Author Description

Updated and revised to include theoretical and other developments, bibliographical additions, new photographs and illustrations, and expanded name and subject indexes, the fourth edition of All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas is the most complete and comprehensive book of its kind. The text also features a layout and readability that make the material easy to navigate and understand.The book investigates the ways in which the subject of geography has been recognized, perceived, and evaluated, from its early acknowledgment in ancient Greece to its disciplined form in today's world of shared ideas and mass communication. Strong continuities knit the Classical Period to the Age of Exploration, then carry students on through Varenius to Humboldt and Ritter--revealing the emergence of "the new geography" of the Modern Period.The history of American geography--developed in seven of the twenty chapters--is strongly emphasized pursuant to the formal origins of geography in late nineteenth-century Germany, Darwin's theory of evolution, and the Great Surveys of the American West. This treatment is enhanced by chapters concerning parallel histories of geography in Germany, France, Great Britain, Russia (including the USSR and CIS), Canada, Sweden, and Japan-countries that at first contributed to and later borrowed from the body of US geographical thought.All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas, Fourth Edition, is ideal for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in the history and philosophy of classical, medieval, and modern geographical thought.