The Trivia Lover's Guide to the World: Geography for the Lost and Found - Softcover

Gary Fuller

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442214031 ISBN 13: 9781442214033

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012

Synopsis

Gary Fuller’s entertaining and engaging guide enhances geographic know-how with good, old-fashioned fun, using trivia to open up new worlds of knowledge for all readers. Often dismissed as unimportant, trivia here highlights issues that are far from trivial, pondering, for example, what peaceful country requires citizens to keep guns in their homes? what continent contains at least 75 percent of the world’s fresh water? and why aren't New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia the capitals of their respective states? An inveterate traveler and geographer extraordinaire, Fuller provides extensive background, clear illustrations, and thorough explanations for each intriguing question, carefully grounding the text in practical geographic concepts. Both enjoyable and enlightening, this book challenges today’s global generation to truly get to know their world.

About this title

About the Author

Gary Fuller earned his PhD in geography at Penn State and taught for thirty-five years at the University of Hawaii. He also taught introductory geography at Penn State and Ohio State. He was named a Teacher of the Year by the National Association for Geographic Education, captained a championship College Bowl team, and was a winning contestant on Jeopardy! For the past twenty-five years, he has lectured on geographic and population topics aboard cruise ships.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

THE TRIVIA LOVER'S GUIDE TO THE WORLD

By GARY FULLER

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Copyright © 2012 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4422-1403-3

Contents

List of Maps..................................................................xiAcknowledgments...............................................................xvIntroduction..................................................................xvii1 The Effects of Geographic Ignorance on the Modern World.....................12 We Think Big, Sometimes Too Big.............................................63 Maps Are Flat, the World Isn't..............................................114 Africa Bashing? What's That?................................................145 Places Aren't Always Where You Think They Should Be.........................176 State Capitals and American Politics........................................227 The Exception to Everything.................................................268 Married to a Stranger.......................................................309 Why Old Maps Look Funny.....................................................3410 Military Uses of Geography.................................................3911 Really Big Cities..........................................................4412 Agriculture and Tourism....................................................4813 Geography and Religion.....................................................5214 Geographic Pockets of Isolation: Preserving Old Ways.......................5615 Geographic Incoherence.....................................................6016 Countries Breaking Apart...................................................6517 Unity in Disunity..........................................................6918 Maps Fool Us Again!........................................................7319 Culture Hearths: Ancient and Modern........................................7620 Population Decline: Change on the Horizon..................................8121 Geographic Differences and Civil War.......................................8622 New Agricultural Crops.....................................................9023 Domestications.............................................................9324 Continental Tidbits........................................................10125 Islands Divided............................................................11426 Oceans and Seas............................................................12427 Bridges....................................................................13028 Rivers.....................................................................13429 Medical Geography..........................................................14230 Border Issues..............................................................14931 Geography of Sports........................................................15732 Geography and Religion Revisited...........................................16233 The North..................................................................16734 Prison Islands.............................................................17335 Canals.....................................................................18436 Land and Sea Battles.......................................................19337 Buildings..................................................................20438 Mountain Peaks.............................................................21039 Lakes......................................................................21740 Outliers...................................................................22441 Cities: Planned and Fiat...................................................23142 Whatever Happened to ...?..................................................23643 The Wild West..............................................................24144 Spatial Diffusion..........................................................24645 Parks......................................................................25246 Climate and Weather........................................................258Index.........................................................................264About the Author..............................................................270

Chapter One

THE EFFECTS OF GEOGRAPHIC IGNORANCE ON THE MODERN WORLD

Question 1: Where Is New Zealand?

Pat Sajak of television's Wheel of Fortune seems about as unflappable as a game show host can get. With thousands of shows under his belt, what could possibly happen that was new? The category on the show one evening was "Where are you?" The puzzle consisted of three words that described a place, and there was a $1,000 bonus for naming the place once the puzzle was solved. A contestant solved the puzzle with minimal difficulty. The three words were: pineapple, aloha, lei. After some hesitation, the contestant offered "Idaho" as the answer. There was applause in the audience from those who apparently thought pineapples were a principal crop just outside Boise, but Pat Sajak was momentarily speechless! By the way, if you happen to be lost geographically, the correct answer was "Hawai'i."

Every television quiz show in the United States reveals the same thing: geographic ignorance is widespread. On Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, viewers can watch brilliant people answer obscure questions but then wash out when they confuse Switzerland and Sweden or think the Nile River is in Asia. This situation wouldn't be so bad except geography is pretty important stuff. It helps us understand how the world is organized—how history, politics, economics, climate, and culture coalesce in specific places. Just as music has a very basic vocabulary of notes, so geography's vocabulary is made up of places. Without those places, it's hard to understand religion and language and much of anything else that makes our world what it is. Most of the literature we enjoy—from the classics to modern pulp fiction—is enriched by a basic understanding of the places where the stories are set.

If geographic ignorance were limited to game shows, there would be no need for this book. Unfortunately, it's sometimes where you'd least expect it. A few years ago I was privileged to attend a meeting of State Department personnel. People chosen for State Department positions are highly educated, often from the best colleges and universities, but sometimes lack basic geographic information and understanding. During a lull in the proceedings, an informal discussion began about unusual languages. A number of interesting languages were mentioned, as one would expect from the collective knowledge at the table. Eventually they turned to me, as an outsider and the only geographer. I nominated Bislama, the pidgin language of Vanuatu. I told them the language developed as a result of the sea slug trade between the French and the Chinese and that the name of the language actually came from the French beche de mer, the sea slug itself. Hours later, after the meeting concluded, several participants congratulated me on my imaginative language story. Apparently nobody believed me; they assumed even the country Vanuatu had been made up. I couldn't convince them otherwise.

So what? Who cares about Vanuatu? Despite its collective talent, the US government has an alarming history of knowing next to nothing about areas it considers unimportant and then, oops, they become really important. Places such as Vietnam, Somalia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan seem like good examples, but in the past places such as Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, and, yes, the New Hebrides, or Vanuatu, also come to mind. Ever since the world first shrunk dramatically in 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal, we've seen places grow ever closer and ever more important to each other ... and to us. So, yes, Vanuatu is important both to us and to the people that make it their home, even if the folks who work at FOGGY BOTTOM are unaware of it.

The most alarming place for geographic ignorance, however, is the college classroom. Geography is rarely taught in our primary and secondary schools. Sure, there are localized exceptions, the occasional school or teacher trying to offer a little geography. Without an organized curriculum and an understanding of major concepts, however, teachers usually offer little more than an exercise in pointless memorization. The average freshman college student is among the most geographically lost of all. When I was teaching introductory geography at Penn State, Ohio State, and the University of Hawai'i, I would occasionally ask students to locate the country of New Zealand on an outline map of the world, one that showed national boundaries but not the names of countries or other places. There wasn't a corner of the world that failed to be labeled "New Zealand." Answer 1: Fewer than 15 percent of the students could find it (in the southwestern Pacific Ocean east of Australia), and a small number even located it in the space reserved for the United States. It's fortunate that we're reasonably good friends with New Zealand, because I doubt we could find it if we decided to take military action against it.

Knowing the location of New Zealand is simply a vocabulary matter, like knowing what bailiwick means or where middle C is on the piano keyboard. It's not high-order knowledge, but you have to start somewhere!

I think colleges and universities could help the situation a bit by not describing their locations to the students they accept. Imagine how panicked students would be if they were ready to leave for college and didn't know where to go. Where is Reed or Trinity, Arizona or TCU? Is there a city called William and Mary or Howard? Worst of all, is PENN STATE in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, or maybe Harrisburg? What fun to have college admissions based on geographical Darwinism!

(Continues...)

Excerpted from THE TRIVIA LOVER'S GUIDE TO THE WORLDby GARY FULLER Copyright © 2012 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1442214031
• ISBN 13: 9781442214033
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288