Geography: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #185

by John A. Matthews, David T. Herbert

This Very Short Introduction answers four basic what is Geography, how do geographers work, why is Geography important, and where is the discipline of Geography heading? Geography has always been important, though it has had only a short history as an academic discipline and is much misunderstood. Modern Geography has come a long way from its historical roots in exploring foreign lands, in mapping the world and in describing the physical and human features of the Earth's surface. There are two parts to the Physical Geography, which covers natural environments and landscapes; and Human Geography, which investigates people and the cultural landscape. Physical and human geographers commonly do not agree with each other. But there are also common elements and Geography as a whole has an important role as a bridge between the sciences and the humanities. Using wide-ranging examples, the book paints a broad picture of the current state of Geography, its subject
matter, concepts and methods, how it developed, and its strengths and weaknesses. The book's conclusion is no less than a manifesto for Geography's future.

About the Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

Genres: Geography, Nonfiction, Science, History, Academic, Social Science, Popular Science

181 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learning Something New In A Very Short Introduction

Oxford University Press describes its "Very Short Introduction Series" as intended "for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way into a new subject." "What better way to get older", I thought, "than by learning something new". I wasn't prepared to try, say, particle physics; but I wanted to read on a subject relatively new for me and manageable. I found this Very Short Introduction to Geography (2008) by John A Matthews and David T. Herbert. Matthews is Professor of Physical Geography and the University of Wales, Swansea, while Herbert is Emeritus Professor of Geography and Honorary Fellow at the same institution. The authors earlier collaborated on a book, "Unifying Geography: Common Heritage, Shared Future" (2004); and the title suggests a good deal of the theme of their very short introduction.

Geography is a broad, diverse discipline, and most lay readers will have only a general idea of its scope. The authors quote a number of definitions and offer the readers the following simple explanation. "The subject matter of geography is the Earth's surface, including the envelope of atmosphere immediately above it, the structures that lie immediately below it, and the social and cultural environments contributed by the people who occupy it." The authors identify and explain the three "core concepts" of geography: space, place, and environment.

The most interesting part of the book is the authors' frequent discussion about whether geography is one study or several. The study is at the cusp of physical science and human culture. It divides broadly into the fields of physical geography and cultural geography. There is room for doubt about the extent of the ties that hold the fields together. In addition each of the two broad fields seem to fold in with other sciences or studies. The authors discuss at length the difficulty of integrating the study of geography, but they are convinced the effort is important and worthwhile. In discussing the future of the discipline, they urge an effort to integrate its various components at their center.

The book develops the science of physical geography, its subdivisions, and the relationship of the field to other sciences. They stress the quantitative, empirical character that the discipline shares with other sciences.

Cultural geography is highly different from the physical science. It has moved over the years from an attempt to be quantitative and empirical to a search for meaning. In so doing, it has followed trends in the humanities and philosophy. The authors discuss subjects including deconstruction and feminism to show how the different ways people have developed to look at and understand the physical space they inhabit has changed the ways many cultural geographers view their subject. I was interested in learning how philosophy, which I have studied, has become important in the way in which at least some geographers view their discipline.

The book discusses the tools and methodologies geographers bring to their tasks. Here again, the subject is frustratingly broad with the authors mentioning a range of studies from advanced mathematics and statistical theory on the one hand to T.S. Elliot's poem "Little Gidding" to Jacques Derrida on the other hand. The difficulty is to find the precise "space" (pun intended) for the discipline. The authors discuss the many ways in which geographers team to work with others, both in the sciences and the humanities.

In reading the book, I thought of two uses of geography from my own recent reading. First, I read a novel, "Thyrza" by a writer I admire, George Gissing, which is set in the Lambeth area of London and in the outlying areas of London in the 1880s. A new edition of the book includes an article by a cultural geographer describing in detail the physical environment of the London areas that Gissing describes in his novel. It was useful in providing a setting for the story. I also read a new collection of essays about the 1862 battle of Shiloh in the Civil War, "Rethinking Shiloh: Myth and Memory". A perceptive essay, using the work of a professional geographer, describes the complex terrain of the battlefield as it stood in 1862 and concludes that the terrain probably was the decisive factor in the Union victory on that field. It was valuable to tie in this very short introduction to geography with subjects I know.

The authors maintain that the study of geography may function as a bridge between the sciences and the humanities. If so, it would be a valuable thing to do. I enjoyed learning something new and outside my usual reading in this book, and I also enjoyed getting a very short introduction to the study of geography.

Robin Friedman

[Sera · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book may be a very short introduction to Geography but this is going to be a very long review. Now, I know not many people will read this review but if you stumble across it please can you take away the fact that physical geography IS science and geography is more than people and rocks. Everything you know, everything you see, everything around you is there because of geography. This subject is undervalued and misrepresented in the media and as a future university geography BSC student, I would like to change that perception, even if it's just one persons perception.

The title says it all about this book, it is a very short introduction to geography. However, it is more than that as it goes into details that I didn't know and I have been actively studying this subject in and outside of school for many years now. Of course I knew that geography sits everywhere in this world but there are places that I didn't realise the chair on which it sits is a throne. For example, just the simple topics of science wouldn't be around without geography and explorers discovering new lands and species for scientists to test etc. Geography is basically the foundation of ALL sciences and without geography, we would have no reason for science. Another example that many people will know, is climate change. Whether you believe in it or not, climate change is a geographical topic that is being studied by geographers, or as they may also be known as, Climatologists, every single day and with the current awareness raised on the subject matter due to technology (that also came about because of geography), the amount we know and the amount we are doing to try prevent the effects of climate change is increasing. Everything you're doing in regards to plastics, recycling, reducing carbon admissions are all geography. David Attenborough is the King of geography. Leonardo DiCaprio is very much invested in geography. Will Smith too with his new TV show called 'our strange rock'. Geography is everywhere and you appreciate the topic more than you believe. The idea that geography is boring and just about rocks is not true at all. Of course there are some parts that do involve rocks, especially physical geography, geology etc but it is not just what geography is and this book really outlined that. It went through the two main splits in geography, human and physical but it also talked about the other forms of geography and the other ways we can study specific geographical topics like Volcanoes etc.

This book is great for students like me who wanted to get an insight into the subject even more but I also believe, it should be read by more people, especially those who are investing more of their time into this current world and the current events that are happening, whether they be climate change, war, rights or preservation of landscapes like glaciers. Geography is an important subject to study and that is one of the reasons why I am studying it further. I hope that one day I can teach this subject to students who hate the subject and find it boring so I can change their view on it and show them that it is easier than you believe and being connected and knowing HOW our world works isn't a bad thing. That is what one of my geography teachers did for me and before he was my teacher, I hated the subject but now I am the biggest geography nerd and spend the times I'm not reading watching geographical tv shows like Blue Planet or ones about the current events in our world.

Geography can be applied to everything. The books we read all hold geography, the world building is geography. The fact that we are able to read, languages, everything from the pages that are in our books is because of GEOGRAPHY. Geography is such a wonderful subject that is around us constantly and my love for this subject just grew with this book. This book also contained images, examples, simple terminology and a lot of headers to split up the text, all making this book easier to read and to understand.

Basically, I love geography and I cannot wait to study this book further. The reason why this isn't a 5 star book or even a 4 star is because it isn't one I would reread again for fun, it was informative and I did enjoy it but at the end of the day it isn't a book I would read when I'm sad. There are no characters to connect to, no story but again, that is not the genre of this book, it is simply here to give you a better insight on the subject and it most definitely did that

[Michael Huang · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is hands down one of the most disappointing VSI. Very infrequently do you have concrete examples of facts or insights about earth and human society. Instead, the book is full of meta-discussion of the discipline, as if written for other retired Geography professors looking back on how their departments and tenure process changed over decades.

You will learn how the discipline started to separate into several branches, the “ebbs and flows in human geography since the 1980s”, and so on. Page after page, you get these abstract discussions:
“The emergence of issues such as racism, feminism, and sexuality as key areas for study in human geography can be linked to the focus on meanings and values that can be linked to the focus on meanings and values that underlying places and activities that were so strongly promoted in the new cultural geography.”

[Jon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Any science book that references literary theorists as often as this does is no science book in my book. Plus it is a really boring read focusing mostly on categorising different types of geography rather than on the setting up and selling me on the topic. Shame, I normally really like these Very Short Intros.

[Alison Horn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally like the books in this series but this was dull.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geography: A Very Short Introduction (2008) by John A. Matthews and David T. Herbert

Five stars for the book's strong stand on the reality of human-caused climate change and the dire need for "action." Given that humans are causing climate change precisely by ignoring climate change, I've decided to massively upvote any book that takes a strong stand for climate science reality. By upvoting books, I can slightly bias recommender algorithms to give human civilization an incrementally greater chance of not cooking itself out of existence - and I urge you to do the same thing. The book has other flaws, but none that pose an existential threat, like ignoring climate change does. By analogy, when your house is on fire, your other problems don't matter too much, until you put out that fire.

Matthews and Herbert survey the discipline of geography as it stood in 2008. While I've read about many of geography's allied fields, I wasn't very familiar with geography itself as a discipline. In particular, I wasn't aware of what the authors refer to as a "culture war" in their midst:

A useful exemplar of the ebbs and flows in human geography since the 1980s is the so-called ‘cultural turn’. It has become a major force for change, particularly in the United Kingdom and some other parts of the English-speaking world. The term ‘cultural turn’ has been used to describe a fundamental shift in approaches to the study of cultural geography (see box). This, however, has not been the limits of its influence as it has impacted on many branches of human geography, such as economic and political geography, and has subjected their objects of study to a greater consideration of cultural and historical specificity. The essence of the cultural turn, then, is that it suggests that large swathes of human geography must be recast in a similar mould. This is by no means a generally accepted position, and in many parts of the world, including the United States, the cultural turn has been much more muted in its impact than in the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, some have spoken of ‘culture wars’: cultural geography is not a quiet land.

To a geography outsider, such as myself and I would imagine 98% of the book's audience, it's hard to tell from the above paragraph just what the authors are getting at. Other passages, such as this one, shed a bit more light, particularly for readers who have already done background reading on the "modern social and cultural theories" which pervade much of the humanities and are, it turns out, also infiltrating human geography.

In some parts of the book, including the one containing the paragraph above, Matthews and Herbert thumb their noses at the Five W's of the journalist. They sometimes lapse instead into an irritatingly vague and evasive style, redolent of "academese," with lots of passive voice, generalisms without specific examples, and vague pronouns ("some have spoken") instead of actual names of people whose views the reader might then be able to investigate further. This might reflect the character of the subset of geography they write about, contrasting to their treatment of physical geography which tends to be more grounded (heh) and therefore understandable. (By the way, the English Wikipedia's coverage of geography and related topics seems to be superb, so that could be a place to explore these topics further - and it's free.)

If there is a culture war in geography (or if there were one in 2008), that's something I'd like to know more about. For example, have the rigorous physical geographers written any take-downs of the mushy human geographers, or vice versa? What are (or were) the key points under dispute? I don't expect a Very Short Introduction to explain everything, but at least point me to something instead of leaving me to decode your allusions ("some have spoken").

I am somewhat familiar with the culture war long fought between rival university departments, rather than within one. For example, in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character), Richard P. Feynman complains about the unnessarily opaque language of humanities scholars (see this quote and this quote). Feynman would amuse himself by translating the bloated verbiage of humanities papers into plain language. Feynman recognized a point made by many others: that when people have no real information to convey, they can always fill the space with impenetrable humanities jargon. (The antidote is the plain language movement, and Matthews and Herbert seem not to have heard of it, to judge from some of their writing. See for example the books Oxford Guide to Plain English by Martin Cutts, and Clear Technical Writing (1973) by John A. Brogan.)

Matthews and Herbert don't seem to mention the broader culture war outside of geography. I found that odd, given that I'd imagine the broader dispute has been much more publicized than its skirmishes within one particular discipline. The 1990s saw the Sokal affair (see the book: Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture (2008) by Alan Sokal). There have been postmodern critiques of science (and of objective reality, essentially the same thing). For some scientists clapping back, see:

* Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (1994) by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt (ignore the climate change denial which hasn't aged well to say the least)
* A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science (1998) edited by Noretta Koertge
* Intellectual Impostures: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science (1997) by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont

After the Sokal affair I don't know how any human geographer who bought into postmodernism could survive the shame and carry on as if the whole approach wasn't a self-parody. I guess I don't understand people.

To their credit, Matthews and Herbert make a strong showing for climate science and the reality of anthropogenic climate change, along with the urgent need for "action." (Apparently this "action" doesn't extend to banning air travel. Air travel is one of the fastest ways for an individual to run up their carbon footprint, but banning this destructive habit would crimp the field work extolled in the book as central to having a career as a geographer. The early geographers managed to do field work without burning much jet fuel, for example by traveling on wind-powered sailing ships. Perhaps modern geographers lack the patience of a Charles Darwin, but slow travel didn't seem to hurt Darwin's career.) Anyway, I put "action" in scare-quotes because in most climate change messaging, "action" is code for "government action." Which happens to be the easiest action for political conservatives to torpedo. All they have to do is elect Trump. Sadly, most people who comment on climate change seem inordinately fond of jet travel, which gives them a strong self-serving incentive to downplay individual action, which would require them to give up the fossil-fueled vices they love.

While Matthews and Herbert correctly point out the urgent need for "action" to cut greenhouse gas emissions, they neglect to mention a perhaps embarrassing link between postmodernism and climate change denial. See for example:

* Hansson, Sven Ove (2020). "Social constructionism and climate science denial". European Journal for Philosophy of Science 10 (3): 37. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs13194-02...

To their credit, it seems the mostly left-leaning postmodern critics of science moved away from denying climate change after conservative politicians and propagandists took up that banner. (I haven't investigated enough to know whether any of these climate-change denying postmodernists were actually geographers, or whether they were in other fields. But it's still part of the legacy of postmodern criticism of science.) This might count as an embarrassing legacy to go along with geography's historical association with imperialism and colonialism, which Matthews and Herbert face squarely.

***

When I got to the part of the book that mentions the geography of crime, I was not by then surprised to see the authors ignoring biology. I don't think, for example, that it's entirely down to culture that over 95% of mass shooters in America are men. Men and women are socialized differently, to be sure, little boys playing with guns and little girls playing with dolls, etc.; but in every culture of which I'm aware, the people who do most of the violent crime are men. And disproportionately young men: late adolescents and young adults. This suggests that the biological differences between men and women, and between individuals at different life stages, have something to do with crime, right along with environmental influences like a person's zip code. To be fair, the book was written in 2008, still early days for the genomics revolution. I'm guessing the authors had not yet heard of then-new genome-wide association studies (GWAS) which have since gone on to revolutionize behavioral genetics.

It's now a truism in behavioral genetics that virtually every human behavior that measurably varies has at least some genetic influence. And furthermore, that influence is experimentally tractable, thanks to an expanding kit of tools like GWAS. In contrast, environmental influences tend to be random, uncontrollable, and unknowable, making it hard to do any real science on them - yet. For more on this see Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are (2019) by Robert Plomin. It would be sad if human geographers are ignoring the genomics revolution (as of course they are, if they're still reading Derrida). Human genetic diversity is inherently geographical, reflecting human evolution which has been rapid, recent, and regional. For some idea of what a genetic human geography might entail, see the book The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (2009) by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. Needless to say, any suggestion that humans differ genetically and the differences matter is guaranteed to trigger hysteria, so I guess for now squeamish humans will try to keep genetics safely corralled in the realm of "bodily" diseases rather than behavioral maladies.

***

I only found three errors in the book, but they are head-scratchers. I don't know whether these have been corrected in later editions.

1. An awkwardly worded passage:

The neoglacial events were a response to either a decrease in summer temperatures, which leads to enhanced melting of the glacier ice, or an increase in winter (snow) accumulation, which leads to glacier growth.

To me, the most literal reading of that passage has it saying that cooler summers melt more ice, obviously the opposite of being true. Perhaps if we go for a less obvious interpretation of "which" - aiming it only at "summer temperatures" and ignoring the "decrease in" - we could say the passage is merely awkward and not wrong.

2. A thousandfold understatement of world population in 2008:

During the Anthropocene, the world’s population has increased to over 6 million people, and the scale of human exploitation of the Earth’s resources is unprecedented.

While it's strictly true that the world has more than 6 million people, it had more than a thousand times 6 million at that time. Which is like me saying Los Angeles is more than two miles from my house - while true, L.A. is more than two thousand miles from my house, a bit farther than I can comfortably walk. Elsewhere the book makes a similarly-worded claim and this time correctly includes the factor of a thousand.

3. And the biggest head-scratcher I found in the book:

Desiccation of the Aral Sea over recent decades provides a striking example of the use of satellite images in monitoring environmental change (Figure 25). In 1960, the Aral Sea was the fourth largest inland water body on Earth, with an area equal to the combined area of France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Even before I looked up the areas of the five named entities, I knew something wasn't right with that claim. It turns out the former Aral Sea was smaller than any of those four countries individually. Typos are common, we all make them, but this doesn't have the feel of a mere typo, as the authors went to the trouble of crafting a dramatic comparison.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first very short introduction, it was lovely and gave a perfect overview.

[J Grimsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a number of this series and so as someone who has taken A level geography, a degree in Applied Social Studies Worked in Social administration, Management and take qualifications in Management I thought I could read this book to update me in Geography and have an enjoyable time. This was not the case. The use of technical words piled up against each other - I am used to this - and contradictions made this book opaque. For example in the section on cultural geography on page 76 The position of statistical analysis is questioned but later on page 117 Numeracy is held up as a major skill of the Geographer. The book does not bring the two issues together. If I was trying this book as a way of deciding to take a university degree it would put me off the subject.

[Sicofonia · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this is a very short introduction to Geography!!
In fact so short, it skims a lot on the history of the discipline itself and the techniques it used over different periods. Very little is told about the evolution of Geography from its beginnings. I also missed more references to important geographers of past and present.
The strong point of this book is that it presents the current state of geography and its many subjects of study in clear, easy-to-understand way. Also, every concept relevant to each field of study is explained.
Overall it is a good read, although too focused on Geography as it stands today.

[Jason Freng · Rating 1 out of 5]

Throughout the book the authors deride the popular conception that geography is only about maps. Clearly sore on that issue, the authors make it a point to not include or discuss maps, even though it's one of the core concepts included in the book's closing diagram. Ironically, it seems as if the authors' only goal was to create a mental map of the academic field of geography, something completely useless to anyone outside of the field.

There are some interesting theories/examples in Chapter 5/6 for those brave enough to stick it out through long stretches of academic navel gazing written with no voice and no passion.

[Darlene · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted more about the subject itself and less about the subject as an academic discipline. Other "Very Short Introduction" works that focus on the discipline also manage to teach about the subject and got me excited to learn more. This one did not.

[Alex Rendall · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good overview of the subject of geography from the point of view of how it is taught in universities and the different subject areas. It whets the appetite but is perhaps a bit too general; I didn't feel like I'd read very much actual geography.

[Frank Ashe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very much a book describing the state of geography today, and that's it. Where's the excitement? I've really enjoyed all the other books in this series I've tackled.

[Michael Skora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a fun time reading Geography, mostly because it reminded me of studying for AP Human Geography during my senior year of high school. Although this text was slightly more didactic than the previous four I read, I still appreciated its nuance and enthusiasm for the field of study. I also liked that the authors expressed direct distaste toward environmental determinism for its essentialist attempts to explain all social behavior, replacing it with the more complex adaptive systems model. This book also provided several clear definitions of both jargon and frequently misunderstood terms, such as post-modernism, post-structuralism, discourse analysis, Geographic Information Systems, Walter Christaller's central place model, Behavioral geography, and applied geography, and the theories of Milutin Milankovitch.

I especially appreciate that this book also emphasized the methodology of geography through fieldwork and the analysis of collected empirical data to predict and explain, similar to hard science, while constantly evaluating the human consequences of geography through literature and urban research, similar to the humanities. I have a fair amount of confidence that such an approach will have both longevity and relevance to both researchers and laypersons.

[Juno · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never taken a Geography class in my life, so I thought I’d pick this up to get started. It’s very informative, that’s for sure, but it doesn’t portray its very intriguing subject as interestingly as it deserves to be portrayed.

One quote that made me laugh:
“Why some ethnic groups strive to remain segregated is an interesting question.”
hm… it really is such a mystery… 😭
(They never answer this question by the way!)

[Debrina Agnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just remember this book as something essential for my undergrad degree. It offers you brief introduction to geography as a developing science and how it is applicable to the modern world, instead of mere mapping and knowing the landscape, just like during Livingstone's era.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

felt more like i was reading an introduction to human geography with a footnote on physical geography

[Daniel Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the concept, and really wanted to like the book, but the prose was so turgid it was quite impossible.

Chapter 1: Geography: the world is our stage
Chapter 2: The physical dimension: our natural environments
Chapter 3: The human dimension: people in their places
Chapter 4: Geography as a whole: the common ground
Chapter 5: How geographers work
Chapter 6: Geography's present and future

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a bunch on these short introductions to various topics and occasionally decide to learn something new - this time it was geography.

They are pretty good at introducing a topic but they do go a little deeper than a basic intro would, which is both good and bad.

Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but it works for me and learning something new is a nice break from the normal suspense / mystery genre I normally read.

[Zachary Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very thorough overview text that highlights the paths that geography has taken in its development as a discipline, through a broadly conceived consideration of human, physical and integrated aspects of the subject, and their roles in the future of the subject, as it faces a dilemma with the value of integration given increased specialisation.

I think this is essential reading for anyone looking to understand how geography operates as a discipline, and the value it brings to the interdisciplinary table.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured it in minutes. Great stuff

[Gabireads]

Enjoyed it.