Why Geography Matters: Three Challenges Facing America: Climate Change, the Rise of China, and Global Terrorism: More Than Ever - Softcover

De Blij, Harm

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0195315820 ISBN 13: 9780195315820

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 2007

Synopsis

Over the next half century, the human population, divided by culture and economics and armed with weapons of mass destruction, will expand to nearly 9 billion people. Abrupt climate change may throw the global system into chaos; China will emerge as a superpower; and Islamic terrorism and insurgency will threaten vital American interests. How can we understand these and other global challenges? Harm de Blij has a simple answer: by improving our understanding of the world's geography.
De Blij demonstrates how geography's perspectives yield unique and penetrating insights into the interconnections that mark our shrinking world. Centuries ago a surge of climate change halted China's maritime plans; more recently, environmental calamity altered the course of geopolitical events in East Asia; today, terrorists look for failed and malfunctioning states to base their operations—and some of these are in our own hemisphere.
Preparing for climate change, averting a cold war with China, defeating terrorism: all of this requires geographic knowledge. In Why Geography Matters, de Blij makes an urgent call to restore geography to America's educational curriculum. He shows how and why the U.S. has become the world's most geographically illiterate society of consequence—and demonstrates that this geographic illiteracy is a direct risk to America's national security.
In this personal and engaging book, de Blij provides a geographer's perspective on the challenges of this new century. As he states, "We are crossing the threshold to a century that will witness massive environmental change, major population shifts, persistent civilizational conflicts [and] while geographic knowledge by itself cannot solve these problems, they will not be effectively approached without it."

About this title

About the Author

Harm De Blij is Distinguished Professor of Geography at Michigan State University. The author of over 30 books, he is an honorary life member of the National Geographic Society and was for seven years the Geography Editor on A.B.C.'s "Good Morning America."

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195315820
• ISBN 13: 9780195315820
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320