Progress in Human Geography 22,3 (1998) pp.

447473

Book reviews

Barnes, T. and Gregory, D., editors, 1997: Reading

human geography: the poetics and politics of
inquiry. London: Arnold. viii 520 pp. 16.99
paper. ISBN: 0 340 63208 9.
This is another of the proliferating Arnold
readers in human geography, this time focusing
on questions of theory rather than on a particular
subdiscipline or research theme. It is very much
a contemporary book. None of the pieces predate
1980. It is moreover, generous: there are
26 essays, divided into eight sections, each with
an intelligent introductory piece by the editors.
We are led through, respectively, the geography
of knowledge, the relationship of `Theory' to
human geography, textuality, nature, space and
spatiality, place and landscape, agents and
subjects and, finally, difference. Naturally, there
is much overlap between the issues covered in
these sections, but the readings chosen, and the
positions of the editors, mean that `postpositivist' theories and practices in geography
provide a frame within and around which
most of the work can be situated, read and
compared.
The selection is, on the whole, exciting, and
the arrangement judicious. Some of the resulting
juxtapositions are very satisfying, as where we
get to read Cosgrove and Rose on landscapes in
quick succession, or Thrift's 1983 essay `On the
determination of social action in space and time'
next to Pile a decade later on Lacan, revisting
what was then received largely for its exposition
of structuration theory and issues of `context' as
part of an ongoing obsession in geography with
the self, individuals and the `human'. Of course,
we may not read the book `in order' at all. Barnes
and Gregory emphasize that learning geography
is very much a matter of learning to read. The
c Arnold 1998
*

`reader' genre presents an excellent opportunity

to explore the mechanics of reading, inviting as it
does being taken apart for or by different
readers, in different ways by different teachers,
facilitating interesting exercises in trying out, if
you like, different time-space paths through its
fabric and beyond.
I have two concerns: one (ironically) concerns
the readership of the book, and the other the way
in which theory is handled. In the Introduction,
the editors describe learning in geography on the
model of initiation: `sometimes they [the selections] are written in what must seem like a set of
secret codes. But it is learning these codes that is
the basis of contemporary geographical inquiry.
For whatever else human geographers do for a
living, they also write: most importantly, we
write lecture notes to deliver to our students and
books, articles and essays that we address to one
another' (p. 6). The welcome focus here on reading and writing (on what geographers do), on
metaphor, style, textual strategies, etc., is
coupled with a pronomial slippage between
`we' and `they' which indicates the difficulties
in simultaneously addressing both the audiences
mentioned. This will be a very useful collection
for academics and postgraduates. Some readings
(e.g., Cosgrove, Driver, England, Entrikin,
Harvey and Scott, Massey) will work well with
undergraduates. Others (e.g., Livingstone, Pratt,
Olsson, McDowell) are not likely to mean a great
deal in the context of an average first- or secondyear course. I do not mean to question the
importance of these latter contributions: they
quite properly assume readers who already
know a lot about the theory and history of
geography.
The editors are rightly critical of `grand
theory', emphasizing instead `modest' (p. 86),

03091325(98)PH211XX

448

Book reviews

partial and positioned attempts to write and read

contemporary geographies. They eschew organizing the reader around `-isms and -ologies'
(p. 10). Acknowleding that `the history of human
geography since the 1960s is one of a continual
importation of grand theories devised elsewhere'
(p. 85), the editors stress none the less that
`geographical inquiry is hard enough, without
having to submit to the organising logic of other
disciplines' (p. 10). Unlike some current readers,
moreover, there are no contributions from nongeographers. But `imported' material forms so
much of the fabric of contemporary human
geography, as the general reliance on such
work through the text confirms, that one senses
here a certain resistance to the implications of the
blurry, undisciplined state that human geography has (I think happily) attained. It is
almost as though we expect others, elsewhere,
to do all the focused exegesis and critique of
theoretical work that we can always keep at a
slight distance via assertions of disciplinary
identity (Driver's and Pile's essays are the partial
exceptions here). Even Gregory is quoted at one
point (p. 132) positioning geography as almost
an antidote to `Theory', illuminating the debris
which it leaves behind.
Harvey's prophecy that `by our theories you
shall know us' (1969: 486) seems more and more
hollow as time goes on. Theories never could be
unproblematically `ours': theory is just as hybrid,
`in-between' and mediated as anything else. But
neither is there some Theory belonging in the
first instance to others, drifting around in a
disciplinary `outside' from where we can harvest
predigested pieces, or in relation to which we can
affirm our clever, theoretically informed pursuit
of its remainder. In his wonderful piece here on
AIDS activism in Vancouver, Michael Brown
reminds us that `distance is not essentially a
good or bad social relation' (p. 484). Earlier in the
book Ley emphasizes the roots of `theory' in the
Greek for `distancing' (p. 103), but unfortunately
does not draw a similar conclusion.
I was struck most on my own path through
this collection with a certain continuity and
contemporary affirmation of much of the
humanist apparatus of interpretation, self, meaning, `place', activity and so on, in some of this
recent work. In another prophecy, Daniels
suggests that in time, if humanistic geographers
play their cards right, there will be little need for
a specifically humanist geography as everyone
will be doing it (p. 374). The post-humanist,
poststructuralist geography that students may

learn to write in this reader looks like another

shiny `new' geography. Nevertheless, without
more attention to the way in which geography
grafts its imports on to its `postpositivist' stem,
writing about `voice(s)', `positions', `situatedness', `the self', `the subject', `dialogue' and so on
is no guarantee that `modest' theory does not
turn out to be an abili for a comfortable
contextual humanism, the ever-renewable
common sense of the discipline.
Murray Low
The University of Reading
Harvey, D. 1969: Explanation in geography. London:
Arnold.

Biagini, E. 1996: Northern Ireland and beyond:

social and geographical issues. Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic. xvi 234 pp. 79.00 cloth. ISBN:
0 792 34046 9.
Emilio Biagini offers the reader an extended
analysis of the Northern Ireland situation. The
volume has a strong historical emphasis, presented through the first four chapters. Chapter 1
provides a potted physical geography and introduces the prehistoric and early historic periods.
Chapter 2 deals with `Conquest, plantation and
landlords', documenting the growing dominance
of English interests in Ireland whether by
military action, settlement or internal control of
the land. In this discussion the author relies
rather heavily on the writings of T. M. Healy,
referring to works published in 1913 and 1917.
The nineteenth-century famine and its aftermath are given appropriate prominence, with an
extended discussion of the political and demographic impacts. This is followed rather rapidly
by a review of the events since the 1960s, dominated as they have been by violent conflict.
Chapters 5, 6 and 7 explore issues of imbalance
and division; regional imbalances in economic
development are recorded as are demographic
contrasts between the Catholic and Protestant
segments of the Northern Irish population. In
addition, housing and regional planning strategies are dissected, while a chapter is devoted to
an examination of Belfast as a divided city.
The final two chapters, to quote their titles, `go
beyond' Northern Ireland. The first examines,
and then rapidly dismisses six interpretative
stances on the Northern Ireland problem. The
second presents what are called `the practical

Book reviews 449

prospects', and basically dismisses them as well!
Thus the republic of Ireland is too weak on its
own to resolve the problem, while Northern
Ireland is too divided. The author does not provide much clarification on the UK's possible role,
other than rather starkly suggesting that the
British government should simply withdraw.
However Biagini does put forward `an unlikely
scenario' in which the UK itself breaks up, with
Scottish and Welsh separatism and a rise in
English nationalism. In this case we are told that
`Irish unity would follow as an inescapable
corollary' (p. 192). Finally, `a glimpse of a united
Ireland' is provided, where the European Union
would have a key (subsidizing) role; the one page
presentation offered hardly provides much substance on which to build Biagini's preferred
future Ireland.
Northern Ireland and beyond is a remarkable
book. In one way it is particularly refreshing in
that Biagini makes no attempt to disguise where
his sympathies lie. A product of this interpretative stance, however, is a stunningly one-sided
analysis. What I find particularly disturbing is
the presence of a series of Biagini betes noires
revisionist historians are a favourite as are a
group of people referred to as `professional
meddlers' certain demographers, political
scientists and `unionist' geographers (p. 128).
Most denigrated of all, however, is the Protestantunionist population of Northern Ireland, who,
almost without fail, are referred to as `extremists'(p. 93ff) and are seen as being trapped in a
`vicious circle of economic and cultural backwardness and a dreadful narrowness of ideas'
(p. 94). This almost racist analysis contributes
nothing to a possible balanced interpretation. I
have to say personally that I would be delighted
to keep company with some of Biagini's revisionists and other betes noires, such as the economic
historian Louis Cullen, and the historians
J. C. Beckett and Roy Foster. Perhaps most
hurtful of all is an attack on the distinguished
political scientist John Whyte who is accused,
with others, of `appalling moral indifference'
(p. 183).
To lighten my review slightly it would be helpful to refer to Biagini's bibliographical referencing system. He informs us that he does not wish
to trouble the reader with frequent references
rather he prefers `to indicate just a very few of
the more important authors in the text by name
only' (p. 195). Thus, when I found that Biagini's
understanding of the community structure of the
Protestant Shankhill Road area in Belfast was

derived from someone called Adams, I checked

back to the bibliography to find a `J. Adams'. On
further investigation I discovered that the
volumes authored by `J. Adams' had exactly
the same titles as those listed under `G(erry)
Adams' in the university library catalogue! A
consequence of this little bit of `research' on my
part was that my view of the objectivity of some
of Biagini's material took a fairly sharp dive.
Northern Ireland and beyond is, as the author
admits, likely to stir up strong reactions. There is
nothing wrong with this per se, but I nonetheless
find it profoundly disturbing to have a book
written in such a way that the author's interpretative biases lead to some quite unacceptable
factual errors, and worse, to a dismissive
approach to the work of many distinguished
analysts.
A final note: the publishers should have
employed a competent editor or proof-reader to
correct the many spelling mistakes and the fairly
rampant stylistic infelicities.
Frederick W. Boal
The Queen's University of Belfast

Black, J. 1997: Maps and history: constructing

images of the past. London: Yale University Press.
x 272 pp. 25.00 cloth. ISBN: 0 300 06976 6.
Jeremy Black is a historian with an authoritative
grasp of modern European history. Despite the
title and the opening sentence of the Preface
which suggest a more general `study of the
mapping and mappability of the past', this is
essentially a review of the ways in which
historical atlases, defined as books with over
half their space devoted to maps, help to
illuminate the spatial aspect of history. While
not intended to be a carto-bibliography, this
book avoids excessive concentration on atlases
from Britain, France and Germany, the better to
reveal national differences. The choice of
countries and atlases appears to reflect both the
interests of the author and the accessibility of
source material, mainly in libraries in Britain and
North America. Footnotes reveal the extent to
which regional experts were consulted in widening the scope of material considered.
The treatment is broadly chronological, concentrating on the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Generalizations are accompanied by
an analysis of the contents of selected historical
atlases. Inferences drawn from examining them

450

Book reviews

in some detail are supported by reference to

accompanying text, contemporary documents
and reviews. Scant attention is paid to the ways
in which historical atlases and maps were
actually used, but changes in cartographic
method, especially symbolization and colour
usage, receive greater emphasis.
The first chapter covers the emergence of
historical atlases driven by a need for accurate
delineation of geographical space as the stage for
historical events and a growing political awareness. The second, on the nineteenth century,
focuses on teaching geography and history in
schools, convincingly relating the contents of
historical atlases to contemporary syllabuses.
Nationalism and Eurocentricism are the themes
of the third chapter. Treating more European
countries and the USA permits a more detailed
treatment of the inter-relationship of politics,
ethnicity and education. Environmentalism and
nationalism are explored in the period up to the
first world war. The author, however, questions
(p. 83) the `monolithic' view adopted by Harley
and others that historical cartography became
objective and scholarly only at the end of the
nineteenth century, and marshals evidence to
contradict it. But Black acknowledges that
historical atlases played `their part, in war as in
peace, in confirming a sense of national destiny
and continuity with a glorious past' (p. 101). The
fifth chapter spans the period 191445, entitled
war, environment and ideology. In typical
fashion some key atlases are selected for detailed
examination, notably Charles O. Paullin's of the
USA (1932), `arguably the best hitherto in the
world' (p. 120), praised for its frankness, sophistication and scholarship. While that atlas was not
overtly biased, many others from the 1930s were.
The commercial context provides the central
theme of the period after 1945. This rare
discussion of publishers' policies, costs and
sponsorship touches on a theme rarely encountered even among cartographers. Reviewing the
effect of the cold war on atlas content, Black
heaps praise on the East German Atlas zur
Geschichte (Berthold, 197376), `the best produced by a communist state' (p. 153), which
included much material avoided by western
atlases and reflected the interests of scholars
following Marxian ideology. Predictably falsehoods are detailed in Soviet atlases, but `marxisante', radical atlases in the west are suspected
of deliberately undermining the high standards
of cartographic tradition. Shifts in historical and
cultural geography, combined with the rise of

the humanistic approach, go hand in hand with

a less Eurocentric approach. New interest in the
third world, indigenous people's perceptions of
their environments, decolonization and Africa
are evident, but traditional themes of frontiers
and territorial control survive as well. Here a
national approach is not the most effective way
to tease out generalizations. Eurocentrism, Black
argues, aided by the concentration of resources
for atlas publication in the first world, may in
fact be exacerbated by a new agenda and
information technology. These themes are
examined in more detail, but with a less sure
touch. A superfluity of data, not all useful,
allows a vast range of topics to be dealt with.
Fashionable themes like gender and dynamism
jostle with others concerned with mapping
methods. It is not clear to what extent the latter
form a new agenda for the compilers of historical
atlases: it is almost as if they have just discovered
the modifiable unit problem or the interaction on
maps between purpose, precision and accuracy.
Editorial control over production has been
regained from cartographers. Somehow Richard
Edes Harrison's revolutionary, global views of
the wartime world have been seized upon as
new technology. Producing those now is almost
a matter of pushing buttons. Black also has a
rather touching faith in the ability of GIS to solve
future technical problems.
Attractively written, with over 50 well chosen
illustrations and well printed in Hong Kong, this
book is well worth 25. It will reward anyone
seeking stimulating research topics and it will be
a useful work of reference because of its coverage. However, those following up references will
find the footnotes inadequate and annoying. A
proper bibliography should have supplemented
the rather basic index.
Christopher Board
London School of Economics
Berthold, L., editor, 197376: Atlas zur Geschichte
(2 volumes). Gotha: H. Haack, Leipzig:
Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR.

Blotevogel, H.H. and Fielding, A.J., editors, 1997:

People, jobs and mobility in the new Europe.
Chichester: Wiley. x 320 pp. 45.00 cloth. ISBN:
0 471 94901 9.
This volume is the third of four publications
emerging from the work of the population sub-

Book reviews 451

group of the European Science Foundation's
work on regional and urban restructuring in
Europe RURE. Most of the chapters began as
presentations to the study group and some were
commissioned for the volume. There are
15 chapters and even more authors held together
somewhat tenuously by the twin themes of
migration and employment.
Hans Blotevogel in his introductory chapter
describes the central focus of the book as the
mutual relationship between sociospatial mobility of the population and the ongoing process of
economic restructuring. The production process
and the population system, two key parts of
society usually regarded as independent of each
other, are brought together in this collection of
essays. The economic uncertainty of working
and living conditions is matched by the dramatic
demographic trends of late marriage, low birth
rates, increasing numbers of single-person households and decreasing migration rates. Blotevogel
rightly asserts that the demographic effects of
restructuring trends in labour markets have been
poorly researched so that there is certainly a place
for such a volume.
Unfortunately, the themes do not always
emerge clearly in the very varied chapters covering such disparate topics as counterurbanization,
international migration, specific country studies
on, for example, Portugal or Italy, unemployment
in eastern Europe and a comparison of north east
England and the Ruhr district in Germany. The
guiding hand of an introductory chapter to the
five sections of the book is needed in addition to
the interesting and useful theoretical introduction
on population and economic restructuring. The
quality is uneven as might be expected from such
a large number of essays and it is not always easy
to make the connections between both the
chapters and the parts. Nonetheless, there is a
great deal here of interest to anyone concerned
with changing European society, and the interrelationships of population, mobility and employment.
The book is divided into five sections: concepts
and context; empirical overviews; people, jobs
and restructuring in European peripheral
regions; people, jobs and restructuring in European core regions and finally a very short concluding section. Some chapters fulfil the aims of
the book admirably. For example, that by
Champion and Vandermotten on `Migration,
counterurbanization and regional restructuring
in Europe' examines the factors which have
brought about migration and associated popula-

tion redistribution in Europe over the past three

decades, exploring the relationship between
economic performance and migration. It includes
a detailed UK example to show that a substantial
proportion of regional variation in population
growth rates cannot be explained by basic
measures of economic change. Later chapters
contain more specific in depth case studies which
examine processes involved in internal migration.
An interesting case study of youth migration and
labour market restructuring in the west of Ireland
shows that vocational qualifications do not
necessarily lead to employment in the locality
despite the links made between training and the
labour market. State training is, it would seem,
for emigration rather than local work. One
chapter examines the relationship between
economic restructuring and international migration, looking at the impact of economic change on
established immigrant groups and at the implication of economic restructuring for present and
future waves of migration.
The importance of public policy in maintaining population in sparsely populated areas such
as in the northern parts of Scandinavia is shown
in Mnnesland's chapter, although it ends on a
note of pessimism for such peripheral regions.
He assumes that regional policy will be too
weak in the future to alter the direction of a
strengthening centralizing process. Here, gender
issues are important, since the traditional
pattern of return migration to more remote
areas to raise children is now less likely as
women want to remain in paid employment and
such remote areas have few female jobs. The role
of public policy, particularly housing policy, in
influencing population redistribution and
migration trends in Ranstad, Holland from the
1960s to the 1980s is traced by Dieleman and
Jobse, with the paradox that although the population size of large cities declined faster than
jobs, unemployment in these cities increased
since selective migration left behind unskilled
workers while suitable jobs for such workers
decreased.
Throughout the book one theme recurs; that of
the importance of noneconomic factors in influencing population redistribution or maintaining
traditional population distribution whether it
be quality of life, public policy or more nebulous
cultural factors. For example, the range of
infuences that inhibit migration, particularly
cultural factors, are stressed in the chapter on
unemployment in east-central Europe, and its
consequences for eastwest migration.

452

Book reviews

The concluding chapter, although welcome

and useful, does not finally succeed in totally
tying together the disparate themes into a
coherent whole. Nonetheless, some important
points are made, particularly that one of the
main characteristics of the European urban
and regional population system has been its
stability in contrast to the radical changes in
the production system.
The volume was obviously long in its gestation since, apart from one chapter with references
dated 1994, the latest references are 1993, and the
European economy has changed considerably
since then. Nonetheless there is much of value
here. Unfortunately the book is marred by
numerous examples of poor subediting which
is unforgivable given its price.
Ray Hall
Queen Mary
University of London

Chapman, G.P. and Thompson, M., editors, 1995:

Water and the quest for sustainable development in
the Ganges valley. London: Mansell. xvi 210 pp.
45.00 cloth. ISBN: 0 7201 2191 4.
Water and the quest for sustainable development in
the Ganges valley represents another important
step in the ongoing scholarly discussion about
the relations between human activities, the
complexities of the Himalayan environments,
and the downstream effects and responses on the
floodplains of northern India and Bengladesh. It
is also highly relevant to regional politics,
bilateral and multilateral aid policy, and the
`search for truth' at its most altruistic level.
The editors have shown a mixture of wisdom
and courage, and what in some circles may be
regarded as foolhardiness. They forcefully
demonstrate the complexity of the region and
have sought to entrain an almost comparable
complexity of viewpoints among the ten contributing authors, albeit somewhat constrained
by the niceties of their own bias in the form of
occasional editorial snippets as individual
chapter introductions. One, by Thompson
(pp. 10410), became a short chapter in itself.
The complexity of viewpoint entertains a
range of topics from plate tectonics, geomorphology and climate, to rural land use,
water politics and the chemistry of misused
and overused rural and urban water supplies.

These are rendered internationally relevant by a

helpful statement of the editors' philosophy.
Any reader who shares this reviewer's zest for
debate and controversy will be well rewarded. I
expect that the more than casual reader will be
sufficiently captivated to be prompted to read
some of the foregoing literature, as well as to
keep abreast of future publications that will
undoubtedly appear on the same topic(s). Nevertheless, any reviewer familiar with the region
will be disappointed over the seemingly vital
omissions, for example: the Arun III hydro
project in eastern Nepal and its fate; the underlying struggle over the Tehri Dam in northern
India; the actual evolution of the Chipko Movement; and the impact of the Aga Khan Rural
Support Programme on the mountain communities of northern Pakistan (despite being outside
the specific region under consideration). To be
fair, however, such disappointments were inevitable, and to be anticipated from reading the
editors' introductory section; in fact, it could be
argued that the very gaps justify their approach.
The foregoing may, and perhaps should, read
as the beginnings of a potentially lengthy
academic discourse. Regardless, as the editors
make clear, their survey is a heady mixture of
postmodern thinking and the sometimes brutal
politics of development aid and interference in
the lives of hundreds of millions of human
beings, who constitute a large proportion of the
poorest in the world. I had thought that the
juggernaut opinion of the 1950s to the 1980s, that
a few million ignorant and overly fecund
mountain peasants were causing environmental
havoc in both the mountains and on the subjacent plains, thereby holding hundreds of
millions of lowlanders to ransom, had been
staunched by the beginning of the 1990s. It has
since become clear that this has not been the
case; Chapman and Thompson are to be
congratulated for keeping the fires of inquiring
thought alive. Michael Thompson, in particular,
has retained his superb combination of wit,
magnificent turn of phrase and `outrageous'
challenge to complacent, yet deeply entrenched
assumptions that, more than a decade ago, did
so much to spur on the `Mohonk process', to
which he refers (pp. 2737).
Are there any solutions to the region's
problems? The editors, in their very short, but
very tight and well reasoned, concluding chapter
(less than four pages) imply that it depends on
one's perception. Certainly, the continuing rapid
population growth and increase in demand for

Book reviews 453

access to natural resources set the stage for
crucial future challenges. At least they help
clarify the vital point that multiple and variable
viewpoints are essential. Their final two
sentences are worth repeating here: `That the
World Bank's support for the Narmada Valley
Development Project has been humbled by a
ramshackle coalition of environmental activists
and illiterate tribals is not a disaster: it is wisdom
asserting itself. And wisdom is possibly the most
vital and least easily conjured up of all
resources.'
The book has emerged from the proceedings
of a conference held in London on the `Environmental problems in the GangesBrahmaputra
basins'. One of the side results of the conference
was proof that the topic was excessively broad;
thus its name was not retained as the title of the
book. It is one of a series entitled `Global
Development and the Environment'. While it is
confined to the Indian subcontinent, it has farreaching implications on a worldwide scale,
especially since many of its philosophical
points, together with its exposure of the hazards
created by the small thinking of big institutions,
are relevant to the survival of society, let alone its
`development', into the coming millennium. It
can be regarded as an important adjunct
contribution to the urgent discourse being set
by Chapter 13 of the UNCED Agenda 21
`Managing fragile ecosystems: sustainable mountain development': Agenda 21 of the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Rio de Janeiro, June 1992; see
also the results of the `Rio-Plus-Five' special
general assembly of the United Nations, New
York, June 1997 (Messerli and Ives, 1997).
Jack Ives
Carleton University, Ottawa
Messerli, B. and Ives, J.D., editors, 1997: Mountains
of the world: a global priority. Casterton and New
York: Parthenon.

Crompton, R., Gallie, D. and Purcell, K., editors,

1996: Changing forms of employment: organization,
skills and gender. London: Routledge. xii 284 pp.
45.00 cloth, 14.99 paper. ISBN: 0 415 13371 8
cloth, 0 415 14116 8 paper.
The essays included in this book were first
presented at the conference organized by the
journal Work, Employment and Society in 1994,

which focused upon the changing nature of

employment, employing organizations and
employment-related institutions in Britain, from
the mid-1970s. Despite the omission of contributions which address changes in `employee
representation and unemployment' (p. 19), this
book does provide a concise range of goodquality essays, mainly drawn from ESRC and
other research projects, which discuss recent
changes in the nature of employment in Britain.
Following an Introduction (Chapter 1) which
briefly discusses the impacts of deindustrialization, the service economy, information technology and the `decline of the male breadwinner'
(p. 7) on employment in Britain from the 1970s,
the rest of this book is divided into three parts:
`Regulation, deregulation and corporations'; `The
recomposition of skills and employment'; and
`Change in gender relations'. Rubery begins Part
I with a critique of institutional and segmentation theory in reconciling the `pace and range'
(p. 25) of social and economic change in labour
market structure and analysis since the late
1970s. This is followed by Edwards, Armstrong,
Marginson and Purcell's weak analysis of the
evolution of firms from the national to the
multinational, but interesting appraisal of trade
union avoidance at the global scale. Continuing
along a similar vein, Allen and Henry provide an
excellent case study of fragmentation and precariousness in the (multinational) contract
service industry. Finally, Lane addresses a truly
fascinating case study which dovetails debates
on globalization, regulation and labour market
analysis in `multinationally crewed' ships.
Jones starts Part II with a critical evaluation of
skill processes and, drawing upon the case
studies of self-employed construction workers
and graduate engineers, argues the importance
of recognizing social constitutions in labour
market analysis. In Chapter 7, Gallie reports
the trend of upskilling in his analysis of skill
changes in Britain's workforce between the mid1980s and 1992, but records a marked polarization in skills between occupational classes, fulland part-time workers, and men and women.
Thornley provides the most interesting casestudy essay in Part II; the issues of skills,
qualifications, segmentation and hierarchies are
addressed within the nursing workforce (a
chapter which could have equally nested in
Part III). Finally, Lam gives a comparative study
of work organization and skill requirements
between British and Japanese engineers in
product development.

454

Book reviews

Gregory and O'Reilly start Part III with an

overview of the European gender division of
labour, and then present detailed case studies of
the use of part-time staff within the British and
French retail banking and large-scale grocery
retailing sector. This is followed by Bruegel's
empirical analysis of `trailing wives' (p. 235) in
household migration in Britain since the mid1970s, which points to the fact that there is still a
relatively high number of `trailing' full-time
women working in higher occupational groups.
Finally, Wajcman's discussion of gender relations within senior management in five multinational corporations reports that glass ceilings
for women managers are still very much
apparent, constructed by organization's employment structures and working practices.
I would, however, like to draw attention to
three structural shortcomings which could have
improved the nature of the volume. First, the
balance would have been significantly improved
with an extended general introduction, and
specific introductions for each part. An extended
general introduction which detailed labour
markets, workplaces and relationships between
employees and employers in these post-Fordist
times would have provided a genuine context.
Moreover, the use of specialist introductory
commentaries to each part of the book would
have then provided very much needed contextual material for individual chapters which fall
within major topics: fragmentation and flexibility; skills; and gender. Secondly, linked to the
first, with no introduction to each part of the
book, there is no platform to incorporate relevant
theoretical and case-study material published
since the initial conference and, I guess, the
accepted book proposal (for example, Rubery
and Wilkinson, 1994; Hanson and Pratt; 1995;
Peck, 1996). Thirdly, for very practical reasons it
would have been useful to have a general
bibliography. Despite these shortcomings, however, I believe that the quality and quantity of
material included in this text will be well
received by undergraduate students. For the
specialists, however, they will undoubtedly have
to pursue complementary material to unravel the
complexities of the changing face of employment
in Britain since the late 1970s.
Jonathan V. Beaverstock
Loughborough University
Hanson, S. and Pratt, G. 1995: Gender, work and
space. London: Routledge.

Peck, J. 1996: Work place. The social regulation of labor

markets. London: Guildford Press.
Rubery, J. and Wilkinson, F., editors, 1994: Employment strategy and the labour market. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.

Davis, D., Kraus, R., Naughton, B. and Perry, E.,

editors, 1995: Urban spaces in contemporary
China: the potential for autonomy and community
in post-Mao China. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. x 450 pp. 35.00 cloth, 14.95
paper. ISBN: 0 521 47410 8 cloth, 0 521 47943 6
paper.
Edited collections which are forced outgrowths
of conferences are rarely satisfactory. This book
is an exception. Its strength of approach lies in its
many-angled authorship: the multiple lenses of
sociology, economics, anthropology, political
science, art history, geography and law produce
a richly layered account of contemporary
Chinese urbanism unequalled in any other
single volume. And the fusion of both secondary
and primary data by many of the contributors is
an inseparable reason for a happy outcome. By
the late 1980s, the flood of official data and the
abundance of mostly quantitative-based PRC
journal material were beginning to produce a
terse, unidimensional genre of western academic
writing on China's urbanism. Admittedly, the
unceasing alterations of the urban landscape
meant that mere statistical chronicling became an
achievement in itself. Urban spaces represents a
welcome instatement of the Chinese city as a
repository of the myriad strands of economics,
politics and culture both traditional and newly
global.
Much of the success of this enterprise must be
placed at the door of the editorial team, whose
ability in pressing a common thread is tenacious
yet unlaboured. Absolute consistency would be
a mission impossible, for urban existence in
today's China is far from the relative monochrome of late Maoism. In contributor Vivian
Shue's words, it presents a `jolting cacophony of
possibilities and prospects' (p. 90). Principal
editor Deborah Davis lays out the ground rules
as follows: `In reference to the sphere of
contemporary urban life that you (the contributor) know best where have been the greatest
gains for personal autonomy? And if relevant, to
what extent did you observe associational ties
that signaled emergent urban communities or
nonstate institutions?' (p. 10).

Book reviews 455

It is fascinating that a book organized around
such terms as these could be conceived just three
years after the apparent throttling of urban selfexpression in the aftermath of the 1989 rebellions. At the time, both the neo-liberal elite in the
west and Chinese officialdom dismissed as a
temporary blip the events known now simply as
Tiananmen. At the height of the repression, this
reviewer took himself on an extended journey
through provincial China: the motive was an
almost morbid need to witness the dying
promise of the Deng Xiaoping decade. But far
from the restoration of the ice age of Mao's last
years, a nonchalant robustness seemed to
pervade. The attitude of most interlocutors was
that a battle had been lost, but history would
press ineluctably forward. And the unrolling of
the post-Tiananmen decade does indeed prove
both Chinese hardliners and their foreign
adherents correct, even though for the wrong
reasons. The contributors to this book were
prescient in their own rooted understanding of
China's social process, so well illustrated by
David Strand in his final `historical perspectives'
chapter (in an attenuated form this chapter
might better have fitted as an introductory
discourse).
The book divides into three parts: `Urban
space', `Urban culture and identities' and `Urban
associations'. Each part is covered in five
chapters. The guiding questions cited above
evoke responses which are understandably
equivocal. Davis (p. 5) notes that while the state
has retreated, it `retained substantial authoritarian powers that sharply limited personal autonomy and denied legitimacy to most non-state
organizations'. Alongside this judgement, Shue's
Chapter 4 finds in her fascinating study of smalltown life in Hebei that the state maintains now a
`zone of indifference', where `family life and the
life of the courtyard [hold] dominion after work'.
Against this, the regulatory roles of local
government are vividly described as having
`thickened' in some areas, cancelling out the
`thinning' of central state powers. This is a point
which should be salutary to those observers who
facilely associate devolution of decision-making
with an increase in the measure of `freedom'.
It would, perhaps, be too much to ask in this
book for a more cogent usage of the concept of
the `state'. The matter is evaded and each writer
is left to the currency of his or her disciplinary
and/or political preference. Yet the very concept
of `globalization' demands a nod to state
theorization. The China which has developed

so dramatically in economic terms over the past

two decades has done so because of a chickenan-egg conjunction of domestic policy transformation with a paradigmatic leap in the
material and ideological penetration of global
capitalism. Whatever the continuities of Chinese
governance, its essence is unlikely to be quite
what it was 20 years ago. The absence of any
explicit analysis of the state is an obvious
difficulty when one turns one's thoughts to the
two pivotal editorial questions.
But this criticism is amply eclipsed in the
richness of empirical representation and
analysis, especially in the Part II chapters
Shaoguang Wang on the politics of private time,
Kraus and in a later (and more satisfying)
chapter Andrews and Gao on the positioning
of artists in the new political and commodifying
firmament (they make an ironic point that it is
now more likely to be the laggard of popular
taste and hence the market which presses
down on the development of the incipient
Chinese avant-garde).
Approaching 500 pages, this is a lengthy
compilation which manages to keep on track
and hold the reader to the last. In measuring
increases in autonomy and personal space, the
authors necessarily rely on hearsay accounts of
the previous Mao period. In consequence they are
inclined to exaggerate the absence of interstices in
Mao's system. But with the varied benchmarks of
this study, there is now scope for a longitudinal
repeat, and it is hoped this team can set about one
before too long.
R.J.R. Kirkby
University of Liverpool

Evans, D.J. 1995: Crime and policing: spatial

approaches. Aldershot: Avebury. x 136 pp.
32.50 cloth. ISBN: 1 85628 986 9.
Given the rapid adoption of mapping and spatial
analysis in police agencies in several countries,
and the lack of geographic education in the
backgrounds of many of those charged with
such work, contributions to the literature dealing
with the interface between crime, geography and
policing are welcome. Unfortunately, this book
provides no context by way of introduction, and
the reader is left to work out just what is
intended. Is the book for police officers in
training, criminologists, or students of social or
urban geography? One concludes that the
audience is most probably the latter, although

456

Book reviews

some criminologists would be interested, as

might some police.
The title, implying a degree of balance between
discussion of crime and policing, is misleading.
Of nine chapters, only one directly addresses
policing, and the discussion is substantially
aspatial, dealing with such topics as community
policing, police consultative committees, lay
visitors and racism. Perhaps the expectation that
the policing chapter would include discussion of
cutting-edge applications of spatial analysis and
GIS was unrealistic in that the field is too new,
and this book was published in 1995. On the
other hand, the book is recent enough that a
section in a chapter could have been devoted to
something akin to `new directions'.
Apart from this imbalance, the book provides
a useful literature review of the geography of
crime, citing work from cognate fields such as
situational crime prevention, which focuses on
environmental modifications and manipulations
designed to reduce opportunities for crime.
While some of the ground covered is already
well ploughed (most notably the Chapter 1,
Introduction), several discussions are helpful,
particularly Chapter 6 on fear of crime. Evans
also draws attention to some of the more subtle
reasons for specific research findings, implicitly
renewing the caveat that no research is value free
or free from possible artifactual error.
A theme that recurs throughout is the heterogeneity of crime categories that are often
assumed to have simple definitions. Indeed, it
may be the relative simplicitly of legal definitions
that conveys this impression. When one considers the many possible flavours of robbery, for
example, the need to break crimes down into
quite detailed subcategories becomes apparent.
Taking a broader perspective, the ambiguity
embedded in the terms `victim' and `offender'
with respect to crimes of violence reminds us
that these roles can be interchangeable, with the
erstwhile `victim' possibly becoming the `offender' if his or (less likely) her gun is aimed better.
When these classification and measurement
issues are considered in conjunction with related
spatial variations in fear and perception, the
challenge of spatial interpretation becomes
apparent.
One could not help being struck by differences
between the UK and USA contexts. While council
estates and their qualitative differences are major
elements in the UK crime scene, the dearth of
public housing in the USA means that there is no
comparable context, at least in quantitative terms,

although public housing in the USA such as it

is has a comparably unenviable reputation.
Frequent reference is made to the Acorn
classification system and to the various British
Crime Surveys. For non-British readers, appendices providing more explanation would have
been helpful.
This is a very short book, and at 32.50 it
would seem to be a very expensive one. The
publisher's blurb that came to this reviewer with
the book noted that `we offer a fast service to our
authors camera-ready copy (prepared by the
author) to publication in four months'. This
speed apparently comes at a high price, literally
and figuratively, leading one to the conclusion
that there really is no substitute for independent
copy-editing. The book is marred by numerous
idiosyncracies in spacing and punctuation, as
well as many (presumably typographical) spelling errors and mix-ups producing new words
like the mysterious `assumeaphical' on page 26.
The reader's temper was not enhanced when
pages began to fall out due to poor binding.
Although abbreviations are supposedly listed,
some are omitted, so that a person unfamiliar
with the acronym PEP (as in `the PEP estates
project', p. 96) is baffled.
If the book were profusely illustrated one
might be inclined to forgive the price, but there
are no maps or graphics of any kind, and all data
are conveyed through tables. In this age of
desktop mapping and mouse-click statistical
graphing, a geography book lacking both
seems an oddity. High-speed publication is
apparently a boon to authors and publishers,
but book buyers can be left feeling like victims.
Keith Harries
University of Maryland Baltimore County

Gerrard, A.J. and Slater, T.R., editors, 1996:

Managing a conurbation: Birmingham and its
region. Studley, Warwickshire: Brewin Books.
xiv 326 pp. 19.95 paper. ISBN: 1 85858 083 8.
For geographers of a certain age, British Association regional handbooks are remembered as
valued sources of basic material for UK regional
studies during the 1950s and 1960s. They were
sponsored by the Association to mark its `Festivals of Science', still held in different universities
in AugustSeptember each year. One of the best,
although prepared in austerity conditions, was
the 1950 collection on `Birmingham and its

Book reviews 457

regional setting'. For 20 years or more it provided
the standard academic account of the region,
including aspects of its physical background, a
series of historical essays and some contemporary
studies of industrial, population, agricultural,
urban and subregional developments.
By the 1970s the BA subsidy had ended and,
as the current editors describe it, `the tradition of
regional scholarship which had lingered in most
geography departments was dead' (p. IX). Fortysix years on, with 27 other authors, they have
produced a volume for the 1996 BA visit to
Birmingham which, while not claiming to be a
regional handbook, reflects some of the work
based in the School of Geography at the University. Its theme is the consequences of the past half
century of change for the environment, population, economy and townscapes of the city.
Unfortunately, this theme remains largely
implicit. The 21 disparate chapters recall the
eclecticism of old-style regional compilations
without their often tight systematic organization.
The target audience appears mainly to be a local
and lay readership, and the clarity and simplicity
of individual chapters should appeal in this
context. Specialists on any of the issues covered
seeking information on Birmingham, might also
find something of value. What they will deduce
about the wider intellectual contribution of
geography in the 1990s may be less satisfactory.
Most chapters are basic accounts of local features
and events, with little attempt to make links
between them or to relate Birmingham's experience to that of other cities, or to wider debates,
for example on air pollution legislation, urban
wildlife conservation, ethnic assimilation, civic
boosterism, retail planning, or urban regeneration.
There are exceptions, including the chapters in
the first, `Environmental management', section
on water supply, including the development of
interbasin water transfer planning. This also
includes a full account of the environmental
impact assessment procedures associated with
the construction of the Birmingham airport link
pipeline. The second section, `People, economy
society', contains explanations of the economic
impacts of post-Fordism and lean production,
although the local evidence is slim and anecdotal. A chapter on ethnic patterns in 1991 contains
interesting historical and locational detail, but
makes few concessions to contemporary cultural
insights. Broader planning dilemmas are
represented by the impacts of Birmingham's
prestige urban regeneration projects, retail devel-

opments, and west midlands responses to the

national `City Challenge Initiative'.
The final section, on `Managing the built
environment', reflects a distinctive focus of
Birmingham research, in city and suburban
townscapes. There are also chapters on urban
conservation and on recreational management
which make some attempt to locate Birmingham
in a wider policy context.
The volume is copiously illustrated with maps,
graphs and black and white photographs. It has
a good index, although the bibliographies to
each chapter are of variable quality. At one level,
the book suggests that the editors are premature
in announcing the death of regional scholarship,
since many of the writers are obviously knowledgeable and closely involved in local issues. On
the other hand, there is little evidence of regional
scholarship directed towards synthesis, at a time
when both cultural and economic geography are
once more seeking the regional elixir of success
in a globalizing economy.
Peter Wood
University College London

Gould, K.A., Schnaiberg, A. and Weinberg, A.S.

1996: Local environmental struggles: citizen activism
in the treadmill of production. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. xv 239 pp. 40.00
(US $59.95) cloth, 14.95 (US$17.95) paper. ISBN:
0 521 55519 1 cloth, 0 521 55521 3 paper.
The challenge to `think global, act local' is
explicitly rejected in this book as an inadequate
response to the contemporary imperatives of
working towards sustainable development in a
period of increasing globalization of many
decision-making processes. Instead, the authors
argue the need to `mobilize extralocally, monitor
locally'.
Much of the argument of this book is
succinctly summarized in the first chapter
which provides a very good overview of the
literature in the area and the authors' contribution to it. Essentially, this contribution is to use
three sets of case studies to examine the barriers
to effective community engagement in local
environmental campaigns, how the very terms
of these debates can be set and manipulated
externally, and the limits of local activism in
isolation in fighting these external forces. The
main argument which flows from this is that
environmental groups need to link up to

458

Book reviews

national environmental groups and to learn to

work with (and within the mores of) state and
national environmental bodies if they are to
effect change. Emotional statements and appeals
to vague concepts like `local well-being' lose
arguments, whereas arguing on the narrow
technical (how many rare species are present
on a site?) and economic parameters set by
decision-making bodies is more likely to influence debates. This appears to be particularly
germane to the USA case where, the authors
argue, lack of staffing in the main environmental
protection agencies means that it is left to
community groups to engage in local monitoring
and lobbying if they are to preserve their local
environments.
If the first chapter is a splendid piece of
work, it has to be said that the quality falls off
quite quickly after that. The second chapter
provides an interesting enough account of local
attempts to protect wetlands against residential
intrusion, arguing coherently about the barriers
to citizen engagement, not least the personal toll
and financial bills which prolonged resistances
entail. Chapter 3 provides an uninspiring
account of why communities along the Great
Lakes have not been as actively anti-state as the
authors would like them to have been. This
could usefully have been half the length. The
basic argument is that there was differential
take-up of state-mandated community participation procedures, which were narrowly constructed. The fact that some communities
preferred jobs to environmental protection is
linked to the relative immobility of lower-paid
workers in particular and their dependence
therefore on local employers. The fourth chapter
involves an analysis of why economic considerations mean that corporate interests have backed
recycling campaigns, but not reuse initiatives
(e.g., refundable bottles), since one was a way of
creating new markets, while the other was
simply a way of adding to corporate costs.
Though quite plausible, the ways in which such
battles were fought and won are asserted rather
than proven in this analysis, which ties itself up
in all manner of arguments about use and
exchange values, a theme which also pervades
the other empirical chapters, only rarely adding
enlightenment. The final chapter summarizes
the three empirical chapters, reworks the first
chapter and throws in some new references
about transnational companies and models for
local environmental movements. Little new is
added in this synthesis.

My major criticism of this book is that while it

says that it wants to help communities understand how to mobilize themselves better, in the
empirical chapters in particular a peculiar form
of quasi-theoretical academic verbiage gets in the
way of the analysis, rather than adding to it.
Maybe my inability to relate to some of the
words is simply because the jargon is different
from that used by geographers and planners, but
I am doubtful of this, not least as terminologies
in the social sciences are increasingly shared.
Instead I got the strong sense of formula: no
matter whether relevant or not each chapter had
to digress on use and exchange values, decry the
`treadmill of production' and refer to growth
coalitions. Little of this served to take forward
the analysis and instead seemed to be designed
only to prove academic `worthiness'.
To summarize, this book has a splendid first
chapter which many people will find a useful
and provocative introduction to thinking about
local barriers to effective grassroots oppositional
strategies, specifically in the context of understanding those extralocal forces which are
mobilized against them, whether directly or
structurally. Only the most diligent or those
looking for case-study material in the area will
gain very much further insight from reading
beyond the first chapter, which reflects both the
high quality of this chapter and the rather lesser
quality of what follows.
Graham Haughton
Leeds Metropolitan University

Harris, R. 1996: Unplanned suburbs: Toronto's

American tragedy, 1900 to 1950. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press. xvi 362 pp. 33.00
cloth. ISBN: 0 8018 5142 4.
Richard Harris, in this exemplary study of the
historical geography of Toronto, explores the
development of working-class suburbs in the
first half of this century. The sequence of steps
that led to the book are traced in the preface. First,
Harris was perplexed to find a growing trend
toward home ownership in Toronto during a
period of stagnant, or even declining, income
levels. Secondly, he found that this boom in
ownership occurred among working-class households who were moving to the periphery of the
urban area, in many cases beyond the city
boundary and the reach of municipal services.
These were unexpected outcomes. After all, if

Book reviews 459

standard theories of the turn-of-the-century
North American city are right, there should not
have been working-class shack towns on the edge
of Toronto. Unskilled and semi-skilled workers
were supposed to have been confined to the inner
city, while suburbs were the emerging space of
middle-class comfort. The way these houses were
built presents another challenge to standard
representations of the early twentieth century:
who would have expected that the age of
corporate growth and the ascendance of standardized mass production was also a time when one
third of all houses in Toronto were self-built from
scratch, by blue-collar workers? Such a development hardly fits our image of the transition to
Fordism. Finally, if the `edge cities' of the early
twentieth century contained both planned
middle-class areas and unregulated workingclass areas, what should we make of all the
literature of the last decade proclaiming that a
`new', variegated suburban landscape is only
now emerging? The easy answer is that Toronto
was unique among North American cities, the
result of a peculiar cultural mix dominated by
recent immigrants from Britain. However, Harris
found a sufficient number of examples of selfbuilt working-class suburbs in other American
and Canadian cities to conclude that this type of
housing was, for approximately two decades,
pervasive (hence the subtitle of the book).
Several large questions provide structure to
Harris's analysis: were workers attracted to suburbs because large industries moved there first,
or vice versa? How important was the politicaladministrative process, especially the difference
between stringent regulations inside the city
boundary versus lax ones beyond it? What was
the relationship between the land development
and residential construction industries, and how
did it encourage suburban growth? And, finally,
why did the link between working-class selfbuilding and suburbanization, so strong until the
mid 1920s, break in the late 1920s? Each of these
questions is investigated empirically with the
combination of information sources now routinely used in urban historical geography: newspapers, tax rolls, city directories, building
permits, insurance atlases, company records,
and oral histories. But while the array of sources
may be familiar, Harris has mined them much
more fully and creatively than most. He is also
well aware of the biases associated with each
source and attempts, when possible, to compensate. To me, the most impressive aspect of the
book is Harris's determination to weigh up each

point in his argument by considering the quality

of evidence as well as alternative explanations.
This is `conservative' scholarship at its best, in the
sense of care not to overstate rather than political
orientation.
Harris is generally circumspect about the
politics and theories that underlie his work, but
a `gentle' Marxism is evident throughout the
book, most visible in the conceptual centrality of
class. Harris also pays attention to gender and
ethnicity too, but these rarely occupy centre
stage for long. There is an over-riding theme of
working-class choice within constraining circumstances, and the increasing reach of capital into
more aspects of daily life is offered as the
basic explanation for the growth and decline of
working-class suburbs.
Harris concludes by evaluating the problems
and benefits of unregulated suburban development and assessing the extent to which his
Toronto study can be generalized to other North
American cities. It seems to me that a crucial
question is left unasked, however: acknowledging the contingency and complexity shown here,
is a sociospatial theory of the early-twentiethcentury city possible? Harris's work hammers
yet another nail into the coffin of the zonal model
that has animated so much work in urban
geography. The human ecology perspective has
been so resilient because of its simplicity and
comprehensiveness. Above all, it provided a
conception of the interaction between immigration, ethnicity, class, and urban space and
showed that everything had a place and there
was a place for everything. The fact that the
theory also `confirmed' the American dream of
upward mobility only added to its appeal. No
subsequent theory of urban sociospatial structure
has been as ambitious or as popular. Marxists
have repeatedly tried to mount a theoretical
alternative to the Chicago school but have been
unable to articulate their well defined conception
of process with a coherent model of form. Given
Harris's wealth of knowledge, judiciousness,
and ability to write crisply, I would love to see
him attempt to contribute to this effort more
directly to, in effect, force the weighty theoretical issues from the subterranean level to the
surface of his analysis. There is no better place to
begin such an exercise than the work underlying
this excellent book.
Daniel Hiebert
University of British Columbia

460

Book reviews

Hoppe, G. and Langton, J. 1995: Peasantry to

capitalism: Western Ostergotland in the nineteenth
century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
xxii 460 pp. 50.00 cloth. ISBN: 0 521 25910 X.
Peasant societies have, in the past, been characteristic of the more fertile areas of the world, and
indeed also of some of the areas of marginal
productivity. They survive in areas of the
developed world and of the developing world.
Among their identifying features, as the authors
of this study indicate, are the family as a unit of
production and consumption and a high degree
of self-sufficiency and productive autonomy,
including complex subdivisions of labour. These
are complex societies, involving inter alia a mixture of cultivation, pastoral activities, property
management and tenure, and handicraft production. They exist often in an ecological balance
with natural resources, though occasionally that
balance is disturbed by uncertainties of natural
environment, producing a marked tendency
towards a conservative and internalizing
approach to resource management. All this is
in general contrast to the wealth and profitmaximizing system known as capitalism,
although there are some similarities.
Many major volumes have been devoted in the
past to the study of what was frequently seen,
sometimes in too simple terms, as the erosion of
peasant societies by the unrelenting and allpervasive advance of rural and urban capitalism.
This study by Hoppe and Langton ranks, in
many respects, with the major classics of the past
concerned with the dynamics of peasant
societies, and has much to add to them in
relation to its deep and complex analysis of the
theoretical basis of our understanding and its
rich and sophisticated use of documentary
evidence. Taking as their geographical basis of
study the two hundred Aska and Dahl in the
region of Western Ostergotland in Sweden from
181060, the authors examine in depth, in the
first two chapters, questions of the relationship
between peasant societies, economies and ecotypes, and economic development, problems and
possibilities of conceptualizing regional change,
including longitudinal studies, the relevance of
time geography, and concepts for a scheme of
regional change. Although, inevitably perhaps
(given the wealth of material), written in a tightly
argued and condensed style, these chapters
provide both a helpful and sophisticated basis
for the rest of the volume and for a broader
theoretical understanding of peasant societies.

The specific regional temporal and dynamic

contexts of the regional study are set in the third
chapter, which moves from a description of
Swedish agrarian society at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, to details of landownership
and farm structure in Western Ostergotland in
1810, and the general dynamics of change in the
period 181060. The data bases include various
types of land taxation registers. The fourth
chapter deals with agrarian livelihood positions,
projects and production structures, and includes
material on traditional farming systems, peasant
farms, estates, agrarian labour supply and demography, together with details of land use, crops,
farm implements and animal husbandry and the
dynamics of legislated structural changes such as
enclosure. One particularly interesting section is
concerned with land reclamation by the lowering
of lake levels in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries: the narrative here is, unfortunately,
highly condensed, and one would have liked
more detail. The fifth chapter, concerned with
industrial and urban livelihoods, is one of the
richest in the book, leading the reader from an
introductory analysis of nonagricultural livelihoods in Sweden before the nineteenth century
to specific details of the same for Aska and Dahl
in the period 181060. The latter includes an
important analysis of change in Vadstena and in
the development of Motola town after the
opening of the Gota canal in 1822.
The remainder of the book deals in successive
chapters, with: investment and money in agriculture; flows of labour; and (in conclusion)
peasants and others in the development of the
capitalist economy. The methodological and
theoretical assertions and implications of the last
chapter are of profound importance for the future
study of peasantries in a regional context. Not the
least of these is the `heavy variegation' of the
geographical patterns and processes in the
transition from peasant to capitalist farming:
`regional processes do not necessarily produce a
series of sharply juxtaposed slabs of territory . . .
because of the random effects of processes
operating at a smaller scale, and because a
number of regional processes operate simultaneously at different scales, each to some
extent confounding the outcome of others'
(pp. 39495).
This is unquestionably a major, innovative,
erudite and sophisticated study, which adds
much to the study of the transition from peasant
to capitalist farming, and related issues of
nonfarming and urban development. It should

Book reviews 461

change profoundly the way in which we look at
such issues in the future. As such, and with its
wealth of illustrative statistics and maps, it is a
worthy addition to the respected Cambridge
Studies in Historical Geography series.
Robin Butlin
University College of Ripon and York St John

Johnston, R. 1996: Nature, state and economy: a

political economy of the environment. Chichester:
Wiley. xiv 274 pp. 16.99 paper. ISBN:
0 471 9667 11.
In his Preface to the second edition of Nature,
state and economy, Ron Johnston feels vindicated
for the pessimistic tone of the first edition,
published in 1989 during a high point of green
awareness. Since then, not only have environmental issues been toppled from prominence on
political agendas, displaced by the momentum
of far-reaching political and economic transformations across the globe, but also those modest
gains made by environmentalists now face an
anti-environmental backlash fuelled by rightwing think tanks and corporate lobbying groups.
What enlightenment can Johnston offer to those
trying to negotiate, or just understand, the
shifting terrain of ecological politics?
The central aims and structure of the book
remain unchanged from the first edition to
explain: 1) the conditions leading to the production of environmental problems; and 2) the
constraints on collective action orientated to
solving, and preventing, such problems (pp. x,
30). An initial excursus on systems theory serves
to demonstrate that the great complexity and
interdependence of environmental systems
necessitate a co-ordinated, collective response to
environmental problems: Johnston then notes the
increasing frequency and magnitude of human
impacts on the environment, consistently (and
correctly) reminding us throughout the study
that environmental problems relate to the quality
of resource management rather than intervention
in environmental systems per se. Chapters 3 and 4
locate the structural causes of environmental
degradation in the global dominance of capitalism, understood as a crisis-laden mode of social
organization. According to Johnston, the
dynamic investmentprofit cycle characterizing
capitalist production implies an ever-increasing
appetite for environmental resources and production of waste, such that capitalism `cannot

sustain an equilibrium with its environment'

(p. 57). A typology of natural resources in
Chapter 5 allows him to map out the various
`environmental limits' thrown up by the unremitting commodification of nature, including the
generation of hazardous global externalities.
In the second half of the book Johnston explores
the environmental resonance of political institutions, drawing together, in an uneasy alliance,
ecological proponents of rational choice theory
(with its methodological individualism) and neoMarxist models of the capitalist state. Chapter 6,
which includes new material on regulatory and
market-based environmental policy (alongside
a discussion of international environmental
negotiations), finds liberal democracy seriously
deficient in this area tied as it is to supporting
the imperatives of capital accumulation. Within
civil society, environmental pressure groups
encounter major obstacles to convincing governments of the need for action, particularly for those
issues falling outside state boundaries and
extending temporally beyond short-term electoral cycles. Not surprisingly, then, Johnston is
inexorably drawn to a stark conclusion: `a
sustainable relationship between people and
nature is very unlikely to be achieved within the
political economy which now predominates in
almost all of the world' (p. 241). An engagement
with recent literature on sustainable development
only confirms this assessment, leading him
finally to recommend policies based on `prudent
pessimism' a precautionary strategy designed
to minimize environmental risks and bide time
for the future emergence of an ecologically sane
political alternative.
Updated, and with a more inclusive coverage
of environmental policy issues, Nature, state and
economy will continue to provide a very instructive overview for students, ranging across a range
of relevant sources. Johnston writes with his
characteristic succinctness and clarity, wisely
retaining the logical structure of the first edition.
As an introduction to a political economy
perspective on the environment one that
harbours progressive intentions it is sometimes
perplexing that Johnston seems to endorse
perspectives clearly at odds with his critical
stance; for example, on population control (p. 28),
a systems theoretical understanding of social
integration (p. 40) and the pernicious tragedy of
the commons thesis (p. 137). A more dialectical
argument would have problematized notions like
`carrying capacity' and `environmental limits', as
well as the nature/society duality itself, more

462

Book reviews

explicitly demonstrating the social production of

nature as mediated by capitalist labour processes
(Harvey, 1996: 18493). However, it would be
unreasonable to expect a text with clear pedagogic aims which necessarily entail simplifying
often complex theoretical positions to convey
the full academic depth of political economy.
What troubles me more is the political stance of
the book, retaining a traditional Marxist prejudice against democratic norms and freedoms,
combined with Johnston's endorsement of a
Hobbesian political philosophy. This results in
an inability to recognize, first, the variety of
struggles against environmental injustice
governed by nonclass forms of interest identification (such as the movement against environmental racism) and, secondly, the moral
resources for a radical democratic politics offered
by our normative self-understanding as citizens
bearing social and environmental rights. Without a normative theory of the state, as source of
democratic legitimacy (however imperfect in
practice), and a conception of politics as intersubjective understanding as much as strategic
action, our environmental options truly
represent the `reciprocity of coercion' (Habermas, 1996: 92) implied by rational choice theory.
If, in his discussion of collective action and the
state, Johnston had started with Kant instead of
Hobbes, then we might have been left with less
disabling political conclusions.
Michael Mason
University of North London
Habermas, J. 1996: Between facts and norms: contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Harvey, D. 1996: Justice, nature and the geography of
difference. Oxford: Blackwell.

King, G. 1996: Mapping reality: an exploration of

cultural cartographies. London: Macmillan. 216 pp.
37.50 cloth, 13.99 paper. ISBN: 0 333 64034 9
cloth, 0 333 64035 7 paper.
As a preface to this review, let me state that I
come to this book as a practitioner of
cartography and analyst of geographical
information. I hope that my reactions and
opinions about the book, however, are informed
by a critical and academic reading of these
subjects and beyond.
The book is divided into eight chapters, each to
some extent an essay in itself, but each building a

complete argument. The principal theme set out

clearly in the first chapter is that no one preparing
a map implements a purely objective science.
Any map is the product of a number of factors
including the culture of the observer, which is the
principal subject of this book. Of course there is
no single observer, but rather a multiplicity of
actors including the surveyor or observer in the
field and the cartographer, as well as the mapreader. All these people bring cultural baggage
with them from their own background and
personality which are imposed on the information, the map and their understanding of the
map. Geoff King makes the case for this very well
with reference to fictional, philosophical and
scientific literature. The idea is encapsulated in
the heading of the first chapter `The map that
precedes the territory'.
One of the critical minds behind the opinions
expressed in the book is that of Jean Baudrillard,
and his postmodern interpretation of reality and
its lack. Particularly influential has been his
analysis of the unreality or hyper-reality of the
Gulf war, and its televisual media circus which
defies the bounds of reality. That work is,
however, quoted here with circumspection,
drawing convincingly and appropriately on the
key points, not on the whole.
In later chapters the principal theme becomes
removed from the map as an artifact. The case is
made for the map being a pre-existing cultural
construct, and it does not mean the map as an
artifact or even the intention of creating the
artifact, but rather the organization, and understanding of, space. This is also culturally predetermined in each of us. The author urges an
understanding of this pre-determination, not
that there is anything bad about it or that we
can do anything about it once we have recognized it. Rather the improved understanding,
which can come from recognition, would perhaps improve communication between individuals and societies.
I found the first parts of this book interesting
and balanced. It makes many pertinent points
which are of considerable importance, but all too
often ignored. I found that the theme was well
set out at the beginning, but that the argument
lagged by the later chapters; it was being
laboured and the material spread thin. These
later chapters still contain much interesting and
pertinent information, however.
On one level, therefore, Mapping reality is really
about the reality of mapping. The premise of the
work is that we as people do not map what is

Book reviews 463

there, but rather what we want to see there. Thus
the view of cartography as an objective science is
attacked and, supposedly, placed on the defensive. I find it astonishing, however, that anyone
finds this surprising, and that an author needs to
write a book on this topic. I did not find any novel
understandings in the narrative of the text.
Indeed, I felt patronized by the tone of that
narrative in many places, although I may have
been overly defensive in my reading. Perhaps I
am unusual among practitioners of cartographic
theory, and that the arguments presented here do
need to be stated. Perhaps the message is for the
noncartographer who may actually believe the
opinion that cartography is an objective science,
and that a map shows what is on the ground as
an objective view of reality.
Who then is the target of this book? Is it the
cartographic community, or is it the wider public
of undergraduates using and exploring mapped
information or even those simply considering
different views of the world? If the first, then
many there too would share my reaction, but if
the others then I agree with the need for books
such as this.
In spite of the lengthy bibliography as evidence
of extensive reading on the part of the author, I
found that a profound shortcoming of the book is
the lack of reading in any critical cartographic
literature. The critical approach taken in this text
is mirrored in many others of recent years. Thus:
. Wood (1992) has articulated much the same
set of ideas as those presented here, although
using very different words and arguments,
but is not cited at all in this book;
. aspects of the work with respect to the underlying theme of mapping being a statement of
ownership are the final chapters of Hall's
(1992) wide-ranging and informative book;
. the importance of Columbus to LatinoAmerican consciousness and the impact of
the Vinland map are very extensively dealt
with by Zerubavel (1992), among others;
. part of the argument in this book relies on an
examination of the native American mapping
of the world but, while references are made to
the anthropological literature on the subject,
the cartographic references, such as the
contribution of Malcolm Lewis, are not
included;
. a book, which includes a chapter entitled
`Deconstructing the map' and which uses the
phrase in broadly the same sense as Harley
(1989) in his seminal article of much the same

title, but which omits any reference to that

article, cannot have a complete bibliography,
and cannot be regarded as particularly well
researched; and
. finally, a book of this general title, which
includes only one reference by Harley, has
missed some extremely pertinent and very
rich material.
Any one omission in this list would not be a
problem, but the author seems to have failed to
engage the cartographic literature and method
which it sets out to critique.
A bonus for the book is the extensive use of
fictional writings by a host of authors all stating
the role of mapping in its different forms in the
creation of familiar spaces. The quotes are
pertinent, amusing and thoughtfully selected,
providing a linking theme throughout the text.
In short, the book is an interesting read and I,
for one, enjoyed it. As a set of essays it is competent and covers much interesting information
but, although the references are extensive, much
which is pertinent is missed. Furthermore, this is
only one of a number of books which address
similar issues and, although it is an interesting
addition, I did not find that it stands out from
the crowd.
Peter Fisher
University of Leicester
Hall, S.S. 1992: Mapping the next millennium. New
York: Random House.
Harley, J.B. 1989: Deconstructing maps. Cartographica 26, 120.
Wood, D. 1992: The power of maps. New York:
Guilford.
Zerubavel, E. 1992: Terra incognita: the mental
discovery of America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.

Lutz, H., Phoenix, A. and Yuval-Davis, N., editors,

1995: Crossres: nationalism, racism and gender in
Europe. London: Pluto Press. xi 196 pp. 45.00
cloth, 14.95 paper. ISBN: 0 7453 0994 1 cloth,
0 7453 0995 X paper.
An elderly woman with tears in her eyes hugs a
man in military uniform (most likely a son) who
has his back to a camera. This cover picture is
probably depicting an all too common situation
among the warring Republics of ex-Yugoslavia.

464

Book reviews

The editors argue that it is time to interrogate the

new nationalisms and racisms within Europe
which was the theme of the conference held by
the European Forum of Left Feminists in
Amsterdam in 1993. It is not just that nationalism
and racism find a common ground but that racial
exclusion becomes central to the nationalist
symbolic order. What is new is that in western
European states, ethnic minorities have been able
to demand rights but that in many eastern
European states, the new minorities, often composed of the previously dominant groups, have
been denied rights and excluded from citizenship. Violent exclusion too is increasingly a
hallmark of the new nationalism, especially in
eastern Europe.
The new nationalism is more concerned with
defending notions of home, space and territory.
Philomena Essed points out that there has been a
shift from Eurocentrism, a discourse of European
superiority and dominance, to Europism, which
is the defensive discourse of constructing a pure
Europe free of all foreign and unclean elements
in its territory. This applies as much to western
Europe and goes well beyond an ideological
construction, encapsulating a body of legislation
of which the objective is to close borders against
refugees and immigrants.
Crossfires is a most apt title for the book. It
expresses the multiple positions and positionings
which women convey in nations and nationalist
struggles. They have been caught physically and
symbolically in ethnic, nationalist and racial
conflicts. They are divided in their attitudes
and are positioned on different sides. They can
fire the weapons, including verbal, used in
conflicts, or be the victims of atrocities. They
can be silent watchers or speak up against
involvement in war and racist violence.
In its broad, though by no means comprehensive, European coverage this volume takes
forward current discussions about sexism,
racism and nationalism, especially in relation to
everyday racism and national identity. Overall,
the book succeeds in balancing general discussions and empirical studies. An example of this
is Ann Phoenix's discussion of her survey of
young Londoners and how they construct
national identities and position themselves in
relation to others.
The book covers a wide range of case studies,
including chapters on Russia (Kosmarskaya),
Germany (Rathzel, Wobbe) and ex-Yugoslavia
(Zarkov, Djuric), and what Europeans can learn
from anti-racist struggles in the USA (Wekker). It

highlights different positionings and divisions

among women as well as the heterogeniety of
racialized minorities and targets of racism
refugees, migrants, gypsies and Jews. In contrast,
nationalism tries to suppress internal difference
and create a sense of belonging across gender
and class lines and around newly constructed
ethnicized and racialized boundaries. Nationalism may seek to do this through new sociosexual
regimes which reinforce sexual divisions and
control reproduction within and between
groups.
Combining studies of everyday racism in
western European societies with the more
dramatic forms of ethnic cleansing in eastern
Europe shows how antagonisms can be quickly
mobilized. The two chapters on Germany
emphasize the role of racism in differentiating
and distancing communities. Vulnerability and
the power to violate bodies, especially those of
women, set apart dominant and subordinate
groups. In narratives of rape the foreigner is
constructed as the rapist who inflicts violence
upon German women. Rape too, as in the ethnic
cleansing in Yugoslavia, is used to police the
purity of the dominant group, and ensure that
social boundaries remain fixed, as incidents of
attempted rape of Vietnamese women by young
far-right activists show. Wobbe argues that we
need to make the links between gender relations,
the construction of the community and racist
violence to understand how racism forms such a
stable part of everyday life in Germany.
Another theme in the book is coalitionbuilding, which in some instances has occurred
against all odds. Solidarity and co-operation still
manage to exist between women of the former
Yugoslavia, yet they are rarely mentioned
because they contradict the usual images of
hatred and war. In western Europe cross-ethnic
networking has also taken place. Several chapters address women's position in the new eastern
Europe. The authors of the two chapters on the
disintegration of Yugoslavia situate its implications for women in a wider context of economic
and political change (Djuric) and the presentation of an eternal ethnic hatred within an
orientalized Balkans (Zarkov). They consider
that women's social position has deteriorated
markedly with the militarization of society, their
greater political marginalization and worsening
economic situation. Economic restructuring has
also hit women badly in Russia, especially
among migrants and refugees, but the study of
gender and ethnicity are as yet terra incognita.

Book reviews 465

Yet women may be divided and prioritize the
struggle against different `isms'. There are thus
no simplistic answers to how we work to
counteract racism. The contributors argue for
an inclusive politics that recognizes differences
and the interplay between sexism and racism.
Wekker suggests it is not possible for feminists to
adopt Virginia Woolf's oft-quoted, and seemingly attractive, phrase `As a woman I have no
country. As a woman I want no country. As a
woman my country is the whole world'. It
assumes the ability to stand aloof from issues of
nationalism and confers a privileged status of
belonging that cannot be assumed by women of
third-world origin in Europe. Mainstream feminism has not yet come to terms with the racism
and nationalism thriving within it. This book
opens up these issues and discusses ways in
which we can achieve a better understanding of
gender, nationalism and racism in eastern and
western Europe.
Eleonore Kofman
Nottingham Trent University

MacKenzie, J.M., editor, 1996: David Livingstone

and the Victorian encounter with Africa. London:
National Portrait Gallery. 240 pp. 22.00 cloth.
ISBN: 1 85514 177 9.
Edmonds, J., editor, 1996: Philip's atlas of exploration. London: Reed Books. 248 pp. 19.99 cloth.
ISBN: 0 540 06191 3.
The role of the nineteenth-century explorers of
Africa in promoting the subsequent colonial division of the continent has been reassessed in
recent historiography, with implications for our
understanding of the historical and political
geography of the continent. Nevertheless, longstanding interpretations die hard. Just as the
Berlin Congress of 188485 is sometimes
erroneously seen as having been convened by
Bismarck for the purpose of carving up Africa
among the European powers (Hargreaves, 1984),
so the major precolonial explorers of the interior
of Africa are sometimes still seen as part of a
continuous historical process which culminated
in colonialism. The diverse and often complex
motives of the major figures in the opening up of
Africa to European eyes are more properly
encapsulated in such recently coined phrases as
`the unofficial mind of imperialism' and `gentlemanly capitalism', phrases not intended to

include the explicit objective of the assumption

of authority over African territory by European
governments. The exhibition entitled David
Livingstone and the Victorian encounter, at the
National Portrait Galleries in London and
Edinburgh in 1996, explored some of these complexities in the circumstances and mind of
perhaps the most influential of the nineteenthcentury African explorers. The accompanying
volume of essays may not be entirely devoted to
new research, but it provides an admirably
accessible insight into the motivation and beliefs
which drove Livingstone to his death. As the title
implies, it takes account of recent thinking about
the ideological issues which were raised by
European interference in precolonial Africa in
the context of Victorian attitudes and values.
The volume contains six essays, the first and
longest consisting of a summary biographical
account of Livingstone's travels. Thereafter, the
nineteenth-century ethical concept of self-help is
explored both in the Scottish context of Livingstone's early years and in the context of his conduct in Africa, that is, the concept of the capacity
to function independently, with dignity and
without deference. The way in which midVictorian Britain received and interpreted the
reports of explorers and the response of governments to explorers such as Livingstone is
analysed in the third chapter. This is a significant
subject in the context of any contention of a
causal link between the work of the explorers and
the advent of colonialism, since Livingstone's
reputation was to withstand both the imposition
of colonial rule and its demise. The exhibition
itself brought together a quite remarkable wealth
of exhibits and many of them are illustrated in
the volume of essays. Hence, the fourth chapter
describes the artifacts collected by Livingstone
during the course of his travels, as further
evidence of Victorian attitudes to Africa and the
manner in which Livingstone sought to influence
those attitudes. Following this, the chapter on
the visual images created around Livingstone
makes the case for the creation of myths to suit
the purposes of the artist and photographer. This
is a case which will be familiar to historians of
cartography, where maps are seen as the means
to legitimize events on the ground, as in the most
recent interpretation of the Great Trigonometrical
Survey of India (Edney, 1997). In the final
chapter, the advisory editor, Professor John
MacKenzie succinctly interprets the influence of
the myth of Livingstone on the map of Africa.
Livingstone's reputation was both manufactured

466

Book reviews

and manipulated by his successors. Its durability

is remarkable, as is evident from the interest in
the exhibition.
The obvious similarity between Livingstone and
the Victorian encounter and Philip's atlas of exploration is the very high quality of the illustrations,
which form a substantial part of both books. Selfevidently, the latter is not an atlas in the
traditional sense of a bound volume of maps
with an index. There is as much text as illustration
and less space is devoted to maps than to other
illustrations, although comparison of both text
and illustration suggests that the atlas is, in effect,
a revised edition of an earlier work (Keay, 1991).
In the absence of an Introduction to the atlas,
its objectives are not explicit. The dust jacket
states that it is an authoritative reference to the
history of exploration over more than 3000 years.
The breadth of the subject matter is confirmed by
the Contents page, which divide the work into
10 sections. A first section deals with exploration
in Europe, Asia and Africa up to the fifteenth
century. Thereafter, the landward areas of the
world are divided into seven continental or subcontinental sections, followed by a section on the
oceans, a global view of exploration as it is
practised today, a section containing very brief
biographies of explorers and a time chart of
exploration.
The format which is adopted is a two-page
spread for selected topics. Thus, Livingstone is
summarized in less than 1000 words, a map and
four pictures. Brevity did not prevent an unfortunate error for an atlas, in stating that Kuruman
is in Botswana. Inevitably, such short accounts
are descriptive rather than analytical. The volume
has limited reference value in providing summary factual details of who went where and
when, with brief mention of intentions. For an
understanding of the origins and consequences
of the greatest era of exploration, Livingstone and
the Victorian encounter has more to offer.
Jeffrey C. Stone
University of Aberdeen
Edney, M.H. 1997: Mapping an empire. The geographical construction of British India. 17651843,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hargreaves, J.D. 1984: The Berlin West Africa
conference. A timely centenary. History Today
34, 1622.
Keay, J. 1991: The Royal Geographical Society history
of world exploration, London: Hamlyn.

Mitchell, W.J. 1996: City of bits: space, place and the

infobahn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. vi 226 pp.
18.95 cloth, 8.50 paper. ISBN: 0 262 13309 1
cloth, 0 262 63176 8 paper.
In City of Bits, William Mitchell (or, as he prefers,
wjm@mit.edu) seeks to scrutinize the changing
relationship between the virtual communities of
cyberspace and the `real' spaces of the city, with
physical worlds increasingly superseded by
electronically mediated worlds of co-operation
and competition. In doing so, he follows a
speculative line of flight that celebrates the
possibility of disembodied communication creating new virtual spaces electronic agoras in
which existing notions of identify and subjectivity can be negotiated, subverted and recast.
Freed from the tyrannies of the divided `spatial
city', Mitchell postulates that this anti-spatial
realm will be one in which net-users will be
able to transcend the need for physical proximity
or face-to-face contact to form meaningful
relationships or `communities'. Citing multiuser dungeons, electronic discussion boards
and Internet dating sites as the precursors of
more inclusive and participatory cyberspaces to
come, he suggests that the possibility of individuals to `participate' in the informational
society irrespective of gender, race or location
posits a fundamental challenge to the assumption that social boundaries are, to some extent,
constructed and maintained through spatial
ones.
While not an original argument speculation
about the liberating potential of the `information
superhighway' appears to be an inescapable part
of the media's attempts to whip up premillennium tension Mitchell makes extensive
reference to situations where the digital telecommunications revolution has already changed
the nature of urban life to support his arguments
in a lucid and frequently entertaining way. For
example, referring to his own architectural
teaching experiences, Mitchell explains how
he is able to hold seminars and tutorials which
simultaneously involve students from Cambridge and Singapore without leaving his office
as technology opens up the possibility of
teaching in virtual rather than physical settings.
Similarly, he highlights the way his university
library is switching to electronic journal subscription, allowing instantaneous access to
library resources across campus and making in
the process overcrowded and noisy reading
rooms a thing of the past. As the information

Book reviews 467

business changes, Mitchell thus argues that it is
its most familiar urban manifestations (libraries,
bookshops, newsagents) that will be most
radically altered, and perhaps by way of
emphasizing this he highlights the fact that
an online version of this book is freely accessible
on the World Wide Web (located at http://
www.mitpress.mit.edu/City of Bits/).
Elsewhere, Mitchell demonstrates that it is not only
the information-saturated world of education
that is being transformed by the infobahn, with
established spaces of leisure, shopping, banking
and even hospitals and prisons appearing
increasing anachronistic as established correlations between architectural form and function
dissolve.
In essence, then, Mitchell is merely another in
the long line of futurologists and cyber-flaneurs
documenting a seemingly inevitable transition to
a post-urban age where multisensory mediated
experience is seen as increasingly quotidian, and
telepresence is no longer distinguishable from
presence. Yet, in his rush excitedly to herald this
Utopian vision of electronic global interaction,
Mitchell appears loathe to problematize the
fuzzy relationships between materiality and
representation, between virtual and `concrete'
space, and hence misses a chance to contribute to
wider debates on the nature of cyberspatiality.
Although it is ostensibly informed by geographical inquiry and is consequently replete with
spatial metaphors the Internet as panopticon,
cyberspace as frontier, websites as neighbourhoods these are deployed haphazardly, and
engagement with contemporary geographical
debates on the production of space is conspicuously lacking. From a geographer's perspective,
this is one of the less satisfactory aspects of an
admittedly thought-provoking and entertaining
book. Indeed, the very appropriateness of
imagining cyberspace as a city (the `city of bits'
of the title) is never rigorously explored and, in
the absence of such an exploration, the use of this
metaphor itself might be regarded as unhelpful
for conceptualizing the nature of telemediated
social interactions. Moreover, it could easily be
argued that the central thesis that new forms
of electronic communication are facilitating new
forms of social interactions seems to be little
more than an contemporary reworking of
Marshall McLuhan's 1960s writings prophesizing the advent of a global village characterized
by `neotribal' communication.
Nonetheless, as a primer for those seeking to
understand how electronic communication will

facilitate new types of data transfer and, indeed,

change the nature of communication itself, there
is much to commend this slim volume. Useful
cross-referencing in the notes (and direct links in
the online version) to a variety of pertinent
websites encourages newcomers to explore the
potentials of the Internet, and the generally
accessible tone makes it ideal for undergraduate
teaching. Beyond this, though, it is rather
disappointing that there is little reference to
pertinent geographic debates here and, ironically, for many readers this may appear an
intensely parochial book. Certainly, for the
affluent, white USA `netizens' who occupy the
majority of Mitchell's cyberspace, the Internet
has no doubt opened new leisure, business and
relationship opportunities. Yet, for the majority
of the population of the urban west, not to
mention the third world, informational exclusion
is just another form of marginalization compounding their perilous social and financial
status. Mitchell seems to regard affordable,
inclusive participation in cyberspace as an
essentially technical matter and, in the final
analysis, it is this technologically determinist
stance that leads him to gloss over the complex
specificities of how contemporary urban social
processes might be affected by telemediation.
Phil Hubbard
Coventry University

Openshaw, S. and Openshaw, C. 1997: Articial

intelligence in geography. Chichester: Wiley.
xviii 336 pp. 45.00 cloth. ISBN: 0 471 96991 5.
For over two decades Stan Openshaw has
enjoyed a solid international reputation as the
enfant terrible of quantitative geography. Over
the years through both his work and personal
style he has annoyed, intrigued, outraged,
delighted, shocked, inspired, embarrassed, entertained, irritated, enlightened, infuriated, educated, and insulted other geographers of both
the quantitative and nonquantitative persuasion.
Some of his writings are `must-read' classics,
while others are highly controversial. His conference presentations are usually packed by people
who leave the room muttering but keep coming
back for more, because behind the hype and the
deliberate disdain for conventions there are
usually nuggets of original thought and insight
to be found. So when I was approached by
Progress in Human Geography to review this book,

468

Book reviews

I eagerly welcomed the opportunity for a substantial new piece of Openshaw experience. Alas.
Take the above list of verbs and throw every
second one away. This proved a hard review to
write. I know others who may be approaching
this same task with glee. I feel only regret that
the book in its current form was published, as a
different one covering similar subject matter
could have been very valuable indeed.
The book is divided into 10 chapters. Beside
the introductory and concluding ones, and a
second one on the history of artificial intelligence,
there are seven chapters covering a number of AI
approaches and techniques with examples from
applications in geography: heuristic search;
expert systems and knowledge-based systems;
neural nets and their applications; evolutionary
computation and genetic algorithms and programming; artificial life; and fuzzy systems and
logic. So far, so good. Some of these techniques
indeed offer interesting alternatives to mainstream methods of data analysis and problem
solving, while others allow problems to be
formulated in genuinely novel ways. Most of
them have been around for quite some time, and
I share the authors' view that geography could
benefit from their more widespread adoption.
So what is wrong? Pretty much everything
else, I'm afraid. Namely, the book production,
the style, the presentation of the material, the line
of argument, the philosophy, the scholarship
especially the scholarship. There is no space in this
review to linger on the numerous typographical
and spelling errors, misspelled technical terms
and proper names or the figures that don't show
what the caption says. The overuse of exclamation marks would have been a mere irritation
had it not pointed to a more substantive problem
of style the alternating tone of hard salesmanship (`try it, you'll like it!') and polemic against
the rest of us methodologically challenged nonbelievers that permeates the book. More disturbing still is the very uneven quality of the
presentation of the material, the neglect of every
aspect of geographic research other than datadriven problem solving, and the over-referencing
of the authors' work (close to half the references
in some chapters), while many landmark contributions from other geographers (e.g., Peter
Burrough's or Peter Fisher's work with fuzzy
systems, Terry Smith's with knowledge-based
systems, Roger White's or Denise Pumain's with
cellular automata), are left unacknowledged.
Equally disturbing is the oft-repeated claim that
one of the nicest things about AI is that it is

`philosophy-free'. This is of course patently false.

Besides the radical empiricism underlying
strongly data-driven approaches, and the pragmatism of setting practical problem-solving
efficiency as the paramount goal in research, AI
itself has generated a very substantial literature
of philosophical and other reflective writings
over the years probing the assumptions and
implications of computation as a paradigm for
understanding the world (and the mind) as process. Finally, for all the drumbeats heralding the
dawn of a new, AI-based millennium in geography, the argument has a quaintly outdated feel
to it. AI as the shape of things to come? Isn't that
the approach that had its heyday in the sixties
and seventies, and is now most readily associated with smart toasters and industrial robots?
In a sense, AI has been so successful that its
numerous applications have permeated everyday life. But it has also badly failed to deliver its
promises to solve problems involving higherlevel intelligent behaviour, and has lost much of
its lustre both within academia and outside. Of
course, people do interesting work with computational methods such as neural nets and genetic
algorithms and cellular automata, but they
usually do not call that AI.
In summary, the book is about a set of techniques that can be very useful when properly
understood and applied, and that deserves to be
more widely known and used in geography. The
Openshaws must take credit for being the first to
think of putting them between two covers for the
edification of young geographers; and yet I hope
that not too many of these young geographers
(or their instructors, or the instructors' colleagues
from other disciplines) will find out about this
particular book.
Helen Couclelis
University of California, Santa Barbara

Perry, M., Kong, L. and Yeoh, B. 1997: Singapore: a

developmental city state. Chichester: Wiley.
xviii 344 pp. 45.00 cloth. ISBN: 0 471 97190 1.
Another one in the John Wiley world cities
series, this study of the independent city state of
Singapore perhaps fits the theme more than
some others. Indeed, the first chapter sketches
out global processes and how Singapore as a
developmental state positions itself to them. It
sets out the tone of the volume and in this and
subsequent chapters; the goal of Singapore as a

Book reviews 469

world city for now and the future is never
lost.
The main body of the book consists of eight
chapters, which cover history and legacy, government and politics, population, economic growth,
land use and communications, planning and
environment, housing environment, urban conservation and heritage management. In these
chapters, the evolution of Singapore from a
colonial entrepot to an independent exportoriented manufacturing centre and the present
multifunctional world city with growing regional
links, is traced with plenty of facts, figures and
illustrations. In fact, the book has much to offer
by way of clear and large-scale maps, photos and
recent data. Notwithstanding the book being
written by three authors, it is well integrated and
runs smoothly from one subject to another.
This is particularly helped by repeated crossreferencing of subject matter between chapters.
The pursuit of rapid economic growth in
Singapore since independence in 1965 has been
at the cost of some individual freedoms. The
authors are perfectly honest and open about this
and cite from official and other sources to reveal
the present status. The progression from a `controlled democracy' to an `illiberal democracy' is
portrayed. Similarly, the swings in government
population policy from anti- to pro-natal priorities are systematically documented. The foundations of social eugenics as practised since the
1980s are also discussed.
Being a small city state, one of Singapore's
greatest strengths is the ability to plan and manage environments extremely well. This intensively planned environment pertains equally to
land use, physical planning, housing and urban
conservation. In all, the reader is left with the
distinct impression that the guiding hand of the
government is strong and participation from
ordinary citizens and nongovernmental organizations has, until recently, been rather weak. The
debate on urban conservation for whom locals
or tourists is especially refreshing.
In going through the impressive economic and
physical transformation of Singapore, the reader
cannot help but marvel at how lucky Singaporeans are. They earn among the highest incomes
in the world, afford comfortable and modern
homes, live in a well planned and managed
environment, and have a caring and elected
government. The Transitional Rental Housing
Scheme (p. 246) is an example of how caring the
Singapore government is. Yet dilemmas and
challenges abound in some sectors and migra-

tion outflow of professionals was serious in the

1980s.
There is no doubt, however, that Singapore is
moving towards its target of being a world city.
Technology is a critical vehicle to enhance functions and roles in this regard. This is the basis of
planning Singapore as an `intelligent island' and
its growing regional links within the Asia-Pacific
region. The Suzhou industrial township project
in China, the Bangalore Information Technology
Park, and Singapore-Vietnam Industrial Park
outside Ho Chi Minh City are examples of joint
ventures beyond Singapore's immediate shores.
Closer to home is the SIJORI (Singapore-JohorRiau) growth triangle, with the co-operation of
neighbouring territories and governments in
Indonesia and Malaysia, reflecting a restructuring of Singapore's economic role in the late 1980s.
Singapore looks confidently and justifiably
towards a bright future in the new millennium.
Called `The next lap', the concluding chapter
projects Singapore's future on the basis of the
government vision announced in 1991, buttressed by the Revised Concept Plan also
released in the same year. Singapore aspires to
be a fully developed city of excellence in the
early decades of the twenty-first century.
Singapore is a handsome volume, well produced and lucidly written. It is relatively free
from typographical errors, with only a few that
escaped attention, however the first two grades
of Figure 2.2 are indistinguishable and McGee's
reference is dated 1976, not 1972. Some important, albeit old, publications such as those by Ooi
and Chiang (1969) and Yeh (1975) should merit
citing in the relevant subjects. These are nothing
but a few blemishes which detract little from the
worth of the book.
This is a welcome addition to the growing
literature on world cities. It has successfully and
faithfully presented a transformation of the
premier city in southeast Asia. Singapore is a
model of sound urban planning and management and a city of tomorrow, which offers much
for other cities seeking a similar trajectory of
rapid economic growth and social engineering.
Yue-man Yeung
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Ooi, J.B. and Chiang, H.D., editors, 1969: Modern
Singapore. Singapore: University of Singapore.
Yeh, S.H.K., editor, 1975: Public housing in Singapore: A multi-disciplinary study. Singapore: Singapore University Press.

470

Book reviews

Rigg, J. 1997: Southeast Asia: the human landscape

of modernization and development. London: Routledge. xxvi 326 pp. 45.00 cloth, 14.99 paper.
ISBN: 0 415 13920 1 cloth, 0 415 13921 X paper.
At some stage during the gestation period for
this book, Jonathan Rigg has read some of
Arturo Escobar's recent work (Escobar, 1995a;
1995b) and, quite clearly, has reacted very
strongly against his underlying notion and
vision of `post-developmentalism'. Whether the
reaction is influenced by Jonathan Rigg's identity
as a leading southeast Asianist who ploughs his
furrow in the field of development geography, or
whether it is based upon a profound philosophical disagreement over the contribution of
development, or both, it is clear that his unease
with the postdevelopmentalist perspective has
coloured if not the content then at least the argument around which Southeast Asia: the human
landscape of modernization and development has
been structured. This is a little unfortunate,
because, on reading the conclusion `Chasing
the Wind' one leaves the book with a rather
different impression, and in an entirely different
realm, from that which has been carefully
nurtured and formed by some remarkably
thorough and well informed contextual exposition.
The central proposition is that `development
as modernization' has contributed far more
to the improvement of people's lives and
livelihoods in southeast Asia than it is given
credit for by those who position themselves
against orthodox development, and who view
the development process from a rather conventional perspective. This does not mean that the
many problems and disadvantages that modernization itself generates: inequality, environmental degradation, cultural erosion, social
disharmony or insecurity are overlooked or
downplayed, far from it. But the many achievements of development, most particularly in the
very areas and realms where critics first start
looking for evidence of its failures, are used as
quite a persuasive argument against the need for
an `alternative to development', as postdevelopmentalists claim, as opposed to `alternative
forms of development' as most realists, including Rigg, would propose.
Whilst conceding the need for improvement
and change in the modus operandi of development, he nonetheless on balance puts a fairly
positive and optimistic gloss on its achievements.
Doubtless he may presently be ruing the fact that

southeast Asia's current financial crisis has

broken so soon after the book's publication. The
region's economic, and soon-to-become social
and political, turmoil has seriously tarnished the
gloss and dampened the hype surrounding the
supposed economic `miracle'. Perhaps, with
the benefit of hindsight, he might have been a
little more circumspect in his optimistic judgement and prognostication, although the passage
of time may yet prove Rigg to be correct.
Southeast Asia: the human landscape of modernization and development is a regional development
geography which, as we have seen, has sought to
engage current debates about the meaning and
direction of development. As such, and also
because it includes a good amount of reference
to the region's former socialist states, it is a significant advance on Rigg's previous geography
of the region (Rigg, 1991). Its real strength lies in
the way it seeks to peer into the lives of the
excluded and the deprived in order to understand what the experience of development and
change has meant for ordinary citizens. It asks
what `development' and `poverty' mean to the
people themselves. In the process it delves well
beyond economism into the realms of religion
and culture, informed, as always, by the sharpness, depth and perceptiveness of an area
specialist who, whilst being outside the societies
in question, has nonetheless managed to achieve
a significant degree of contextual immersion.
In exploring `the geography of exclusion', Rigg
examines the experiences of prostitutes, garbage
pickers, guest workers and refugees, and upland
minorities. In the quite original section on new
`urban' and `rural' worlds, Rigg shows how
intensifying degrees of ruralurban interaction
have served to blur conventional classifications
to such a degree that their formal differentiation
becomes meaningless, not least in the mind's eye
of the citizens themselves. Thus, the countryside
is no longer (if it ever was) the predominant
domain of the farmer: Rigg shows both how and
why the development of the nonfarm sector,
(and especially the process of `rural industrialization'), has significantly altered the nature and
orientation of the rural economy and society.
Farmers are depicted as being often `too busy to
farm'. The principal source of ruralurban interaction, migration, has similarly affected not just
the countryside but also the southeast Asian city,
where large numbers of people, women especially, have, for better and for worse, been drawn
into the factory world. The southeast Asian
world is (or at least was) rapidly changing; the

Book reviews 471

challenge, then, is for development scholarship
to catch up with development realities.
The heart of Southeast Asia: the human landscape
of modernization and development lies in the
exploration and exposition of the complex and
contextualized realities which lie beneath and
beyond the rather superficial view which Eurocentric, abstract or simplistic perspectives typically portray. As such, the volume will be of
considerable value to the student of southeast
Asian development, and of development geography more broadly and, at the same time, it makes
a useful addition to a rapidly growing literature
on this most eye-catching and challenging part of
the world. It is just a little unfortunate that the
sentiments expressed in the final chapter
thought- and reaction-provoking though they
are tend to draw the reader's attention away
from, and indeed create a misleading impression
of, the central focus and contribution of the book
as a whole. Perhaps a second edition is called for,
with a revised concluding chapter giving less
credence and attention to the extreme postdevelopmental perspective, and instead focusing
on how alternative forms of development might
be framed, promoted and implemented.
Mike Parnwell
University of Hull
Escobar, A. 1995a: Encountering development: the
making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton
University Press.
1995b: `Imagining a post-development era. In
Crush, J., editor, Power of Development, London:
Routledge, 21127.
Rigg, J. 1991: Southeast Asia: a region in transition.
London: Unwin Hyman.

Schoenberger, E. 1997: The cultural crisis of the

rm. Cambridge, MA and Oxford: Blackwell.
x 262 pp. 50.00 cloth, 14.99 paper. ISBN: 1
55786 6376 cloth, 1 55786 6384 paper.
In The cultural crisis of the firm, Erica Schoenberger
has produced a thoughtful and accessible book
that begins to address the much neglected question of why firms get it wrong (and sometimes
disastrously wrong) when they try to respond to
change in their operational environments. The
traumas of getting it wrong have been only too
apparent at the corporate level in almost two
decades of massive structural change. The book
broaches this question by viewing competition,

time and space through the lens of the firm, with

the firm being at one and the same time a
concrete arena of cultural production and a locus
of strategy formulation.
The book does not pretend to be comprehensive, and is billed as an exercise in hypothesis
building derived from the experience of discussions with high-level executives in 60 major US
industrial corporations and the reading of a very
particular literature. This is a book with a strong
point of view, and this is both its strength and its
weakness: a strength from the perspective of
clarity of purpose; a weakness from the perspective of its partial treatment of the rich management literature on organizational culture that has
the capacity to enrich this exploratory analysis.
The argument of the book is clearly drawn. The
inter-relationships of competition, time and space
are seen as being differently constituted and
resolved in different time periods i.e., they are
historically specific strategic problems for the
firm. A changed competitive environment then
undermines previously successful temporal
spatial strategies, but the strategies of firms do
not change so readily. The argument suggests
that existing theoretical explanations offer partial
insights into this issue of rigidity. They are
necessary but not sufficient explanations singly
or in combination. The limitations of bureaucracies are seen in an `iron cage' of fossilized routine
that creates pathologies which make transformation and change difficult and traumatic. The
rigidities of information, knowledge, uncertainty
and sunk costs are also seen as inhibiting change
to a degree, and class stalemate as institutionalized management-labour relations is interpreted as a constraint on flexibility but a
constraint that has been perhaps too strongly
drawn. The significance of regional obsolescence,
with rigidities in old industrial areas blocking the
rise of new industries in those places, is recognized but again tempered. Schoenberger's unease
with these explanations stems from a concern
that they all treat the firm as an irreducible social
unit.
She argues convincingly that to understand
apparently aberrant decision making, it is necessary to get inside the firm and focus on real
people, with their own sense of self, formulating
strategies that affect themselves and their own
self-worth as well as the corporation as some
anonymous social aggregate. In short, there is a
need to come to grips with corporate culture and
how that historically specific corporate culture
produces strategy. As she puts it, there is a need

472

Book reviews

to theorize the corporate strategist. This is the

heart of the book, developed conceptually in
Chapter 5 and exemplified through case studies
of Lockheed and Xerox in Chapter 6.
Straightforward and well presented as the
argument in the book might be, it suffers from
a number of significant, inter-related limitations.
First, corporate culture and strategy formulation
are restricted almost exclusively to the actions
and activities of top managers in large corporations and the issues that affect their own material
culture. In short, only one element of the intraorganizational power spectrum is privileged and
this casts a very particular light on issues of
power and resistance in the business enterprise.
This limitation creates and reinforces a second
limitation. Although the analysis is targeted at
the inside workings of the firm, it is still reified
and strangely detached from that context because
of this preoccupation with top managers. In a
sense, top managers are identified as a class,
cutting across the firms within which they work
and having a coherence outside them. It can also
be suggested that this reification derives directly
from the book's clear theoretic underpinnings in
structural materialism. Thirdly, the study is
grounded exclusively in a US context and this
is a problematic base from which to generalize in
a globalizing world. Finally, building on this last
point, there is a significant literature on organizational culture and strategic decision making,
especially the postmodern interpretations of
Clegg (1989; 1990) for example, that significantly
deepen the discussion that is opened up in this
book. But, perhaps this would call for another
volume?
I would not like this listing of limitations to be
seen in any way as strong criticism. Rather, I
would like it to be seen as the `strength of mild
criticism', to make a play on an overused phrase.
Erica Schoenberger's book is a good and refreshingly clear read. Perhaps it will trigger in economic geography an interest in corporate culture
that has been emerging in organizational sociology and management science for some time.
It is certainly essential reading for economic
geographers interested in the cultural turn.
Michael Taylor
University of Portsmouth
Clegg, S.R. 1989: Frameworks of power. London:
Sage.
1990: Modern organizations: organization studies
in the postmodern world. London: Sage.

Zelinsky, W. 1994: Exploring the beloved country.

Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press.
xiv 608 pp. US$49.95 cloth, US$22.95 paper.
ISBN: 0 87745 484 1 cloth, 0 87745 483 3 paper.
I agreed to review this book because I thought it
was going to be a new, beautifully written,
reflective essay somewhat along the lines of the
author's much-acclaimed Cultural geography of the
United States (1973). Instead, it is a hefty volume
made up of 21 articles, 133 maps (in themselves
a considerable atlas), 57 tables and graphs (in
themselves a considerable statistical dossier), all
previously published. One way to look at the
volume is to see it as a Zelinsky festival, a
gathering of the clan, with many of his brain
children on show, the oldest 46 years of age, the
youngest born in 1994; and how lively and
handsome they are! Papa has every reason to be
proud, and he does show his pride though
always tinctured by modesty as he introduces
them, including one who never found a Godfather (a sponsoring journal), which perhaps for
that very reason, `inhabits the warmest corner of
my heart'. This waif is called `The historical
geography of season of marriage'. It raises
questions that other scholars have not yet
thought to ask. Why does the season of marriage
matter? Why, a critic might continue, should a
student of the Beloved Country be interested
what exactly is the intellectual reward in a
detailed study of the American flag, the New
England connecting barn, welcoming signs along
American highways, personal name patterns in
the eastern United States, ethnic cuisines, sister
cities and other beyond-the-beltline items of
geographical scholarship? The answer is: it is
precisely in those items, mostly from folk and
popular culture, that a meticulous scholar can
probe into the soul of America and it is in their
aggregation (as is accomplished in this volume)
that a true portrait of the country emerges.
The book is a portrait of the USA. But it is even
more a portrait of Wilbur Zelinsky Americanist, geographer and social scientist. It is a selfportrait in the sense that Zelinsky himself made
the selection. Here he is as a PhD student, here
he is as a mature and distinguished scholar
and the stages in between. They are all there.
What is the path of growth? Have there been
radical shifts, divorces and new marriages, as
had occurred in the intellectual life of Carl Sauer
and, even more dramatically, in the intellectual
life of David Harvey? The answer is that there
has certainly been growth and shifts of interest,

Book reviews 473

but no radical break. The marriage with the
Beloved Country and with geography has been
and is a happy and deeply rewarding one. As for
shifts of interest, they seem to correspond to
changes in the last four decades within the
country itself. Thus, Zelinsky's earlier articles
concentrated on such folk and traditional architectural features as the log house, the Greek
Revival house and the connecting barn. His later
articles, by contrast, have a pop, media and
ethnic flavour welcoming street signs, ethnic
cuisine and conventionland. Philosophically,
there has been less change than might be
expected, a credit to Zelinsky's strong sense of
self, his immunity from swings of intellectual
fashion. For example, Zelinsky remains a realist.
He includes early articles that try to define
objectively (scientifically) the boundaries of the
Pennsylvania Culture Area and `Where the
South begins?'. He seems to believe that with
more powerful tools of information gathering
and analysis, we are now in a better position to
show where one cultural region begins and
another ends. And this takes me to methodology. Because Zelinsky writes with such flair,
one is misled into thinking that he is basically a
humanist. This is not so. Zelinsky, in my
opinion, is basically a social scientist. He takes
justifiable pride in collecting, with exemplary
diligence and care, quantifiable data on intangible sociopsychological characteristics and he
analyses these with the most powerful statistical
tools at his command. He is a scientist who
says to amateurs, `Fair warning: This is not
appropriate hammock reading for you, dear
reader or for its author' (p. 329). Not hammock
reading for the reviewer, I might add!
There is a paradox (no doubt more apparent
than real) in Zelinsky's work. It is this. Those
articles written without the social-scientific
apparatus for example, `Canadian nationalism
and its symbols' and `Where every town is
above average' leave a vivid and precise

impression on a reader's (at least, this reader's)

mind. Those written with the apparatus leave a
haze. After many factor analyses, tables and
maps, I am at a loss to say just precisely what I
have learnt. The fault is not with the author but
with the reader with me, for to know what
precisely has been said one needs a precise
understanding of the quality of the data and the
power (or lack of power) of the statistical
methods used. And that's a sophistication that
few students of American culture, even in our
day of numeracy, have. It doesn't help to look
up to the author's conclusion for some final
understandable verbal summary. An example: at
the end of the difficult (not for hammockreading) article, `Regional variation in personal
name patterns', an article that is intended to
provide an efficient and sensitive measure of the
American cultural system, I find the following
elusive words: `It [factor analysis] hints strongly
of several sets of forces intersecting simultaneously in the same area and the fact that a
single name bears a mixed cargo of meanings,
regional, religious, ethnic, temporal, and social
or residential' (p. 360). Well, I am plunged into a
fog of abstractions just when I hope for one final
shaft of light that tells me where I am what I
have got.
My two primary metaphors for this book are
1) it is a Zelinsky festival, a gathering of the clan;
and 2) it is a self-portrait. I am not a postmodernist, yet I am struck by the fact something
so personal (the statistical analyses notwithstanding) is also a most revealing sketch of
American culture and geography enormous,
protean, weird (and, yes) beloved.
Yi-Fu Tuan
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Zelinsky, W. 1973: Cultural geography of the United
States. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.