Geography

Stained glass from the Geography building at Clark

Books Written or Edited by GSG Faculty and Special Issues of Journals since 2000

This page brings together books that the School’s faculty members have published since 2000, and is an indication of the creativity, breadth of interest and productivity of our faculty.  Of course, our research outputs include far more than books: we also write articles, create GIS software, prepare popular publications and much else.  Our books, however, mark an important collective contribution to our discipline and to social and environmental sciences more generally.  We take this contribution very seriously.

Books

Global Political Ecology
Edited by Richard Peet, Clark University, Paul Robbins (Ph.D., Clark '96), University of Arizona, and Michael Watts, University of California, Berkeley Published by Routledge, London and New York, 2011
NOTE:  This edited volume, Global Political Ecology, is critical book that links the political economy of global capitalism with the political ecology of a series of environmental crises and failed attempts at environmental policies. The editors wrote a long introduction, drawing on their recent published work, as with Peet and Watts, Liberation Ecologies (two editions), Robbins, Political Ecology, and Peluso and Watts Violent Environments. This introduction lays out an explanation of recent trends and crises in terms of political economy, defines the shape and direction of the field of political ecology and explains key concepts and themes to be found throughout. The main body of the book consists of the following sections:
 I   Food, Health and the Body: Political Ecology of Sustainability
 II. Capital’s Margins: Political Ecology of Waste, Displacement and the Slum World
 III   Risk, Certification and Markets: Political Ecology of Environmental Governance
 IV   War, Militarism and Insurgency: Political Ecology of Security


Mineria, Movimientos Sociales y Respuestas Campesinas: una ecología política de transformaciones territoriales. Anthony Bebbington (ed.)Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos/Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales, 2007, reprinted with new introduction, 2011  (“Mining, Social Movements and Peasant Responses: a political ecology of territorial transformations”) publisher's link.
NOTE: The rapid rise of extractive industries (mining, oil, gas) has been one of the most significant political ecology transformations to have occurred in Latin America since the mid-1990s.  Until recently, however, this phenomenon received little research attention.  This book – among the earliest academic texts to address extractive industries in the Andean region - combines concepts from political ecology, economic geography and social movements research to analyze the human environmental effects of the expansion of large scale mining in Latin America.  The chapters focus on the diverse forms of social mobilization that have emerged in response to this expansion and the nature of the socio-environmental conflicts that have accompanied this expansion.  The authors explore the ways in which these phenomena have fundamentally changed the territories and countries in which they occur.  Contributions are based on research in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Guatemala.


Key Concepts in Economic Geography
Written by Yuko Aoyama, James Murphy, Clark University, and Susan Hanson, Clark University, Distinguished Professor, Emerita. Published by Sage , Los Angeles, London, Singapore, New Dehli and Washington DC, 2011.
NOTE:  Key Concepts in Economic Geography is a new kind of textbook that forms part of an innovative set of companion texts for the Human Geography sub-disciplines. Organized around 20 short essays, Key Concepts in Economic Geography provides a cutting edge introduction to the central concepts that define contemporary research in Economic Geography.
Table of Contents:
Introduction 
Key Agents in Economic Geography 
    Labour, Firm, State 
Key Drivers of Economic Change 
    Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Accessibility
Industries and Regions in Economic Change 
    Industrial Location, Industrial Clusters, Regional Disparity, Post-Fordism
Global Economic Geographies 
    Core-Periphery, Globalization, Circuits of Capital, Global Value Chains
Socio-Cultural Contexts of Economic Change 
    Culture, Gender, Institutions, Embeddedness, Networks
Emerging Themes in Economic Geography
    Knowledge Economy,  Financialization,Consumption, Sustainable Development


Cultural Encounters with the Environment: Enduring and Evolving Geographic Themes.
Editd by Alexander B. Murphy and Douglas Johnson, Clark University with the assistance of Viola Haarmann, Published by Rowman & Littlefield, Maryland and Oxford, 2000.
NOTE:  In this fresh and original view of contemporary geography, distinguished scholars consider the role of four traditional themes in the "new cultural geography." They explore the interplay between the evolution of particular biophysical niches and the activities of the culture groups that inhabit them; the diffusion of cultural traits; the establishment of definition of culture areas; and the distinctive mix of geographical characteristics that gives places their special character in relation to one another.


10 Geographic Ideas that Changed the World
Edited by Susan Hanson, Clark University, Distinguished Professor Emerita Published by Rutgers University Press, New Jersey, Paperback, 2001.
NOTE: When geographic ideas change the world in our heads, the impact can be read on the ground and in our lives. In these thought-provoking, witty essays, some of America's most distinguished geographers explore the ten geographic ideas that have literally changed the world and the way we think and act. They tackle ideas that impose shape on the world, ideas that mold our understanding of the natural environment, and ideas that establish relationships between people and places.  Every one of these ideas has had - and continues to have - deep effect on the way we understand the world and our place in it.