Understanding the Cultural Landscape

This compelling book offers a fresh perspective on how the natural world has been imagined, built on, and transformed by human beings throughout history and around the globe. Coverage ranges from the earliest societies to preindustrial China and India, from the emergence in Europe of the modern world to the contemporary global economy. The focus is on what the places we have created say about us: our belief systems and the ways we make a living. Also explored are the social and environmental consequences of human activities, and how conflicts over the meaning of progress are reflected in today's urban, rural, and suburban landscapes. Written in a highly engaging style, this ideal undergraduate-level human geography text is illustrated with over 25 maps and 70 photographs.

Note: Visit www.greatmirror.com for many additional photographs by Bret Wallach related to the themes addressed in this book.

Bret Wallach teaches geography at the University of Oklahoma. A MacArthur Fellow, he has previously published [i]At Odds with Progress: Conservation and Americans[/i] and [i]Losing Asia: Modernization and the Culture of Development[/i]. He is presently working on a book about the rural landscapes of Eurasia.