Description: A term with myriad associations, revolution is commonly understood in its intellectual, historical, and sociopolitical contexts. Until now, almost no attention has been paid to revolution and questions of geography. Geography and Revolution examines the ways that place and space matter in a variety of revolutionary situations.
David N. Livingstone and Charles W. J. Withers assemble a set of essays that are themselves revolutionary in uncovering not only the geography of revolutions but the role of geography in revolutions. Here, scientific revolutions--Copernican, Newtonian, and Darwinian--ordinarily thought of as placeless, are revealed to be rooted in specific sites and spaces. Technical revolutions--the advent of print, time-keeping, and photography--emerge as inventions that transformed the world's order without homogenizing it. Political revolutions--in France, England, Germany, and the United States--are notable for their debates on the nature of political institutions and national identity. Gathering insight from geographers, historians, and historians of science, Geography and Revolution is an invitation to take the where as seriously as the who and the when in examining the nature, shape, and location of revolutions.Brief description: David N. Livingstone is professor of geography and intellectual history at Queen's University, Belfast.
Review Quotes: "[The case studies that play with the major terms of the title] address the geography of revolutions, revolutions in geographical science, and the fate of geography during revolutions --usually more than one of these at once, and often with a fashionable reflexiveness (the geography of geography in the Scientific Revolution, or the geography of technical revolutions in geography)....The volume's principal contribution [is] continuing to build the case for the historical importance of geographical science and its salience in cultural and political history."--Michael Dettelbach "Journal of Historical Geography" (4/1/2007 12:00:00 AM)