolution since the dawn of humanity. In lucid and engaging prose, they describe how Homo sapiens adapted to their surroundings, eventually developing the vibrant cultures, vast scientific knowledge, and technological wizardry we know today.

But the Ehrlichs also explore the flip side of this triumphant story of innovation and conquest. As we clear forests to raise crops and build cities, lace the continents with highways, and create chemicals never before seen in nature, we may be undermining our own supremacy. The threats of environmental damage are clear from the daily headlines, but the outcome is far from destined. Humanity can again adapt—if we learn from our evolutionary past.

Those lessons are crystallized in The Dominant Animal. Tackling the fundamental challenge of the human predicament, Paul and Anne Ehrlich offer a vivid and unique exploration of our origins, our evolution, and our future.

The World Without Us

Alan Weisman

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Total reviews: 232 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Time #1 Nonfiction Book of 2007
Entertainment Weekly #1 Nonfiction Book of 2007
Finalist for the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award
Salon Book Awards 2007
Amazon Top 100 Editors’ Picks of 2007 (#4)
Barnes and Noble 10 Best of 2007: Politics and Current Affairs
Kansas City Star’s Top 100 Books of the Year 2007
Mother Jones’ Favorite Books of 2007
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Best Books of the Year 2007
Hudson’s Best Books of 2007
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Best Books of 2007
St. Paul Pioneer Press Best Books of 2007


If human beings disappeared instantaneously from the Earth, what would happen? How would the planet reclaim its surface? What creatures would emerge from the dark and swarm? How would our treasured structures--our tunnels, our bridges, our homes, our monuments--survive the unmitigated impact of a planet without our intervention? In his revelatory, bestselling account, Alan Weisman draws on every field of science to present an environmental assessment like no other, the most affecting portrait yet of humankind's place on this planet.

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

Richard Florida

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where we live doesn’t matter. We can innovate just as easily from a ski chalet in Aspen or a beachhouse in Provence as in the office of a Silicon Valley startup.

According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Globalization is not flattening the world; in fact, place is increasingly relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. Where we live determines the jobs and careers we have access to, the people we meet, and the “mating markets” in which we participate. And everything we think we know about cities and their economic roles is up for grabs.

Who’s Your City? offers the first available city rankings by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, families, and empty-nesters to reside. Florida’s insights and data provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans who move each year, illuminating everything from what those choices mean for our everyday lives to how we should go about making them.

Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (New York Review Books Classics)

George R. Stewart

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

George R. Stewart’s classic study of place-naming in the United States was written during World War II as a tribute to the varied heritage of the nation’s peoples. More than half a century later, Names on the Land remains the authoritative source on its subject, while Stewart’s intimate knowledge of America and love of anecdote make his book a unique and delightful window on American history and social life.

Names on the Land is a fascinating and fantastically detailed panorama of language in action. Stewart opens with the first European names in what would later be the United States—Ponce de León’s flowery Florída, Cortés’s semi-mythical isle of California, and the red Rio Colorado—before going on to explore New England, New Amsterdam, and New Sweden, the French and the Russian legacies, and the unlikely contributions of everybody from border ruffians to Boston Brahmins. These lively pages examine where and why Indian names were likely to be retained; nineteenth-century fads that gave rise to dozens of Troys and Athens and to suburban Parksides, Brookmonts, and Woodcrest Manors; and deep and enduring mysteries such as why “Arkansas” is Arkansaw, except of course when it isn’t.

Names on the Land will engage anyone who has ever wondered at the curious names scattered across the American map. Stewart’s answer is always a story—one of the countless stories that lie behind the rich and strange diversity of the USA.

The Human Mosaic

Terry G. Jordan-Bychkov, Mona Domosh, Roderick P. Neumann, Patricia L. Price

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Decent--but Not cohesive... 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

My main gripe about this book is that it is organized in such a fashion that it makes it difficult to outline. The chapters don't develop in a manner that lends itself easily to straightforward interpretation of main ideas. Instead, the authors rely primarily on providing definitions of terms, and then presenting information that is of secondary consequence.

The book is informative, but not linearly coherent.

To address the issues raised by another reviewer about Islam, after some more scrupulous reading of those sections, I believe the reviewer let his anger get the best of him. For example, on the section dealing with the "Sour Grapes" reaction, he automatically combined the imposition of pork-eating taboos with the "sour grapes" reaction, which the authors clearly didn't do. They develop the idea and geographical importance of pork-eating, and gives the "sour grapes" reaction as a possible explanation to the eschewing of pork--and they offer others as well. The idea was to show that we don't know where it began, from a cultural stance. The author attaches from an early stage that eschewing pork was part of Judaism, a much older tradition than Islam or Christianity, and makes the point that the distribution of the taboo follows in line with areas that pork isn't easy to cultivate, since a nomadic lifestyle is not suitable for pork farming.

Note that this is different than saying "Islamic people made conquered peoples eschew pork because Islamic people were jealous of those who raised pork." This statement is almost nonsensical, but if you were to simplify the claim raised by the other reviewer, this is what you get.

Did later islamic kingdoms impose the non-eating of pork in the regions of Babylon and those cities near rivers? Yes they did. The author was wrong to use the language of "for revenge," as it puts a slightly moral stance on the books position, and does paint Islam in a negative light--which a good textbook shouldn't do.

And in dealing with the oft-violent histories of all three monotheist religions, the authors spent a great deal of time on the christian enslavement and mistreatment of Indians by the sword here in the Americas--showing that Christians did bad things in the name of their faith, just as Muslims did.

As far as religions go however, the treatment of buddhism and hinduism is even more sparse than it is on Islam, though I have yet to read a western-written book that covers eastern traditions in an interesting fashion. Most of them have a sudden style-shift from seeming interested in the subject matter to suddenly seeming more like an encyclopaedic regurgitation of well-known facts.

This book is guilty of this as well. Docked one star for its non-linear style, and one star for its poor treatment of eastern religions.

Human Geography: People, Place, and Culture

H. J. de Blij, Alexander B. Murphy, Erin Fouberg

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Human Geography: Culture, Society and Space challenges students to think geographically across scale and across a wide range of geographical phenomena and global issues. The authors engage the students throughout the text by posing geographical questions that encourage students to think critically about their own locality, region, nation, and world. In the Eighth Edition, the authors reformat the text to 14 chapters, provide a clear outline of key questions for each chapter, integrate their own field experiences, and rewrite the text to guide students through answers to geographic questions. The Eighth Edition includes three new chapters: "Identity: Race, Ethnicity and Gender," "Local Culture, Popular Culture, and Cultural Landscapes," and "Geographic Networks." The concepts of globalization, identity, development, sense of place, and construction of scale are infused throughout the text. The author team draws from studies in geography and across disciplines to bring a broad and up-to-date perspective on the kinds of research geographers have done and are currently doing on a wide range of human geography topics.

In the Eighth Edition, de Blij and Murphy welcome new coauthor Erin Hogan Fouberg (South Dakota State University), who brings her expertise in geography education and political geography. The author team created a new pedagogy and writing style for the Eighth Edition that make the book more accessible to students and faculty.

Places and Regions in Global Context: Human Geography

Paul L. Knox, Sallie A. Marston

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

By offering access to the latest ideas, concepts, and theories in human geography – accompanied by a strong foundation in the fundamentals – this handbook builds knowledge about places and regions as well as a deeper understanding of the interdependence of places and regions in a globalizing world. Fosters awareness of current issues from a geographic perspective, reflecting developing trends such as the globalization of industry; the upwelling of ethnic regionalisms on the heels of decolonization and new state formation, and the emerging trend toward transnational political and economic organizations. Covers key issues of human geography such as global security, trade in commodities, cultural dimensions of globalization, youth culture, economic aid and outsourcing, bio-terrorism, and more. Offers a rich and diverse cartographic program with hundreds of maps that help reveal the important spatial elements inherent to human geography. For those interested in learning more about human geography.