Читать книгу Geography For Dummies - Jerry T. Mitchell - Страница 19

Geographers still make maps and study them, and certainly, geography still consists of subject matter that cries out to be memorized. But map memorization and descriptive studies take a back seat to analysis, explanation, and significance. Geographers have a unique lens by which they try to understand Earth, and this approach comes with several advantages.

Geographer Susan Hanson described the Geographic Advantage as a focus on the

 relationships between people and the environment

 importance of spatial variability

 processes operating at multiple and interlocking geographic scales

 integration of spatial and temporal analysis

What this means is that geographers, more than other scholars, look at how people interact with the natural world, appreciate how interactions vary from place to place and from the local to the global, and link those processes and changes over time.

A favorite definition of mine for geography encapsulates much of this and comes from Chinese–American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. He stated quite simply and elegantly that “Geography is the study of Earth as the home of people.” That says it all, doesn’t it? If geography is just the study of Earth, well then isn’t also geology or oceanography? If geography is just the study of the home of people, we then isn’t also anthropology? It is the combination of the two together, understanding physical and social systems jointly operating in this one space — Earth — that makes all the difference.