A first evaluation of the physical impact of railway construction on the British coast The building of railways has had a profound but largely ignored physical impact on Britain's coasts. This book explores the coming of railways to the edge of Britain, the ruthlessness of the companies involved and the transformation of our coasts through the destruction or damage to the environment. In many places today, railways are the first defence against the sea and similarly the embankments of long-closed lines act as sea walls. It is ironic, at a time when climate change is very much favouring rail as a means of transport, that many lines are increasingly exposed to extreme weather and the very actions associated with their construction have exacerbated coastal erosion. With the benefit of hindsight, many coastal railways have been built in locations that would not have been chosen today. As our climate changes and storminess potentially increases, what might be the implications for some of Britain's lines on the edge? Key features: First evaluation of the physical impact of railway construction on the British coast Unique combination of environmental and historical research Timely given the impact of the storms of January and February 2014 Covers the breaching of the South Devon, Cambrian and Cumbrian coastal lines

Global Shift is - quite simply - the definitive work on economic globalization. The extensive use of graphics, lack of jargon, and clear definition of terms has made it the standard work for the social sciences. The Seventh Edition has been completely updated using the latest available sources. It maps the changing centres of gravity of the global economy and explains the global financial crisis. Each chapter has been extensively rewritten and new material introduced to explain the most recent empirical developments; ideas on production, distribution, consumption; and corporate governance. Global Shift provides: The most comprehensive and up-to-date explanation of economic globalization available, examining the role of transnational corporations, states, labour, consumers, organizations in civil society, and the power relations between them. A clear guide to how the global economy is being transformed through the operation of global production networks involving transnational corporations, states, interest groups and technology. Extended discussion of problems and institutions of global governance in the context of the global economic crisis and of the role of corporate social responsibility. A suite of extensive online ancillaries for both students and lecturers, including author videos, case studies, lecture notes, and free access to specially selected journal articles related to each chapter. There is only one definitive guide to economic globalization for the social sciences: and that's Peter Dicken's Global Shift.

"This timely volume comprehensuvely summerises the various approaches to research that have come to constitute contemporary economic geography. Expert assessments provide a lively sense of the research frontier making this essential reading for all who seek to understand and appreciate the field." - Eric Sheppard, University of Minnesota "One of the best economic georgraphy texts in recent years, covering both the history of the discipline and outlining areas for future research... The quality of the chapters remains high throughout and many can and should remain as future reference for research and/or teaching." - Pedro Marques, Journal of Economic Geography What difference does it make to think about the economy in geographical terms? The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography illustrates the significance of thinking the 'economy' and the 'economic' geographically. It identifies significant stages in the discipline's development, and focuses on the key themes and ideas that inform present thinking. Organised in sections with multiple chapters, The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography is a complete overview of the discipline that critically assesses: Location, the quantitative revolution and the 'new economic geography' Geographies of globalization and capitalism Geographies of scale/place and the local/global Geographies of nature, agriculture, sustainable development and the political ecology Geographies of uneven development, economic decline, and money and finance Geographies of consumption and services Geographies of regulation and governance, neo-liberalism and welfare. Placing the discipline in vivid historical and contemporary context, The SAGE Handbook of Economic Geography is a timely, essential work for postgraduates, researchers and academics in economic geography.

"A comprehensive and highly readable review of the conceptual underpinnings of economic geography. Students and professional scholars alike will find it extremely useful both as a reference manual and as an authoritative guide to the numerous theoretical debates that characterize the field." - Allen J. Scott, University of California "Guides readers skilfully through the rapidly changing field of economic geography... The key concepts used to structure this narrative range from key actors and processes within global economic change to a discussion of newer areas of research including work on financialisation and consumption. The result is a highly readable synthesis of contemporary debates within economic geography that is also sensitive to the history of the sub-discipline." - Sarah Hall, University of Nottingham "The nice thing about this text is that it is concise but with depth in its coverage. A must have for any library, and a useful desk reference for any serious student of economic geography or political economy." - Adam Dixon, Bristol University Organized around 20 short essays, Key Concepts in Economic Geography provides a cutting edge introduction to the central concepts that define contemporary research in economic geography. Involving detailed and expansive discussions, the book includes: An introductory chapter providing a succinct overview of the recent developments in the field. Over 20 key concept entries with comprehensive explanations, definitions and evolutions of the subject. Extensive pedagogic features that enhance understanding including figures, diagrams and further reading. An ideal companion text for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate students in economic geography, the book presents the key concepts in the discipline, demonstrating their historical roots and contemporary applications to fully understand the processes of economic change, regional growth and decline, globalization, and the changing locations of firms and industries. Written by an internationally recognized set of authors, the book is an essential addition to any geography student's library.

The Geography of the World Economy provides an in-depth and stimulating introduction to the 'globalization' of the world economy. The book offers a consideration of local, regional, national and global economic development over the long historical term. The theory and practice of economic and political geography provide a basis for understanding the interactions within and among the developed and developing countries of the world. Illustrated in colour throughout, this new edition has been completely reworked and updated to take account of the substantial changes in the world economy, and includes a new chapter on services. It is ideal for upper level university undergraduates and for post-graduates in a variety of specializations including geography, economics, political science, international relations and global studies.

In this shocking and illuminating road trip through an America ravaged by debt, award-winning film director James Scurlock examines our multitrillion-dollar addiction to easy credit in all of its absurdities and contradictions.

"Maxed Out" ventures beyond the mind-numbing statistics to expose a financial industry spinning wildly out of control. From the gilded master-planned communities of Northern Las Vegas to the shotgun shacks of the Deep South, the world's largest financial institutions are trolling for customers, hooking the nouveau riche and the poor alike with promises of cheap and easy credit. "Maxed Out" exposes how Wall Street and Congress spawned the subprime mortgage crisis and reveals how credit card issuers form multimillion-dollar partnerships with universities -- paying them millions for access to their students' personal information, setting kids up for financial ruin before their first job. The industry's final frontier, "debt buying," is a veritable Wild West in which ambitious young men make quick fortunes off the misery and misfortune of others.

Hilarious, fascinating, and deeply disturbing, "Maxed Out" is one man's answer to modern America's most pressing question, "Why can't we get out of debt?"

"The biggest strength of the book is its pedagogic design, which will appeal to new entrants in the field but also leaves space for methodological debates... It is well suited for use on general courses but it also involves far more than an introduction and is full of theoretical insights for a more theoretically advanced audience." - Economic Geography Research Group In the last fifteen years economic geography has experienced a number of fundamental theoretical and methodological shifts. Politics and Practice in Economic Geography explains and interrogates these fundamental issues of research practice in the discipline. Concerned with examining the methodological challenges associated with that 'cultural turn', the text explains and discusses: qualitative and ethnographic methodologies the role and significance of quantitative and numerical methods the methodological implications of both post-structural and feminist theories the use of case-study approaches the methodological relation between the economic geography and neoclassical economics, economic sociology, and economic anthropology. Leading contributors examine substantive methodological issues in economic geography and make a distinctive contribution to economic-geographical debate and practice.

Writings on the EU (European Union) are largely celebratory hagiographies reflecting long-discredited narratives of progress, lacking global perspective and critical incisiveness, while critical works either remain too narrowly focused or ignore EU enlargement altogether. This edited volume brings together a diverse array of critical perspectives in the analysis of EU enlargement. The novelty of these studies is in their multifaceted and nuanced explanations of EU enlargement as a particular form of empire building. Each author demonstrates this process by examining the cultural, political, and economic practices, both within and beyond Europe, that constitute this from of empire.

'The social and political power of the verity that there are no such things as economies, only economic geographies demands an analysis of the complex flows and relations implied by it. At last, here is a book - the book - which addresses the questions central to the critical understanding of economies and their formative geographies. This is a highly creative and transformative contribution'

Roger Lee, "Professor of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London

"How do we conceptualise the production and re-production of social life? What are the most appropriate ways to conceptualise capitalist economies and their geographies? Economic Geographies integrates ideas of structure, agency, and practice to provide:

- a detailed overview of recent key debates in economic geography: from political-economy and Marxism to post-structuralism

- an explanation of the of relations between production, retail and consumption, governance and regulation

- a discussion of the economy in terms of circuits, flows, and spaces that systematically relates the material to the cultural

Economic Geographies is a systematic audit of related developments in economic geography and the social sciences: these include consumption; economy and nature; and culture.

The text will be required reading for upper-level undergraduates on courses in economic geography.

`A hopeful but nonetheless hard-hitting analysis of alternative economic spaces proliferating in the belly of the capitalist beast. In this book Leyshon, Lee and Williams convene fascinating studies of exchange, enterprise, credit and community. They invite us onto a new and promising discursive terrain where we can analyze, criticize and above all recognize actually existing economies of diversity in the wealthy countries of the West' - J K Gibson-Graham, Australian National University and University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In the context of problems in the `new economy' - from dot.com start-ups, high-technology, and telecoms - Alternative Economic Spaces presents a critical evaluation of alternatives to the global economic mainstream. It focuses on the emergence of alternative economic geographies within developed economies and analyzes the emergence of alternative economic practices within industrialized countries. These include the creation of institutions like Local Exchange and Trading Systems, Credit Unions, and other social economy initiatives; and the development of alternative practices from informal work to the invention of consumption sites that act as alternatives to the monoply of the `big-box', multi-chain retail outlets.

Alternative Economic Spaces is a reconsideration of what is meant by the `economic' in economic geography; its objective is to bring together some of the ways in which this is being undertaken. The volume shows how the `economic' is being rethought in economic geography by detailing new economic geographies as they are emerging in practice.

How do the places where people live help structure and restructure their sociopolitical identities and interests? In this book, renowned political geographer John A. Agnew presents a theoretical model that addresses the relation of place to politics and applies it to a series of historicogeographical case studies set in modern Italy.
For Agnew, place is not just a static backdrop against which events occur, but a dynamic component of social, economic, and political processes. He shows, for instance, how the lack of a common "landscape ideal" or physical image of Italy delayed the development of a sense of nationhood among Italians after unification. And Agnew uses the post-1992 victory of the Northern League over the Christian Democrats in many parts of northern Italy to explore how parties are replaced geographically during periods of intense political change.
Providing a fresh new approach to studying the role of space and place in social change, "Place and Politics in Modern Italy" will interest geographers, political scientists, and social theorists.

eBook available with sample pages: PE:0415277507

In the age of decentralization, instant communications, and the subordination of locality to the demands of a globalizing market, contemporary cities have taken on place-less or a-geographic characters. They have become phantasmagorical landscapes. Atlanta, argues Charles Rutheiser, is in many ways paradigmatic of this generic urbanism. As such, it provides a fertile ground for investigating the play of culture, power and place within a "non-place urban realm." Rutheiser uses the mobilization for the 1996 Olympics to talk about the uneven development of Atlanta's landscape. Like other cities lacking any natural advantages, Atlanta's reputation and built form have been regularly reconfigured by generations of entrepreneurs, politicians, journalists and assorted visionaries to create a service-oriented information city of global reach. Borrowing a term from Walt Disney, Rutheiser refers to these successive waves of organized and systematic promotion as linked, but not always well-co-ordinated acts of urban "imagineering." Focusing on the historic core of the metropolitan area, Rutheiser shows how Atlanta has long been both a test bed for federal urban renewal and a playground for private capital. The city provides an object lesson in internal colonization and urban underdevelopment. Yet, however illustrative of general trends, Atlanta also represents a unique conjunction of universals and particulars; it exemplifies a reality quite unlike either New York or Los Angeles-two cities to which it has often been compared. This book thus adds an important case study to the emerging discourse on contemporary urbanism. It goes beyond providing another account of uneven development and the "theme-parking" of a North American city: Rutheiser reflects on how contemporary American society thinks about cities, and argues that, ultimately, despite the ever-increasing virtualization of day-to-day life, the obliteration of locality is never complete. There always remains some "here," if only deep beneath the "urbane disguises," in the interstices of social activity, in the contradictions of experience and in the residues of individual and collective memory.

This is a study of the economics of development and urbanization. Its two principal themes are 1) that simple economic factors explain the spatial location of populations and industries in different countries at different times, and 2) that developing countries create crowded urban areas inadvertently by building large cities that draw people from the countryside who do not find the jobs they come seeking. It reports original theoretical and empirical research.

Can foreign capital empower dictatorship? This groundbreaking book develops a unified theory that links three prominent forms of international capital to the endurance of dictatorships. International capital empowers governments to finance two key instruments of non-democratic politics: repression and patronage. The Perils of International Capital uses theory, case studies, and cross-national statistical evidence to demonstrate causal effects between foreign capital and authoritarian politics. These finding are crucial to scholars and policymakers alike, as they call for a recalibration of the welfare effects associated with greater financial globalization. Ahmed reveals that, while foreign capital may improve economic development, it can tragically hinder democratic governance in the process.

A desire for intimacy in domestic spaces - motivated by a growing sense of individualistic expression, an incentive to conceal the labor or enslavement taking place, and an appetite for solace and comfort - led to interiors taking on more specific roles in the eighteenth century. By examining the architectural, visual, and material culture of eighteenth-century spaces, Intimate Interiors foregrounds the interrelated concepts of intimacy, privacy, informality, and sociability in order to show how these ideas played an increasingly integral role in the period's architectural and material design. Across eleven innovative chapters that explore issues of gender, politics, travel, exoticism, imperialism, sensorial experiences, identity, interiority, and modernity, this volume demonstrates how intimacy was a fundamental goal in the planning of private quarters. In doing so, the political nature of private spaces is uncovered, whilst highlighting the contradictions and complexities of these highly performative "private" interiors. Employing distinct methodological perspectives across various geographical sites, from Turkey to Versailles, Britain to Benin, Intimate Interiors draws as-yet untraced connections between Enlightenment Europe, imperial outposts, and major metropolitan centers across the globe.

This book assesses the vulnerability impacts of climate change on food security by examining a 50 years scenario (2015- 2065) and following a top-down approach. Importantly, looking at the sustainable food production, the authors compared the cost-benefit of adaptation costs from 2015 to 2065. It was found that a 15% adaptation capacity is more efficient for Malaysia in order to combat the climate change effects on the food sector. This book has developed a quantitative adaptive model namely, the Malaysian Climate and Economy (MCE) model, based on the dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling structure to examine food sustainability and adaptation strategies. Malaysia experiences an unusual combination of droughts and extreme rainfall events that can be attributed to climate change. These unusual events and consequences leave Malaysian policymakers looking for ways to make Malaysia self-sufficient in terms of agriculture. It is assumed that climate change effects may result in increasing food insecurity and vulnerability in the future. Policy measures are in place to lessen the likely climatic effects overall, but there is an urgent need to develop an adaptation policy for the future.

Agriculture is the backbone of our economic system. It provides not only food and raw material but also employment opportunities to a very large number of people. Higher atmospheric temperature has an impact on crop yields while the changes in rainfall could affect both crop quality and quantity. Climate change, therefore, could increase the prices of major crops in some regions. For the most vulnerable people, lower agricultural output means lower income. In addition, climate change is expected to increase the risk of illness and death from extreme heat and poor air quality. Recent evidence is the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, climate change also affects the occurrence of other infectious diseases. A number of well-known diseases are climate-sensitive - malaria, dengue fever, and cholera among others. Tourism is considered as an industry and alternative contributor to a nation's income. It can generate employment opportunities and boost up the economy. This book, consisting of 26 chapters, focuses on the issues of agriculture, tourism and health for livelihood enhancement. It is essential to discuss these diverse issues in the field of geography as it encompasses interdisciplinary topics. The range of concerns at the national, regional and local levels is not confined to geography only but also involves other disciplines as well. Therefore, this book is a valuable source for scientists and researchers in allied fields such as livelihood, agriculture, land use, tourism management, health care and tribal studies. Furthermore, this book can be of immense help to the researchers, planners and decision makers engaged in solving problems in these areas in developing countries and beyond.

For over forty years, David Harvey has been one of the world's most trenchant and critical analysts of capitalist development. In The Enigma of Capital, he delivers an impassioned account of how unchecked neoliberalism produced the system-wide crisis that now engulfs the world.
Beginning in the 1970s, profitability pressures led the capitalist class in advanced countries to shift away from investment in industrial production at home toward the higher returns that financial products promised. Accompanying this was a shift towards privatization, an absolute decline in the bargaining power of labor, and the dispersion of production throughout the developing world. The decades-long and ongoing decline in wages that accompanied this turn produced a dilemma: how can goods--especially real estate--sell at the same rate as before if workers are making less in relative terms? The answer was a huge expansion of credit that fueled the explosive growth of both the financial industry and the real estate market. When one key market collapsed--real estate--the other one did as well, and social devastation resulted.
Harvey places today's crisis in the broadest possible context: the historical development of global capitalism itself from the industrial era onward. Moving deftly between this history and the unfolding of the current crisis, he concentrates on how such crises both devastate workers and create openings for challenging the system's legitimacy. The battle now will be between the still-powerful forces that want to reconstitute the system of yesterday and those that want to replace it with one that prizes social justice and economic equality. The new afterword focuses on the continuing impact of the crisis and the response to it in 2010.

With the UK still facing the repercussions of the 2007 economic downturn, Coe and Jones' text is a timely, engaging discussion of the key issues facing the UK economy from a purely geographical perspective, written by some of the leading academics in the field. With pedagogical features to facilitate learning, including further reading and chapter aims, the text explores the complex connections that constitute the UK economy including the city and finance, the uneven development of the UK, the UK economy's links to the European Union and its wider ties to the global economy. Written for geography students studying modules on economic geography and the human geography of the UK, the text is a vibrantly written, easy-to-understand analysis of the current and future challenges that face the contemporary UK economy. Includes a preface by Doreen Massey.

The New York Times bestselling investigation into white-collar unemployment from "our premier reporter of the underside of capitalism"--The New York Times Book Review
Americans' working lives are growing more precarious every day. Corporations slash employees by the thousands, and the benefits and pensions once guaranteed by "middle-class" jobs are a thing of the past.
In "Bait and Switch," Barbara Ehrenreich goes back undercover to explore another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with the plausible resume of a professional "in transition," she attempts to land a "middle-class" job. She submits to career coaching, personality testing, and EST-like boot camps, and attends job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and--again and again--rejected.
"Bait and Switch" highlights the people who have done everything right--gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive resumes--yet have become repeatedly vulnerable to financial disaster. There are few social supports for these newly disposable workers, Ehrenreich discovers, and little security even for those who have jobs. Worst of all, there is no honest reckoning with the inevitable consequences of the harsh new economy; rather, the jobless are persuaded that they have only themselves to blame.
Alternately hilarious and tragic, "Bait and Switch," like the classic "Nickel and Dimed," is a searing expose of the cruel new reality in which we all now live.

The authors analyze the ways in which places have been transformed through the changes taking place within them - shifts in the nature and quantity of paid and unpaid work, in social and political mobilization, in cultural and aesthetic experience and in the built environment. Using a locality study of Lancaster, they emphasize place as a decisive point in understanding social and economic changes. They consider how successfully concepts of `restructuring' explain the relation between local and global change. The book will be a major contribution to international debates on restructuring and the impact of global change on the locality. It will also be of interest to all social scientists interested in the sociology, economy and human geography of contemporary Britain.