World Human Geography

Sand and stone are Earth's fragmented memory. Each of us, too, is a landscape inscribed by memory and loss. One life-defining lesson Lauret Savoy learned as a young girl was this: the American land did not hate. As an educator and Earth historian, she has tracked the continent's past from the relics of time; but the paths of ancestors toward her - paths of free and enslaved Africans, colonists from Europe, and peoples indigenous to this land - lie largely eroded and lost. In this provocative and powerful mosaic of personal journeys and historical inquiry across a continent and time.

Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Patel and Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism.

An essential audiobook for anyone interested in the interplay between geography and global politics, this fully revised edition of Prisoners of Geography offers a vivid look at the forces driving our increasingly complex world.

Drought-hit regions bleeding those who for whom a rural life has become untenable. Coastlines diminishing year on year. Wildfires and hurricanes leaving widening swaths of destruction. The culprit, most of us accept, is climate change, but not enough of us are confronting one of its biggest, and most present, consequences: a total reshaping of the earth’s human geography. As Gaia Vince points out early in Nomad Century, global migration has doubled in the past decade, on track to see literal billions displaced in the coming decades.

Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes - epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions - have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them.

Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment.

Entrepreneurs, educators, humanitarians: an entire province's worth of Canadian citizens live outside Canada. Some will return, others won't. But what they all share is the ability, and often the desire, to export Canadian values to a world sorely in need of them. And to act as ambassadors for Canada in industries and societies where diplomatic efforts find little traction. Surely a country with people as diverse as Canada's ought to plug itself into every corner of the globe. We don't, and sometimes not even when our expats are eager to help.

Just 70 years ago, the Gulf nation of Qatar was a backwater, reliant on pearl diving. Today it is a gas-laden parvenu with seemingly limitless wealth and ambition. Skyscrapers, museums and futuristic football stadiums rise out of the desert and Ferraris race through the streets. But in the shadows, migrant workers toil in the heat for risible amounts. Inside Qatar reveals how real people live in this surreal place, a land of both great opportunity and great iniquity.

Postcolonialism explores the political, social, and cultural effects of decolonization, continuing the anti-colonial deconstruction of Western dominance. This Very Short Introduction discusses both the history and key debates of postcolonialism, and considers its importance as a means of changing the way we think about the world. Robert J. C. Young examines the key strategies that postcolonial thought has developed to engage with the impact of sometimes centuries of Western political and cultural domination.

It was a watershed year for Canada and the world. 1945 set Canada on a bold course into the future. A huge sense of relief marked the end of hostilities. Yet there was also fear and uncertainty about the perilous new world that was unfolding in the wake of the American decision to use the atomic bomb to bring the war in the Pacific to a dramatic halt.

The Western world is undergoing a dramatic demographic shift. By 2020, for the first time in history, the number of people aged 65 and over will outnumber children aged five and under. But our systems are lagging woefully behind this new reality. In Extra Time, Camilla Cavendish embarks on a journey to understand how different countries are responding to these unprecedented challenges.

Shyima Hall was born in Egypt on September 29, 1989, the seventh child of desperately poor parents. When she was eight, her parents sold her into slavery. Shyima then moved two hours away to Egypt's capitol city of Cairo to live with a wealthy family and serve them eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. When she was ten, her captors moved to Orange County, California, and smuggled Shyima with them. Two years later, an anonymous call from a neighbor brought about the end of Shyima's servitude - but her journey to true freedom was far from over.

Our world has innumerable boundaries, ranging from the obvious - like an ocean - to subtle differences in language or climate. Most of us cross invisible lines all the time, but don't stop to consider them. In Invisible Lines, geographer Maxim Samson presents 30 such unseen boundaries, intriguing and unexpected examples of the myriad ways in which we collectively engage with and experience the world.

Dive amongst the coral in the weird and wonderful Great Barrier Reef in sunny Australia, climb to the coldest heights of Mount Everest and strap in for some splashingly good fun down the rapids at The Grand Canyon. There are many more natural wonders to visit and so much more to learn and discover about them all ,so don't miss out on this global adventure!

In this paradigm-shattering book, biologist Mark W. Moffett draws on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to explain the social adaptations that bind societies. He explores how the tension between identity and anonymity defines how societies develop, function, and fail. Surpassing Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, The Human Swarm reveals how mankind created sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity - and what it will take to sustain them.

The industrial age made possible by fossil fuels will surely decline as these fuels run out. In The Ecotechnic Future John Michael Greer alerts the listener to possible changes future generations may face as these dwindling fuel supplies lead first to a deindustrial age, then to a society which salvages the remnants of our current plenty, and eventually to a time in which people may learn to live in balance with the environment: an ecotechnic society.

This new book by Spencer Wells, the internationally known geneticist, anthropologist, author, and director of the Genographic Project, focuses on the seminal event in human history: mankind's decision to become farmers rather than hunter-gatherers.

A spirited and incisive survey of economic geography, A World Made for Money begins with the author stopped at a red light in Norman, Oklahoma. Observing the landscape of drugstores and banks, and for that matter the stoplight and roads themselves, Bret Wallach observes, "Everything I see has been built to make money" or, at the very least, to facilitate making money. This, he argues, is a global phenomenon that nonetheless has occurred only within the past hundred years or so.

"Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization" by John G. Jackson is a seminal work that challenges traditional Eurocentric perspectives on the origins of civilization. Originally published in 1939, Jackson's book seeks to highlight the significant contributions of African civilizations, particularly Ethiopia, to the development of human culture and civilization.

Organized in keeping with our knowledge of the migration of human groups through history, with statistics and a cultural portrait of each ethnic group, People of the World becomes a fascinating round-the-world tour of customs and traditions, as well as a go-to source for background information to round out one's own family history. From the Tuvans of Siberia to the Samoans and Tahitians of Polynesia, from the Mapuche of Chile to the Sami of Scandinavia, 222 of the world's 10,000-plus ethnic groups are featured.