The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography - Hardcover

Lewis, Martin W.; Wigen, Karen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520207424 ISBN 13: 9780520207424

Verlag: University of California Press, 1997

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Reseña del editor:

A re-examination of the basic geographical divisions we take for granted, this work challenges the unconscious spatial frameworks that govern the way we perceive the world. Arguing that East versus West, First World versus Third World, and the sevenfold continental system are simplistic and misconceived, the authors trace the history of such misconceptions. Their study reflects both on the global scale and its relation to the specific continents of Europe, Asia and Africa - actually part of one contiguous mass. This work sheds light on our metageographical assumptions grew out of cultural concepts: how the first continental divisions developed from the classical times; how the Urals became the division between the so-called continents of Europe and Asia; how countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan recently shifted macroregions in the general consciousness. The analysis also explores the ways new economic regions, the end of the Cold War, and the proliferation of communication technologies change our understanding of the world. It should stimulate thinking about the role of large-scale spatial constructs as driving forces behind particular world views and ecourages readers to take a

Nota de la solapa:

"Despite the recent surge of interest in geographical concepts and ideas, most social, cultural, and political studies are riddled with unexamined spatial assumptions.The Myth of Continents initiates a much-needed consideration of this state of affairs. Through a wide-ranging analysis of such metageographical constructs as East, West, Europe, and Asia, Lewis and Wigen provide provocative insights into the nature and significance of the ways we usually divide up the world. Moreover, they do so in an engaging and highly readable style. Readers ofThe Myth of Continents will never again see the world regions in quite the same way."Alexander B. Murphy, author ofThe Regional Dynamics of Language Differentiation in Belgium

"An exciting, thoughtful, engaging, innovative book that demonstrates the need to reexamine commonly held assumptions about the world's division into continents, East/West, First/Second/Third World, etc. Readers will be drawn to its 'big-think' quality of shattering commonly held assumptions and to its up-to-the-minute contemporary feel."Benjamin Orlove, coeditor ofState, Capital, and Rural Society: Anthropological Perspectives on Political Economy in Mexico and the Andes

"An important and long overdue housecleaning of old geographical concepts, based upon an impressively wide reading of regional literatures."Edmund Burke III, editor ofStruggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: University of California Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0520207424
• ISBN 13: 9780520207424
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 383