Books in the Routledge Library Editions: Social and Cultural Geography series

The book examines data sources, discusses different crimes and ways of studying them and considers the fear of crime. The criminal justice system in the UK is examined in detail, including policy, the operations of community and police committees and an account of the experience of crime prevention policies in Britain and North America is also given.

Humanistic geography now has an established position in the intellectual development of contemporary geography. However there has so far been little attempt to draw together the humanistic approach in one broad statement. This book by the leading figures in the field provides a platform for the exposition of humanistic geography in all its aspects.

This book highlights the increasingly important contribution of geographical theory to the understanding of social change, values, economic & political organization and ethical imperatives. As a cohesive collection of chapters from well-known geographers in Britain and North America, it reflects the aims of the contributors in striving to bridge the gap between the historical-materialist and humanist interpretations of human geography. The book deals with both the contemporary issues outlined above and the situation in which they emerge: industrial restructuring, planning, women¿s issues, social and cultural practices and the landscape as context for social action.

This book introduces the beginning student to the major concepts, materials and tools of the discipline of geography. While it presents geographic theory, as whole and for each of its parts, the chief emphasis is on concrete analysis and example rather than on abstraction, an approach which has proven more successful for undergraduate courses than those with a more heavily theoretical bias. The text was extensively re-written for the third edition, which enhanced its clarity and effectiveness, with expanded cartographic coverage.

Reflecting the revival of interest in a social theory that takes place and space seriously, this book focuses on geographical place in the practice of social science and history. There is significant interest among scholars from a range of disciplines in bringing together the geographical and sociological ΓÇÿimaginationsΓÇÖ. The geographical imagination is a concrete and descriptive one, concerned with determining the nature of places, and classifying them and the links between them. The sociological imagination aspires to explanation of human activities in terms of abstract social processes. The chapters in this book focus on both the intellectual histories of the concept of place and on its empirical uses. They show that place is as important for understanding contemporary America as it is for 18th-century Sri Lanka. They also show how the concept can provide insight into ΓÇÿoldΓÇÖ problems such as the nature of social life in Renaissance Florence and Venice. The editors are leading exponents of the view of place as a concept that can ΓÇÿmediateΓÇÖ the geographical and sociological imaginations.

The chapters in this book address fundamental questions of the nature and purpose of geography, scrutinising its contents, philosophy and methodology. Aimed at undergraduates its purpose is to broaden the debate about what geography had become during the 1980s and what shape it might take in the future.

This book illuminates the profound influence of geography on everyday life. Concentrating on the realm of social reproduction - gender, family, education, culture and tradition, race, ethnicity the contributors provide both an articulation of a theory of territory and reproduction and concrete empirical analyses of the evolution of social practices in particular places.

The discipline of geography has undergone much change and growth in recent years. With growth has come diversity. Before 1945 there were differences between countries in the emphases on subject matter and research approach, although these were all related closely to three main `models¿ ¿ French, German and American. Since then, the relative importance of French and German influences has declined substantially, including within their own national territories, and the Anglo-American model has grown to world dominance. With that model, however, there is no dominant point of view but rather a multiplicity of competing approaches. These various approaches have had a different reception in other parts of the world, reflecting the base of pre-1945 geographical scholarship, the goals of geographical work set by soceities and the nature of the international contacts. The result is substantial international diversity in the practice of geography.

This book urges the case for reinstating regional geography as a contemporary and relevant methodology. Much interest was shown in the 1980s in reviving, yet restructuring, the field of regional geography. The essays in this book both review that work and propose a way forward. The essays divide into three sections. The first assesses traditional regional geography and its relevance to the study of contemporary situations; the second, the alternative approaches of world-systems analysis, diffusion and structuration theory. The book concludes by considering the potential of regional geography to interpret the structures within which society operates and its claim to remain at the core of the discipline.