A puzzle, but an interesting one. First, the good news. Short
(Geography/Syracuse Univ.), a self-described "reluctant
post-modernist," doesn't write the impenetrable, jargon-laden prose
often embraced by postmodern authors. Unfortunately, the bad news
is that, despite its linguistic clarity, it is not clear what the
book is about or why it was written. This volume combines
autobiography initially with political geography, then the
sociology of academia, and finally an alphabetic introduction to
postmodernism. Anyone who has just returned from an extended visit
to another planet will find the survey of major geopolitical
developments in the first section quite useful; otherwise, it's
pretty familiar territory. The brief sojourn inside the walls of
the academy certainly rings true and will amuse those lacking
first-hand experience of the petty battles among what Short terms
academics, scholars, and intellectuals, but the reason for its
presence in this book is a mystery. The most fun is to be had in
the final section, where Short plays the role of postmodernist on
postmodernism. Only the seemingly meaningless order of the alphabet
is imposed herein, and from "AIDS" to "zapper" (as in the TV
remote-control device) we are confronted with brief discussions of
words that even in their selection reflect the conscious ambiguity
of postmodernism. When "deconstructionism" is under the microscope,
postmodernism is a school of thought, but the discussion of
"baldness" implies that it is something you are in a very different
way. Considering "enlightenment" casts postmodernity as a
historical age following modernity, but somehow "Japan" manages to
be a modern country in a postmodern world. Perhaps looking up
"author" is the key to this puzzle, for we discover there that "in
the postmodernist world, the author has been declared dead. Long
live the creative reader." Readers may find it more satisfying to
spend time writing their own story than reading this one. (Kirkus
Reviews)
John Rennie Short maintains that the "new world order" is neither
new nor orderly. His book, New Worlds, New Geographies, connects
global change, urban transformation, and scholarly integrity. The
disintegration of the comforting illusion that the present is just
a continuation of the past demands a closer evaluation of how to
live one's life in the fragmented, chaotic world of postmodemity
and the current distrust of rationality and progress. In a personal
yet analytical style, Short elucidates the struggles of governments
and individuals to situate themselves within changing nation states
and the restructurings of urban spaces into a kind of global
village. Short insists that it is the responsibility of academics
to help make order out of the chaos of postmodemity and make sense
of the relationships between people and the environment, the social
and the spatial, the structural and the personal. From the
restructuring of a "new world order" to the reappraisal of the role
of academics, this accessible collection of essays calls for a
"progressive human geography" to help cope with the political
changes of a postmodern age. New Worlds, New Geographies represents
a reluctant postmodernist and resident alien's attempt to make
sense of a changing world.
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