Author Description

This unique Companion showcases the importance of valleys and their socio-economic, physical and cultural landscapes across three continents. Expert scholars in the field offer a broad range of disciplinary perspectives on the topic, discussing key historical and contemporary issues governing and transforming valleys. Exploring the impact of economic and spatial justice, and environmental and climate change issues on valleys, the Companion also studies key topics including lifestyle placemaking, the rise of inequalities within and across valleys, and alternate representations of this under-studied geographical feature. Highlighting some lesser-known valleys across Europe and North and South America, chapters provide in-depth reviews of experiencing, living in and growing up in valleys, and how internal and external factors shape each valley’s characteristics. The Elgar Companion to Valleys is an excellent resource for academics and scholars in the fields of geography and environmental studies, as well as anthropology and sociology. Using original empirical data to tackle emerging theoretical issues, researchers interested in the changing internal configurations of valleys and under what conditions those changes take place will find this Companion illuminating and insightful.