Globalization and Diversity: Geography of a Changing World

For undergraduate World Regional Geography courses, or for a course on globalization where instructors desire a BRIEF TREATMENT of the CORE IDEAS in World Regional Geography.

Globalization and Diversity is an exciting contemporary approach to World Regional Geography that explicitly acknowledges the geographic changes that accompany today's rapid rate of globalization. The book's unique approach gives students access to the latest ideas, concepts and theories in geography while concurrently developing a strong foundation in the fundamentals of world regions. The book helps professors engender a strong sense of place and an understanding of the connections within and between world regions.

Globalization and Diversity is a briefer version of the popular Globalization Amid Diversity by the same authors. This distillation focuses on core materials that professors and students need in a World Regional Geography course. This process resulted in a dramatic reduction of boxed materials, a consolidation of end-of-chapter materials, and a paring of the chapter length of discussion in the body of the text. The resulting condensed book will be a useful tool for those instructors interested in a briefer text or for those instructors who are concerned about the reading ability of their students.

Les Rowntree is a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where he researches
and writes about environmental issues. This career change comes after three
decades of teaching both Geography and Environmental Studies at San Jose State
University in California. As an environmental geographer, Dr. Rowntree’s interests focus
on international environmental issues, biodiversity conservation, and human-caused
global change. He sees world regional geography as a way to engage and inform students
by giving them the conceptual tools needed to critically assess global issues. Dr. Rowntree
has done research in Iceland, Alaska, Morocco, Mexico, Australia, and Europe, as well as
in his native California. Current writing projects include a book on the natural history of
California’s coast, as well as textbooks in geography and environmental science.

Martin Lewis is a Senior Lecturer in History at Stanford University. He has conducted
extensive research on environmental geography in the Philippines and on the intellectual
history of global geography. His publications include Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital,
and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, 1900–1986 (1992),
and, with Karen Wigen, The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography (1997).
Dr. Lewis has traveled extensively in East, South, and Southeast Asia. His current
research focuses on the geographical dimensions of globalization. In April 2009
Dr. Lewis was recognized by Time Magazine, as a favorite lecturer.

Marie Price is a Professor of Geography and International Affairs at George Washington
University. A Latin American specialist, Marie has conducted research in Belize, Mexico,
Venezuela, Cuba, and Bolivia. She has also traveled widely throughout Latin America
and Sub-Saharan Africa. Her studies have explored human migration, natural resource
use, environmental conservation, and regional development. She is a non-resident fellow
of the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank that focuses on immigration.
Dr. Price brings to Globalization and Diversity a special interest in regions as dynamic
spatial constructs that are shaped over time through both global and local forces. Her
publications include the co-edited book, Migrants to the Metropolis: The Rise of Immigrant
Gateway Cities (2008, Syracuse University Press) and numerous academic articles and
book chapters.

William Wyckoff is a geographer in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State
University specializing in the cultural and historical geography of North America. He
has written and co-edited several books on North American settlement geography,
including The Developer’s Frontier: The Making of the Western New York Landscape (1988),
The Mountainous West: Explorations in Historical Geography (1995) (with Lary M.
Dilsaver), Creating Colorado: The Making of a Western American Landscape 1860–1940
(1999), and On the Road Again: Montana’s Changing Landscape (2006). In 2003 he
received Montana State’s Cox Family Fund for Excellence Faculty Award for Teaching
and Scholarship. A World Regional Geography instructor for 26 years, Dr. Wyckoff
emphasizes in the classroom the connections between the everyday lives of his
students and the larger global geographies that surround them and increasingly
shape their future.