Cultural Geography is one of the most vibrant areas of geographical research, encompassing a wide range of issues including the study of space, place and time in culture, as well as the analysis of cultural elements such as artefacts, tools, techniques, attitudes, customs, languages and religious beliefs.

Providing a retrospective as well as a prospective take on modern cultural geography, this collection contains a range of diverse material to provide both an historical resource, tracking the marking of the field, and a map of contemporary themes and obsessions. Emphasizing the multiplicity of theoretical and substantive concerns in cultural geography, it focuses on the area's interfaces with science studies, cultural studies, post-colonial studies and environmental history, thus ensuring that is an important resource for both student and scholar alike.

A rich and fascinating exploration of the Volga River and its vital place in Russian history-named a Best Book of 2021 by the Financial Times "A memorable journey into the heart of Russian social, political, and cultural history."-Jennifer Eremeeva, Moscow Times "'Without the Volga, there would be no Russia.' The final words of Janet Hartley's book sound sweeping. But its 400 pages make the case powerfully."-The Economist The longest river in Europe, the Volga stretches more than three and a half thousand km from the heart of Russia to the Caspian Sea, separating west from east. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation-and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Janet Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. She looks at it as an artery for trade and as a testing ground for the Russian Empire's control of the borderlands, at how it featured in Russian literature and art, and how it was crucial for the outcome of the Second World War at Stalingrad. This vibrant account unearths what life on the river was really like, telling the story of its diverse people and its vital place in Russian history.

In the 1970s and 1980s many institutions, agencies and scholars believed that the Himalayan region was facing severe environmental disaster, due primarily to rapid growth in population that has caused extensive deforestation, which in turn has led to massive landsliding and soil erosion. This series of assumptions was first challenged in the book: The Himalayan Dilemma (1989: Ives and Messerli, Routledge). Nevertheless, the environmental crisis paradigm still commands considerable support, including logging bans in the mountain watersheds of China, India, and Thailand, and is constantly being promoted by the news media.
Himalayan Perceptions identifies the confusion of misunderstanding, vested interests, changing perceptions, and institutional unwillingness to base development policy on sound scientific knowledge. It analyzes the large amount of new research published since 1989 and totally refutes the entire construct. It examines recent social and economic developments in the region and identifies warfare, guerrilla activities, and widespread oppression of poor ethnic minorities as the primary cause for the instability that pervades the entire region. It is argued that the development controversy is further confounded by exaggerated reporting, even falsification, by news media, environmental publications, and agency reports alike.

Geomorphology concerns the forms of the land's surface and the processes that create them. It is an integral part of studies in physical geography and also has significant bearing on geology and engineering. Since the nineteenth century, many systems of classifying landforms have been devised and this has led to recognized areas of specialist study, most notably fluvial, slope, coastal, glacial and periglacial, arid lands and landscape evolution. This collection makes available, in one place, key published material on each of these areas of geomorphology, and constitutes an instant archive of essential benchmark papers. By drawing together classic as well as more contemporary material, each volume provides an overview of each field and its development as well as a sense of where current debates are leading. The set as a whole provides representative coverage of the changing perspectives in the study of geomorphology over the past 100 years. The papers have been chosen by specialist editors working with the general editor, David J. A. Evans, and include introductions to each volume to set the selection in its intellectual and historical context.

The focus of the publication is still highly relevant and useful. In many ways the profession is just catching up with Hough's thinking -o Joan Nassauer, University of Michigan The author's name will sell the new edition in geography, landscape, and design professions -o Brian Goodey, Oxford Brookes Cities and Natural Process is a discussion of the fundamental conflict in the perception of nature and an expression of the essential need for an environmental view when approaching urban design. Michael Hough outlines how natural and human processes are altered by the city and how this leads to changes in attitudes and cultural values. He reveals how alternative values based on ecological insights offer the possibility of a constructive relationship with the urban environment. Practical examples of opportunities that are often unrecognized serve to illustrate the potential for beneficial change. While retaining the existing structure of the first edition, each of the chapters has been revised to take into account recent theoretical and practical developments. A completely new concluding chapter has been added that draws together the themes of the volume and links these to broader landscape issues such as greenway systems, landscape ecology, and green infrastructure.

Contemporary discourse emphasizes the irrational, unconscious, discursive and displaced experiences of city life. Discussion of conscious agency is minimal and is often confined to small acts of resistance. Reason in the City of Difference aims to re-establish a strong notion of conscious agency in our understanding of urban life. Through philosophical and empirical exploration, the book examines how the city has been shaped by reason - through the technical rationality of urban planning and through the profound social and spatial effects of economic rationality. It argues that we get a view of the oppressiveness of cities from a preoccupation with the effects of narrow instrumental rationality. If we see rationality in a wider context, as cultural and expressive, then the city has emancipatory potential through its diversity. Using a range of empirical examples and drawing particularly on pragmatist ideas of 'experience' and rationality, Reason in the City of Difference offers a new, alternative reading of the city.

Late Quaternary Environmental Change: Physical and Human Perspectives
Martin Bell and Michael J. C. Walker
Second edition
"Late Quaternary Environmental Change" considers the interaction between human agency and other environmental factors in the landscape. This second edition has been extensively revised, rewritten and reillustrated to take account of remarkable developments in Quaternary Science and Archaeology over the last twelve years. The book deals largely with events over the course of the last 25, 000 years during which the climate of the mid- and high-latitude regions of the world shifted from one of arctic severity to warmer regimes of the present interglacial period. The natural environmental changes of this period were accompanied by equally dramatic human social change, as environments were increasingly transformed by human activities, leading to the creation of cultural landscapes.
Key features

• Environmental changes, particularly in the northern temperate zone, are examined at a range of temporal and spatial scales.
• An ecological dynamic approach is adopted in which the role of human agency is seen as part of a spectrum of interacting disturbance factors.
• Integration of scientific and social perspectives is given particular emphasis through consideration of the nature of environmental changes and how they were perceived.
• New perspectives are provided for current debates on future environmental management and the formulation of sustainable strategies and conservation policies.

This text will be essential reading for students in archaeology, geography, environmental science, geology, history andenvironmental conservation. It will also be of interest to professional archaeologists, and anyone with an interest in the study of archaeology and environmental history.
Martin Bell is Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Reading, UK where he teaches Geoarchaeology and Environmental Archaeology.
Mike Walker is Professor of Quaternary Science at the University of Wales, Lampeter, UK.

Changing circumstances in Western and global societies have introduced new constraints and opportunities for men and the formation of male identities. Meanwhile, the emerging diversity of "atypical" identities (atypical, that is, when compared with traditional conceptions of middle-class, white, heterosexual men) poses new challenges for the production and use of spaces.
"Spaces of Masculinities" provides a comprehensive introduction to the innovative and diverse research on spaces of masculinity. Drawing on a variety of geographical research projects, the central concern of the book is to highlight the significance of research about masculinity in sociological and geographical work dealing with constructions of gender.

Rural Poverty moves beyond the highly visual forms of poverty characteristic of the city, to explore the nature of poverty in rural spaces of Britain and America. The book sets out the key features of poverty in rural areas and highlights the important processes that act to hide key components of rural poverty.
The book seeks to challenge dominant assumptions about the spatialities of poverty and the nature of rural spaces in Britain and America. Drawing on a broad range of new research material, it provides a comprehensive and critical review of the nature of poverty in rural spaces. Particular attention is given to the scale, profile and causes of poverty in rural areas; the spatial unevenness and local geographies of rural poverty; the experiences of different forms of poverty in rural spaces; and the shifting governance of rural welfare at central and local spatial scales.
Case-study material used in the book has been drawn from a wide range of locations, including Wiltshire, Northumberland and Hampshire in the UK and New England in the US.

Sustainable development is capturing the attention of planners, politicians and business leaders. Within the academic sphere its study is increasingly breaching disciplinary boundaries to become a focus of attention for natural and social scientists alike. But in studying such a key concept, it is vital that there is a clear definition of what it means, how it is applied on the ground, and the influence it exerts upon people's perceptions of change in the physical environment, economic activity and society. Exploring Sustainable Development is a major new text which provides a multifaceted introduction to key areas of study in this field, examining sustainability at the full range of spatial scales from the local to the global. Building on existing theory it demonstrates the unique contributions that thinking geographically about space, place and human-environment relationships can bring to the analysis of sustainable development. This book explores different interpretations of sustainable development in both theory and practice, in developed and developing countries, and in rural and urban areas. It pays particular attention to the local, national and international politics of implementation, the future of climate and energy, the role of business, and different conceptions of agricultural sustainability. This wide-ranging text is ideal for undergraduates and postgraduates in geography, environmental science, development studies, and related social and political sciences.

Contents:
Abstracts
List of Maps
Notes of Transliteration, Spellings and Names
Glossary
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Fields
3. Geosophy, Geopiety, and Topophilia
4. Nostalgia, Myths and Landscape
5. The Map as Discourse
6. Historical Geography
7. Methodology

Globalization and Social Change takes a refreshing new perspective on globalization and widening social and spatial inequalities. Diane Perrons draws on ideas about the new economy, risk society, welfare regimes and political economy to explain the growing social and spatial divisions characteristic of our increasingly divided world. Combining original argument with a clear exposition of the underlying processes, Perrons illustrates her points through a series of case studies linking people in rich and poor countries. She places strong emphasis on the socio-economic aspects of change, particularly changes in working patterns and living arrangements, and makes reference to the new global division of labour, declining industrial regions and widening social divisions within what she terms 'superstar regions'. Wide in scope, this new study also focuses on changing family structures, the feminization of employment, migration, work life balance and new conceptions of gender identity and gender roles. Diane Perrons' enlightening book concludes that divisions by social class and gender are in some ways becoming more significant than divisions between nations, and suggests that new systems of social and economic organization are necessary for social peace in the new millennium.

Farming to halves is the English version of sharefarming, a system of letting land common in Europe and the New World, but thought not to have existed in England. Indeed Arthur Young claimed it was the point of difference between English and French agriculture, which explained the success of the former and failure of the latter. However, Young was mistaken: forms of sharefarming existed in all periods, at every level of society and across the length and breadth of the country. This discovery entirely alters our perceptions of English rural communities, the development of English agriculture and the relationships between landlords and tenants, and farmers in general. Sharefarming English style differed from that in Europe because it remained largely informal and rarely appears in documents. Even when it does appear, historians, misled by Arthur Young perhaps, have failed to recognize its significance. In this way, a stratum of farming life and activity has been lost. This book recovers that hidden historywith far reaching and unexpected implications for our understanding of English rural life both in the past and present.

Gain the skills necessary to catalog monographic sheet maps and map sets With an easily understood how-to format, this ready reference manual will introduce you to the basics of cataloging sheet maps on OCLC, using MARC 21 and ISBD standards and AACR2R. It will guide you through each area of the bibliographic record, focusing most specifically on the title and statement of responsibility, mathematical data, physical description, main entry, and notes areas. Approaching the subject from the perspective that maps are not that much more difficult to catalog than monographs, this book will familiarize you with the few fields unique to map cataloging as well as the fields that are common to monographs but simply used in a different way. This essential volume: describes the cataloging process as it relates to all parts of the record, including subject analysis, coding of fixed fields and OXX fields, and creating G-class call numbers provides an up-to-date list of map cataloging tools presents special chapters on cataloging historical sheet maps and special formats such as wall maps, map series or sets, and reproductions includes illustrations of bibliographic records, field-level examples, tables of information, and diagrams of maps to be used to highlight key concepts Ideal for the new or inexperienced maps cataloger, this volume will help you become comfortable and confident while working with sheet maps. It also puts you in touch with current reference sources and tools, both online and off.

This work evaluates the merits of a widely-used approach to natural resource management, participatory action research (PAR), an approach to resource management that strives to link researchers with farmers and other local residents whose lives are effected by long-range conservation programmes. The authors begin the book with the history of PAR, and then use a variety of case studies that chronicle sustainable development efforts in Brazil. They evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these efforts and suggest specific ways to improve on future PAR efforts.

This book provides an authoritative assessment of the transitions' or transformations' currently under way in Central and Eastern Europe. In order to explore this abundant set of diverse and complex processes, it has adopted a particular perspective, which consists of examining the historical specificity of these processes - particularly the simultaneity of political and economic transitions - and, at the same time, how the social sciences have approached and interpreted them and how, in return, they have undergone the impact of these processes. The book offers, on the one hand a number of new substantial insights into these transformations, in particular on the questions of what democratic consolidations' actually consist of, as well as the political economy, in a strict sense, of these transitions, focusing on the precise characterization of the market economies which have emerged from these processes. On the other hand, it also constitutes an in-depth critical appraisal, unequalled so far, of the methodological principles, models of explanation, and fallacies, of the main approaches or paradigms competing within this research field, especially the strategic' approach of the classical transitology, and the path dependence approach, with its more avant-garde flavor. Thus, the analyses and discussions presented in this collection of essays exceed widely the empirical fields of East European transformations, and of transitology on the whole; as a result this innovating book should usefully contribute to destabilizing routine ways of thinking of social scientists and students far beyond the communities of specialists in these questions. Audience: This book will be of interest toacademics, researchers, and students in the field of political science, sociology, economics, history, political geography, international affairs, and European and Eastern European studies. In addition specialists, professionals and civil servants of international organizations and public administrators interested in aspects of the economic development, economic aid, and enlargement of the European Union may find this volume invaluable.

The colloquium which is the basis for this work aimed to gather from different countries historians, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists dealing with modern and contemporary history of Central Eurasia, for a common reflection on various phenomena that led to a political valuation of Islam under non-Muslim domination, whether Russian or Chinese, since the beginning of the 18th century. As to present time, a comparative approach of the current situations in the Russian Federation and the new independent states of Central Asia has allowed us to study the various modes of political instrumentalization of Islam, by both political power and opposition, in such various areas as the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan and the Volga-Urals region of Russia.

What Happens to History offers the first sustained multi-disciplinary investigation of the question and status of ethics in light of the current 'return to ethics' underway in a variety of critical fields. By assembling the work of nine leading critics from disciplines including philosophy, women's studies, cultural studies, anthropology, literary studies and history, this collection will help to frame the conversation on the status of ethics in the coming years.

This book explores how migrant construction workers in Southern Europe faced unemployment and precarious work conditions during and after the Great Recession. By drawing on rich qualitative data, it investigates the experiences of Albanian men within and beyond the workplace, and sheds light on the capacity of migrant builders to deal with economic hardships and the role of their families and masculine identities in shaping their coping practices. This book suggests a new framework for the study of coping practices among migrant (construction) workers, and adds to the study of integration processes in Southern European countries by comparing the narratives of settled migrants in Italy and Greece. This book also looks at the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant builders' lives in Southern Europe. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, this book is of interest both to students and researchers in the field of migration studies and those working in the fields of sociology, geography, anthropology, political science and economics.

"Immigration and Acculturation in Brazil and Argentina "is an exploration of questions of nationality in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, at the time when these cities were flooded with impoverished European immigrants. In this study, which examines fictional, journalistic and (pseudo)scientific texts of the period, the author argues that processes of representation and identity formation between national and immigrant groups have to be examined within the historical context of the host nations.

Globalization, the shape of cities, the future of cities, the increasing gap between rich and poor inhabitants, and ethnic and racial segregation, are the key themes of this book. From their experiences of a wide range of cities, from Warsaw to Istanbul, Sao Paulo to New York, the authors examine what might be done to improve the lot of the citizen.