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The AAG Review Volume 3, Issue 2
SPRING, 2015
of Books
Harun Rashid’s
and Bimal Paul’s
Climate Change
in Bangladesh:
Confronting Impending
Downloaded by [Louisiana State University] at 12:18 04 May 2015
Disasters
Reviewed by Pradyumna P. Karan
William E. Connolly’s
The Fragility
of Things:
Yi-Fu Tuan’s Self-Organizing Processes,
Romantic Neoliberal Fantasies, and
Democratic Activism
Geography: Reviewed by Neil Nunn
In Search of
the Sublime
Landscape Michael Storper’s
Reviewed by Keys to the City:

Casey D. Allen How Economics, Institutions,
Social Interaction, and
Politics Shape Development
Reviewed by Yuko Aoyama et al.
Editor-In-Chief
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Volume 3, Issue 2, Spring 2015
Contents
55 Dreaming of Dry Land: Environmental 76 Creative Economies in Post-Industrial Cities:
Transformation in Colonial Mexico City, by Manufacturing a (Different) Scene, edited by
Vera S. Candiani Myrna Margulies Breitbart
Andrew Sluyter Brenda Kayzar
58 The American Reaper: Harvesting Networks and
Technology, 1830–1910, by Gordon M. Winder Review Essay
Russell S. Kirby 79 The Geographer, Flying High, by André Humbert
60 Romantic Geography: In Search of the Sublime Paul F. Starrs
Landscape, by Yi-Fu Tuan

Casey D. Allen BOOK Review FORA
63 Climate Change in Bangladesh: Confronting 83 Making Human Geography, by Kevin R. Cox
Impending Disasters, by Harun Rashid and John Agnew, Gordon L. Clark, Denise Pumain,
Bimal Paul Linda McDowell, and Kevin R. Cox
Pradyumna P. Karan
92 Keys to the City: How Economics, Institutions,
66 Animal Oppression & Human Violence: Social Interaction, and Politics Shape Development,
Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict, by Michael Storper
by David A. Nibert Yuko Aoyama, Edward J. Malecki, Amy
Kathryn A. Gillespie Glasmeier, Susan Christopherson, and Michael
68 Ecologies and Politics of Health, edited by Brian Storper
King and Kelley A. Crews 99 The Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks,
Nancy D. Lewis by Raul Lejano, Mrill Ingram, and Helen Ingram
71 The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Margaret Wilder, Eric Magrane, Mara Miele,
Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism, David Prytherch, Rich Schein, Mrill Ingram,
by William E. Connolly and Helen Ingram
Neil Nunn
73 Reclaiming American Cities: The Struggle
for People, Place, and Nature Since 1900, by
Rutherford H. Platt
Dean Sinclair
Climate Change
in Bangladesh: Neil Nunn
Confronting on
Impending Disasters The Fragility of
by Harun Rashid and Things
Bimal Paul p. 71
p. 63
Dreaming of Dry Land:

Environmental Transformation in
Colonial Mexico City
Vera S. Candiani. Stanford, CA: began to suffer periodic inundation.
Stanford University Press, 2014. Rather than emulating the Aztecs and
xxix and 376 pp., maps, tables, their neighbors by modifying the sea-
illustrations, notes, index. $60.00 sonal rhythms of the basin’s hydrology,
the colonial elite became determined
cloth (ISBN 9780804788052);
to obliterate them by draining as much
$48.00 electronic (ISBN
of the lake water as possible. Ideally,

9780804791076). they hoped, as lake levels rose during
the rainy season, the floodwaters would
Reviewed by Andrew Sluyter, flow through an excavated tunnel or
Department of Geography and trench that stretched northward for
Anthropology, Louisiana State 13 km from near the village of Huehu-
University, Baton Rouge, LA. etoca, passed through the low moun-
tains that rimmed the northwestern
quadrant of the basin, and discharged
into the Tula River to ultimately flow
Geographervs have studied many as- down the Pánuco River into the Gulf
pects of the relationship between colo- of Mexico.
nialism and landscape in Latin Amer-
ica. One focus has been on how the Anyone now standing near the epony-
Spanish colonizers transformed the precolonial intensive mous village of Huehuetoca to view the entrance of this
wetland agriculture of the Basin of Mexico by draining its anthropic canyon or looking down from any of vari-
lakes, with continuing consequences for land and life in ous viewpoints along its course must, or at least should,
one of the world’s most populous cities. A comprehensive feel both wonder and horror. Those who envisioned it
study of the Desagüe de Huehuetoca, the monumental were bold and persistent through many generations of
earthwork excavated during the seventeenth and eigh- construction that lasted from 1607 through the entire
teenth centuries to pierce the mountains that entirely eighteenth century. Many of those forced to excavate it
enclose the Basin of Mexico and drain the lakes that suffered horrible hardship and death. And the basin’s en-
covered its floor, has nonetheless long remained a gap in vironment died, too. The lakes that once sustained agri-
that literature. Vera S. Candiani has now filled it with cultural productivity, wildlife, and canoe transportation
an innovative study that combines approaches developed are now nearly entirely gone, while a city of some 23 mil-
in historical political ecology, environmental history, lion inhabitants sinks into its desiccating subsoil, sewage
and the history of science with incisive analysis of a large and industrial waste pollute the groundwater, and pumps
body of documents and maps from Mexican and Spanish import more than 600 billion liters of fresh water per year
archives. from adjoining watersheds.
Between the fall of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán, in Yet, on returning from such a field trip to the Desagüe
1521 and the beginning of the seventeenth century, land- to search the libraries for a book that explains how such
scape transformation had so degraded the precolonial sys- an immense “public engineering project” came into be-
tem of dams and canals that the viceregal capital of Mex- ing over the colonial period, the somatic wonder and
ico City, built on the ruins of its precolonial predecessor, horror would previously have subsided into intellectual
The AAG Review of Books 3(2) 2015, pp. 55–57. doi: 10.1080/2325548X.2015.1015910.
©2015 by Association of American Geographers. Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC.
disappointment. The sparse literature on the Desagüe has an entirely different conceptual basis, insisting on careful
never before done justice to its role in the European colo- surveys of the entire basin to measure how much water
nization of this region. had to be drained, followed by calculations of discharge
rate, gradient, and friction to achieve the greatest drain-
Now, through eight chapters, Candiani explicates the ma- age efficiency at the lowest construction cost. Meanwhile,
terial and conceptual process involved in a phenomenon natives conscripted to work on the Desagüe incorporated
that was decidedly immense and colonial but just as de- their own knowledge of various types, such as the best
cidedly not public, engineered, or a project. In Chapter 1 plants with which to armor the faces of the earthen dams
she sketches the hydraulic expertise of natives in precolo- that channeled runoff into the Desagüe. Such conceptual
nial and early colonial times to contrast it, in Chapter 2, diversity, often vigorously contested, militated against
with that of the colonizers. The next five chapters, albeit a cohesive design. Rather than being “engineered” or a
marred by poor copyediting, detail the process through “project,” the Desagüe emerged as a tangled, contested,
which the Desagüe came into being over the seventeenth punctuated improvisation.
and eighteenth centuries: the contested purposes, de-
signs, and practices as they related to social relations, Nor was the Desagüe a “public project,” funded by the
environmental changes, and landscape transformations. government to benefit the general populace. Candiani’s
Chapter 8 summarizes and discusses how the Desagüe be- analysis of the social relations involved demonstrates how
came such a central actor in the relationship between co- some groups controlled and benefited from the Desagüe,
lonialism and landscape, the establishment of capitalism principally the landed elite of the city. Others bore the
and modernity, and the dynamic networks of power and costs, especially the conscripted native workers who built
knowledge that crisscrossed the Atlantic world. it, but also rural landowners who relied on seasonal inun-
dation to dress fields with an increment of fertilizing mud.
In doing so, Candiani reconstructs the material dimen- Curiously, unlike so many other aspects of life and land
sions of one of the Atlantic world’s largest earthworks, in colonial Mexico, enslaved Africans played little role in
demonstrating excellent understanding of geomorpho- the Desagüe.
logical and hydrological processes. Forty-nine historical
images drawn from the archives illustrate that landscape Notably, Candiani weaves the whole into a narrative
transformation. Many are maps dating from the sixteenth alive with individuals who range from friars, viceroys,
through nineteenth centuries, some representing the lake and engineers to native laborers, foremen, and local of-
system of the entire basin and others focused on the De- ficials. One of the most captivating passages recounts
sagüe and its immediate environs. Others illustrate the how a Flemish military engineer and the royal cosmog-
details of construction machinery and tools. Still others rapher inspected the original tunnel in late November
depict cross-sections, profiles, and plan views of the De- 1614. The cosmographer, Enrico Martínez, had proposed
sagüe or associated dams, canals, and other water control the tunnel to the viceroy and directed its excavation by
structures. The few photographs date to the early twenti- 60,000 forced laborers over 1607 and 1608, but its cost
eth century, when many elements of the colonial hydrau- and poor performance prompted the Crown to send the
lic infrastructure remained extant but already seemed engineer, Adrain Boot, to investigate. Martínez, Boot,
like ancient relics in a rapidly industrializing country. a notary to record their observations, and a translator
Two expertly drafted, original maps synthesize the state entered the tunnel in canoes paddled by natives. Some-
of the Desagüe at various times, from its beginnings as a times they proceeded on the shoulders of the natives,
tunnel in 1607 through the end of the colonial period in crawled on planks supported by the vaulting, or waded
the early nineteenth century. through water up to their waists. The “air was dank and
filled with danger and echoes” (p. 73). With a quadrant,
In parallel with the material reconstruction, Candiani re- plumb bob, and staff, they surveyed the gradient of the
constructs the conceptual dimensions of the Desagüe. For tunnel, sighting by torchlight and memorizing their
example, friars involved in the construction applied Aris- observations until they could emerge “after nightfall,
totelian concepts, specifically the qualities of the four ele- drenched and muddy,” to record them and make calcula-
ments: earth, water, air, and fire. Such a tunnel or trench, tions (pp. 72–73).
they believed, required a steep gradient to allow a flow
sufficient to wet the earth continuously and thereby con- The archives also record the perspectives of natives, per-
vert it to liquid and naturally enlarge the excavation as haps more briefly but no less poignantly. In a case dating
much as necessary. The engineers involved proceed from to the eighteenth century, a local magistrate arrived in
56 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

a village to draft laborers. They would be forced to dig The Desagüe itself, however, emerges as one of the domi-
while dangling from ropes down the walls of the Desagüe nant actors in the colonization of Mexico. Without ro-
to convert the tunnel into an open trench. The harsh manticizing a precolonial society beset with its own evils,
and dangerous work had consumed so many native lives Candiani shows how the Desagüe converted a system of
over two centuries that they derisively referred to the productive agriculture, integrated transportation, and
Desagüe as the Trench of Misfortunes. In this case, one domestic water supply and drainage into a (post)colonial
repeated many times as native resistance grew to labor dystopia made inhabitable only through unsustainable
conscription, the magistrate and his troop entered the energy inputs. The Desagüe controlled nature to protect
village quietly to surprise the men. Finding them playing private property from flooding at the expense of the com-
cards he ordered them to “get up in the name of the King” mons, converting social capital into private capital. And
(p. 277). But one, Lorenzo Baca, jumped up wielding his it helped to establish modernity’s conceit: a fallacious
knife, dashed for the door, and escaped with several oth- belief in the double emancipation that supposedly freed
ers while shouting “Out of the way, carajo (f**k)!” society from nature and individuals from society.
SPRING 2015 57
The American Reaper:

Harvesting Networks and
Technology, 1830–1910
Gordon M. Winder. Burlington, and defining sales areas. Several firms
VT: Ashgate, 2012. ix and 257 competed in the technological arena,
pp., maps, tables, illustrations, much as has been the case in the au-
bibliography, index. $119.95 tomobile industry or more recently
with smartphones, with innovations
cloth (ISBN 9781409424611);
both small and large introduced on
$119.95 electronic (ISBN
an almost annual basis. Consolidation

9781409424628). in this industry occurred even as new
entrants joined the competition. The
Reviewed by Russell S. Kirby, American reaper was also one of the
Department of Community and first mechanical devices to originate in
Family Health, University of North America and reach worldwide
South Florida, Tampa, FL. markets.
The approach Winder takes differs

In this brief monograph, Gordon M. from that of the business or economic
Winder traces the economic history historian, although borrowing much
and spatial evolution of markets and from these disciplines. His focus on
distribution networks for the American networks within and between firms,
reaper. Most students of U.S. history, licensing arrangements, and sales and
and particularly those with an interest in the history of marketing agreements elucidates the complexity and in-
modern agriculture and its technology, are familiar with terconnectedness of firms with suppliers, marketers, and
the McCormick reaper, invented by Cyrus McCormick in patent holders even as early as the antebellum period in
the 1830s. This invention has achieved almost mythical the United States. Winder shows how business networks
status as the technological innovation that spurred the for McCormick’s products evolved and competed with
agricultural expansion of the settlement across the prai- those of other Canadian and U.S. firms. The market
ries and plains. The International Harvester Company, niches in which McCormick competed were similar to
lineal business descendant of McCormick’s original form, those for smartphones, tablets, and other technologies
is often identified as being one of the first transnational in the present day. Very quickly the business developed
corporations, and also as a pioneer in mass production an international quality, and in many ways became the
and in vertical integration of its business lines. Having archetype of the global business with which we are now
read this monograph, this reviewer is inclined to include familiar. Over time, as manufacturing technologies im-
McCormick, his reaper, and the business innovations of proved, McCormick’s factories were among the first to im-
the International Harvester Company among the many plement mass production strategies, enabling the firm to
persistent myths in conventional teaching of U.S. history support a global sales and marketing network. All of these
that have been debunked following the painstaking re- developments occurred well before 1900, and clearly pre-
search of historical geographers. date the formation of the International Harvester Com-
pany in 1902.
Winder demonstrates that the American reaper was
manufactured and marketed under a variety of licens- Winder relies heavily on archival materials, but deftly in-
ing agreements providing for royalties to patent holders tegrates his narrative with links to the economic history
literature as well as key contributions to the historical this monograph. The text is well illustrated with maps,
geography of nineteenth-century North America. The figures, and tables.
book consists of seven chapters, beginning with an intro-
ductory chapter placing the monograph in broad context. In many ways The American Reaper is a book only a ge-
The remaining chapters are gathered in two parts, on ographer could have written. Obvious elements include
production network geographies and on competition and the numerous maps and graphics, but more than that, the
collaboration. Although each chapter could largely stand conceptual framework for the spatial integration of man-
on its own, more effort made at rendering the text into a ufacturing and marketing that Winder describes has the
coherent whole would have enhanced the readability of stamp of the economic historical geographer all over it.
SPRING 2015 59
Romantic Geography: In Search

of the Sublime Landscape
Yi-Fu Tuan. Madison: University Those familiar with Tuan’s compen-
of Wisconsin Press, 2014. ix and dium of work will see similarities with
205 pp., notes, and index. $24.95 previous endeavors: the Classical story
cloth (ISBN 978-0299296803); here, the long-winded anecdote there.
In this sense, the reading is mostly
$16.95 electronic (ISBN 978-0-
accessible. The book becomes mired
299-29683-4).
down in too many of these stories,

however. They are certainly interest-
Reviewed by Casey D. Allen, ing and informative, but do little to
Department of Geography and help the reader understand what ex-
Environmental Sciences, Univer- actly Tuan means by romantic and sub-
sity of Colorado Denver, Denver, lime. Even so, having spent more than
CO. a half-century exploring the world’s
great expositions and essays search-
ing for meaning, Tuan embodies the
consummate philosopher-scholar for
Home. Just the word conjures strong tackling such a topic as searching for
emotions. Whether they had a home or the romantic and sublime. Whether
not, the word is laden with meaning for each individual. discussing The Word in Genesis, Dante’s Paradiso, Gothic
Romantic, however, is not necessarily a word often associ- architecture, Joseph Conrad, or indigenous tribes around
ated with home, at least not when taken as the custom- the world, it matters not. Tuan’s insights into these texts
ary definition that denotes physical attraction and excite- and topics is that of a master. He outlines the valiant
ment. Perhaps romantic in the nostalgic sense of the word efforts of each intrepid explorer and voyager to exam-
many might agree could describe home. But in the affec- ine their understanding of home, their individual place
tionate sense? Usually not. Changing this perception, un- on earth and in the environment, offering reminiscent
derstanding home as a traditionally romantic place, how- breezes of his early forays into humanistic geography that
ever, rests at the heart of Romantic Geography. Yi-Fu Tuan steer the reader into enticing yet often wayward seas.
is not worried, it seems, about the potential implications Compiled as a geographic symphony of sorts, including
of his version of romantic being ensconced in academic an “Overture,” “Interlude,” and “Coda,” Tuan promises in
discourse related to the Romantic Movement or period the first pages that there is a need for romantic geography
or Romanticism in general, although he takes many of and the sublime, but spends most of his time wandering
his examples from those themes. Instead of dwelling on around ancient cities, regaling us with classical stories,
them, though, he focuses on romantic being equated with and exploring concepts we already know from his previ-
home. Similarly, when it comes to searching for his “sub- ous works instead of getting to the point. Yet even if the
lime landscape,” he seems not so much concerned with anecdotes are long and drawn out and the reader might
the sublime being portrayed as with landscape apprecia- get lost a little along the journey, Tuan still writes acces-
tion or formal Romanticism (although again, examples sible prose.
using the movement are numerous throughout the book).
Rather, he views the sublime as the individual—some- For example, most current and past buzzwords (sustain-
times intertwined with the romantic, sometimes standing ability, environmentalism, ecology, livelihoods, etc.), he
on its own. suggests, represent an attempt to make the earth a stable
and living home. And that concept of home—often seen the winter. At first glance, the city seems like a whimsi-
as a distinctly nonromantic endeavor—apparently repre- cal journey, transporting us to historic London through
sents the binding force throughout this book. Then, after nineteenth-century eyes, and then propelling us forward
establishing that romantic-equals-home by exploring the to modern Manhattan, a city that never sleeps. But to
“polarized values” of dark–light, chaos–form, low–high, what end? Why illustrate (from the Latin for light, Tuan
body–space, and brain–brawn, he guides us on an expe- would remind us) Dickens’s bleary London, Haussmann’s
dition through earth’s grand natural environments. The redesign of Paris, and Sherlock Holmes’s excursions to
overture’s tempo picks up in this quest for the sublime opium dens? Tuan uses these sometimes interesting, yet
over the next hundred pages or so, with each subsection somewhat drawn-out examples to demonstrate how every
using several classical and quasi-contemporary exam- facet of these stories survive, even thrive still today: They
ples—from Copernicus and Captain Cook to Christian- each focus on home. These stories are romantic, Tuan
ity and aboriginal tribes. This is meant, I suppose, to help suggests, because the “Quest is at the heart of romance”
the reader realize that each locale means a different type (p. 167), and as human beings, we are attracted to them.
of home depending on the individual, regardless if that They compel us to want to explore and journey, regardless
home includes mythical monsters like those Odysseus en- of which one of the “three distinctive human types” (p.
countered, or tyrannical, real-life ones, such as the Nazi 147) we are: aesthete, hero, or saint.
regime and its propaganda in the 1930s.
Throughout the book, story after story, we are reminded

The last two grand environments of his overture, deserts that Tuan is certainly well read and, arguably, that he un-
and ice, attempt to pull the reader in for a closer look at derstands individuality more than any other geographer
two extreme climes to assess how they function not just writing today. Perhaps that is why he attempts to classify
as home, but as sources for “spiritual elevation” (p. 108). human beings: to demonstrate that although collectivity
These seemingly disparate, empty-feeling environments, remains important to humans, it is in the individuality
Tuan argues, still evoke romanticism throughout genera- that the being survives. Yet he misses a great opportunity,
tions, as brave (crazy?) explorers set off to discover and re- especially for the current generation of geographers fa-
port back on these once far-flung locales, although he pro- miliar with late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century
vides very little in the way of contemporary explorations, literature, by skipping over more contemporary examples
drawing the chronological line at Nansen, Byrd, and that could have been used to energize his argument (once
Lawrence (of Arabia). Yet, as the 100-page overture con- you find it), rather than remaining bogged down with the
cludes, Tuan reminds the reader that, as with the other same stories from previously published work. Of course
environments, it is in the struggle of such environments the classics are important, but why not interweave them
that home might reside. Indeed, he says, what makes such with examples from recent literature? Surely characters
life-threatening settings home is the chance of death. and series such as Harry Potter, Jason Bourne, Star Wars,
and The Hunger Games, to name a few, fit Tuan’s “quest”
Although he admittedly draws somewhat heavily on his for home and individual—while also providing strong
previous work—for example, his chapter “Desert and Ice: examples of his hero, saint, and aesthete—just as easily
Ambivalent Aesthetics” in Kemal and Gaskell’s (1993) as Dickens’s tales, Sherlock Holmes’s exploits, and Odys-
Landscape, Natural Beauty, and the Arts—he never gives seus’s adventures.
up on his goal of home as romantic, leading the reader
into a short “Interlude” that represents the very Tua- Apparently, with all human types, regardless of literary
nian vision of geography, the pinnacle of achievement periods and genres and no matter if they are exploring
for geography as a discipline in his eyes: the importance deep forests, conquering mountain peaks, avoiding giant
of knowing oneself and one’s place (as in location, not whirlpools, or facing death itself, the individual is always
necessarily station, although Tuan does make reference present, irrespective of whether they are at their home
to the latter definition as being important to individual- or searching for it. Perhaps that is Tuan’s main message:
ity and home as well). If, as he proposes, home can be Whether you get lost along the way from unclear direc-
physically attractive, drawing us ever closer, then where tions, stay the course to home, or find it (or yourself) along
is that place? For Tuan, a cosmopolite himself, it is “The the way, enjoying the journey—no matter how long, te-
City” (Chapter 3). Here he weaves his way through the dious, scary, harrowing, joyful, or enlightening it might
dark alleys of Neolithic and ancient Chinese cities to the be—remains key. For home, Tuan suggests in this book,
illuminated (literally, even during the night) modern-day is where we can be our true, sublime individual selves the
cities that, compared to historic cities, now awake even in most, where we can, in a sense, achieve the “romantic
SPRING 2015 61
sublime” (p. 171). After all, as he noted in a previous ar- requires the reader to perform a laborious and in-depth
ticle a few decades ago, life is a field trip. Without the reading, deliberately sifting through the tiniest nuances
quest, without the sublime (the individual) being inspired example by example, story by story, and snippet by snip-
by romantic (the home), Tuan notes in the closing line, pet, filtering out all the unnecessary debris, to finally find
“no really good scientific work can be done” (p. 177). Tuan’s points. Home can be romantic. The individual can
be sublime. There is a need for romantic geography and
Such an ending line is certainly provocative, and al- the sublime landscape. But Tuan’s latest endeavor sac-
though this reader might agree with such a statement, it rifices perhaps compelling evidence for old stories, and
is still quite a claim given that Tuan provides the reader never reaches its full potential. A refreshing of references
with little to support it other than classical stories and and more direct explanations of concepts would go a long
rehashing of previous endeavors. His vision of exactly way to help Tuan’s latest endeavor achieve the notoriety
what romantic geography and the sublime landscape are it should deserve.
never fully comes to fruition. Thoroughly dissecting the
book, the themes of home (the romantic) and individual
Reference
(the sublime) are continually related to various scenarios,
but not really explained. Indeed, deciphering these two Kemal, S., and I. Gaskell, eds. 1993. Landscape, natural
concepts’ cruxes (for they are different in Tuan’s eyes, beauty, and the arts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni-
although each informs and interacts with the other) versity Press.

Climate Change in Bangladesh:

Confronting Impending Disasters
Harun Rashid and Bimal Paul. 1880, with two thirds of the warming
Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, occurring since 1975. Rashid and Paul
2014. xviii and 234 pp., maps, note that mean annual temperature in
illustrations, bibliography, index. Bangladesh has increased 1.3° Celsius
between 1950 and 2000. Average win-
$85.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-7391-
ter temperatures increased 2.6° Celsius
8353-3); $84.99 electronic (ISBN
during the same period based on data

978-0-7391-8354-0) analyzed by the authors. This warm-
ing has a taste in a village in south-
Reviewed by Pradyumna P. west Bangladesh I visited recently. It
Karan, Department of Geog- is the taste of salt. A couple of decades
raphy, University of Kentucky, ago, water from the local ponds were
Lexington, KY. fresh and sweet. Now it leaves a briny
flavor. The change is the result of in-
tensified flooding caused by shifting
Climate change is not an event in our climate patterns. Warming weather
children’s future. It is bearing down on and rising oceans are sending seawa-
us now, and there is little we—or any- ter surging up Bangladesh’s rivers in
one else—can do to prevent the hit. greater volume and frequency than
We are staring down a climate bubble ever before, overflowing and seeping
that poses enormous risks to both en- into the soil and water supply of thou-
vironment and economy. The warning signs are clear and sands of people. Their lives are being squeezed by distant
growing more urgent as the risks goes unchecked. Ha- lands they have seen only on television—the United
run Rashid and Bimal Paul provide a fascinating, rich, States, China, and Russia at the top of the heap—whose
and engrossing account of climatic disasters and climate carbon emissions are pushing temperatures and sea lev-
change in Bangladesh, existing coping strategies, and po- els inexorably upward. The reality is that 300 years of
tential adaptation measures. Nearly 166 million people, economic growth in the industrialized countries have
the equivalent of about half the U.S. population, live been fueled by the combustion of fossil fuels—coal, pe-
packed in an area the size of Iowa and about as flat. Home troleum, and natural gas. The large emerging economies
to where the mighty Brahmaputra, Ganges, and Meghna of China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, and South
rivers meet, most of Bangladesh is a vast delta of alluvial Africa are rapidly putting in place new infrastructure
plains that are barely above sea level, making it prone to that is also dependent on burning fossil fuels. Reduc-
flooding from waterways swollen by rain, snowmelt from ing greenhouse gas pollution will require cooperation of
the Himalaya, and increased infiltration by the sea. countries that account for 80 percent of global carbon di-
oxide emissions. This will mean resolving deep divisions
Global warming trends have exacerbated that, and the between industrialized nations and developing countries,
situation will probably get worse, as Rashid and Paul which argue they should be able to build their econo-
point out in this book. The United Nations has set a goal mies, just as the West did, without having to reduce or
of keeping global temperatures from rising no more than slow the growth of their emissions. This dispute has pre-
2° Celsius above preindustrial levels. The average global vented progress internationally to reduce the threat of
temperature has increased by about 0.8° Celsius since global climate change. A real international dialogue is
the only way we are going to face the challenge of cli- quarter of the country would be submerged. Dhaka, now
mate change and take on the perils and promise of the the center of the nation, would sit within 60 miles of the
twenty-first century. Rashid and Paul’s book makes a coast, where boats would float over the drowned remnants
compelling case for why we have to do it and how we can of countless town squares, markets, houses, and schools.
succeed. As many as 30 million people would become refugees in
their own land in coming decades, many of them sub-
The first five chapters of this book provide insightful and sistence farmers with nothing to subsist on any longer.
coherent analyses of the physical nature of climate change Dhaka is prone to frequent flooding and waterlogging,
in Bangladesh and reviews leading indigenous adjust- caused by extreme precipitation, topography, improper
ments to climate hazards such as tropical cyclones, floods, development, and poor solid waste management. This is
and droughts. Higher-than-usual floods have wiped out likely to be exacerbated as climate change brings greater
homes and paddy fields. They have increased the salinity rainfall variability. The city’s poor population typically
of water, which is contaminating wells, killing trees, and occupies the most marginalized areas, which are often
slowly poisoning the mighty mangrove forest that forms waterlogged.
a natural barrier against cyclones from the Bay of Ben-
gal. Rashid and Paul present a grounded but broad view Rashid and Paul point out that royal Bengal tigers, once
of climate change in Bangladesh, judiciously assessing abundant in Sundarban, are vanishing. More people are
the key debates and recognizing (but never drowning in) living in their range. They face habitat loss. As the Sun-
complexity. Authors combine an authoritative voice with darban forest degrades due to human and climate-induced
meticulous documentation. change, how will Bangladesh protect its wildlife?
The next five chapters of the book provide a masterful sur-
vey of the human dimensions of climate change impacts: For years, the government of Bangladesh downplayed the
climate change victims, climate justice, and climate refu- danger posed by global warming. Bangladesh is hardly
gees. It includes penetrating interpretative commentaries unique in that regard; many accuse the United States of
on what is at stake. It also reviews Bangladesh’s initiatives doing the same. I recall hearing officials dismissing the
for confronting climate disasters. If sea levels continue to fact that Bangladesh risked being permanently inun-
rise at their present rate, the home of the villager I visited dated. The weight of scientific opinion documented in
will be swamped, overrun by the ocean with unstoppable this book, however, provides evidence that climate pat-
force. That, in turn, will trigger another kind of flood: terns are already shifting and producing harmful effects
millions of displaced residents desperate for a place to in this region. Politicians who had previously dismissed
live. Bangladesh, a densely crowded nation, contributes global warming as a far-off problem are starting to see it
only a minuscule amount to the greenhouse gases slowly as a clear and present danger. In 2004, the government
smothering the planet. But a combination of geography set up a climate-change unit in its Environment Ministry,
and demography puts it among the countries that will be but it has precious few resources. A network of cyclone
hardest hit as the Earth heats up. Climate Change in Ban- shelters has been built and an early warning system was
gladesh offers compelling empirical insights and provides established under the Cyclone Preparedness Program
a welcome synthesis and interrogation of impacts of the in 1972. A deadly 1970 cyclone killed about 470,000 in
climate change in the country. Bangladesh, and spurred the creation of the country’s Cy-
clone Preparedness Program, run by Bangladesh’s govern-
Climate change affects three major climatic disasters in ment and the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society. The pro-
Bangladesh. First, the frequency of tropical cyclones has gram relies on a grassroots network of tens of thousands
increased due to a global-warming-induced rise in sea sur- of volunteers who send out cyclone warnings in villages.
face temperatures in the North Indian Ocean and Bay More women have been recruited and they account for 30
of Bengal. Second, high-magnitude river floods are at- percent of volunteers, and help convince other women to
tributed to the global-warming-induced intensification of evacuate earlier. Mosques have long been enlisted to blast
the monsoon rainfall regime. Third, northwestern Ban- alerts through megaphones normally used to sound the
gladesh has experienced greater incidence of droughts in daily calls to prayer. Training, mock drills, social gath-
recent decades. erings, and theatrical performances throughout the year
keep volunteers motivated. Preparing for natural disasters
If the sea continues to rise in the delta region, the result- is essential in low-lying Bangladesh, making it especially
ing damage would set Bangladesh’s progress back. Up to vulnerable to cyclones and floods, which happen nearly
12 percent of the population would be made homeless. A every year. Most rural people in cyclone-prone areas live

in flimsy homes made of thatch or tin roofs, and mud water-borne diseases. The struggle for survival continues
walls and floors. Sturdier cyclone-proof homes are now if livelihoods are wiped out by climatic disasters. In a fu-
being tested. ture with more severe storms, deeper floods and droughts,
and rising seas that imperil coastal regions, public fund-
So what can be done to help people weather cyclones in ing to pay for adaptations and disaster relief will add sig-
Bangladesh? The country has already had an effective nificantly to fiscal problems that could threaten Bangla-
warning system for more than four decades. Since 2004, desh’s economic security.
though, Bangladesh’s government and international orga-
nizations have been strengthening disaster management Climate Change in Bangladesh could not be more timely.
programs to get more people to shelters and help them The book puts the problems of climate change in an in-
through the painful aftermath of cyclones. The devas- creasingly interconnected and increasingly environmen-
tation continues after cyclones have passed. After big tally riven Bangladesh into useful and illuminating con-
storms, sources of drinking water such as ponds are of- text. It brings together history, geography, government,
ten contaminated by salt water and debris, which leads to and with no small amount of passion.
SPRING 2015 65
Animal Oppression & Human

Violence: Domesecration,
Capitalism, and Global Conflict
David A. Nibert. New York: animal oppression was closely inter-
Columbia University Press, twined with human oppression; for
2013. 352 pp., notes, in- instance, human slavery developed
dex. $29.50 paper (ISBN alongside the domestication of other
species as those in power required hu-
9780231151894); $89.50 cloth
man labor to maintain the subjugation
(ISBN 9780231151887).
of other animals in farming.
Reviewed by Kathryn A. Gil- Nibert employs a historical-materialist

lespie, Department of Geogra- approach to understand the systemic
phy, University of Washington, impacts of pastoralism, ranching, and
Seattle, WA. contemporary industrial factory farm-
ing. The book is organized chronologi-
cally and spans the globe in its explo-
Animal Oppression & Human Violence, ration of domesecration. Nibert begins
by David A. Nibert, is a provocative with the transition from forager soci-
counterhistory of the domestication of eties to pastoralist and early ranching
nonhuman animals, the rise of capital- systems (Chapter 1). This is followed
ism, and the violent oppression of hu- by a historical account of the role of
mans and other animals. The work challenges dominant animals in the colonization of the Americas by the Span-
narratives that characterize domestication as a feature ish and Portuguese (Chapter 2). The “settling” of the
of historical and contemporary human–animal relations North American West was also a period of violent appro-
celebrated for its role in the presumed success of human priation of indigenous peoples and land, along with other
evolution and technological innovation. Nibert offers a species native to the region, and farmed animals were in-
different reading of this process, renaming it “domesecra- tegral instruments and subjects of war and violence in
tion” to highlight the violent role of domestication in Western ranching (Chapter 3) and in the annexation of
colonizing not only the bodies and lives of other animals, Texas and the U.S. expropriation of Mexico’s northern
but also indigenous peoples around the globe. Contem- half (Chapter 4). The domesecration of other animals,
porary global injustice and inequality, he says, stem from Nibert argues, was a key feature in European colonization
this history of domesecration. of other parts of the world, including parts of Africa, New
Zealand, Australia, and Ireland—all places he uses as ex-
Animal agriculture, like domestication and capitalism, is amples of violence enacted by elites on other humans and
a hegemonic institution. So thoroughly is the use of other nonhuman animals (Chapter 5).
animals implicated in human societies that the violence
inherent in these institutions goes largely unchallenged. Moving onto contemporary times, Nibert describes the
This long-standing normalization of violence against ani- rise of what he terms “hamburger culture” in the United
mals only increased with the rise of capitalism. Indeed, States (Chapter 6)—a history that should not be unfa-
Nibert’s central argument is that domesecration of other miliar for those who have read Schlosser’s (2010) Fast
animals facilitated the rise of capitalism and the conquest Food Nation. Here he explains how the effects of this
of humans, land, and other animals across the globe. Nib- hamburger culture have global ramifications with an
ert describes in detail the ways in which the history of analysis of ranching and feed-crop farming in Latin
America and the violent conflict arising around this ex- contemporary agriculture and food systems, human–envi-
port production. The book concludes with a reckoning ronment relations, and global inequality and struggles for
of contemporary global conflict related to land disposses- justice will find much of use in this book.
sion, environmental degradation, climate change, wide-
spread inequality, increased consumption of other spe- For those unaccustomed to thinking about the ongoing
cies, corporate power and greed, and public health and plight of other-than-human animals, Nibert’s call for
disease—all urgent problems driven in large part, Nibert veganism as a global imperative might sound extreme, or
argues, by domesecration (Chapter 8). Thus, he advocates even universalizing. The argument articulated through-
a radical restructuring of contemporary social relations: a out the book is carefully constructed, however, in such a
widespread dismantling of capitalism, and veganism as a way to illustrate the ways in which animal use, in many
global imperative (Chapter 9). forms, is at the root of global injustice and, as such, veg-
anism (the abstention from supporting systems of animal
The book offers a major intervention into the social sci- use) is a necessary step to dismantling these global struc-
ences and humanities. Its value, in part, lies in its coun- tures of power and oppression. He is careful to acknowl-
terhegemonic reading of the history of domestication: edge and respond to concerns about universalizing ethi-
one that centers the oppression of animals at the origin cal imperatives—a conversation that admittedly could
of social inequality. What sets this book apart from other have been expanded on in the conclusion—and links
books that tend to focus either on violence against hu- his argument about veganism with the need to critique
mans or violence against nonhuman animals is that Nib- and resist capitalism as a hegemonic political-economic
ert carefully shows the entanglements of violence against system.
many species (including humans) in his analysis. Thus,
he creates a complex and rich history that demonstrates Animal Oppression & Human Violence is a profoundly im-
how hegemonic structures of domesecration and capital- portant book and should be widely read and discussed. It
ism operate to oppress and subjugate human and nonhu- is a book that easily transcends disciplinary boundaries
man animals alike. This kind of analysis is a welcomed and international borders and has relevance for a diverse
corrective in geography and the social sciences (as well as set of scholars of social justice and inequality. Nibert
the academy at large) where critiques of social inequality urges us to confront the way oppression of, and violence
and oppression are often siloed, focusing on one group or against, humans and other species are intertwined as a
another, prioritizing and reinforcing hierarchical concep- critical step in working toward a more just and peaceful
tions of whose lives and deaths matter most. For scholars world. Thus, understanding and taking seriously multi-
interested in resisting structures of violence and appro- species violence should inform not only our intellectual
priation, much can be learned from this form of analy- projects of knowledge making, but also our political and
sis, which resists the hierarchization of lives and bodies ethical commitments in how we ought to live our lives in
and attends to global structures of power and inequality. a multispecies world.
Beyond the issue of domesecration, Nibert’s argument
and approach can be applied to a range of topics in fields
Reference
such as geography, sociology, history, environmental
studies, critical animal studies, and agricultural studies. Schlosser, E. 2010. Fast food nation: The dark side of the
Those interested in critiques of capitalism, historical and all-American meal. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.
SPRING 2015 67
Ecologies and Politics of Health
Brian King and Kelley A. Crews, The fifteen chapters are organized
eds. London and New York: into four sections, concluding with a
Routledge, 2013. xix and 298 chapter on lessons learned and rec-
pp., maps, figures, tables, ommendations for future research and
policy interventions. It is testimony to
contributors, bibliography,
the interdisciplinary nature of the ap-
index. $160.00 cloth (ISBN
proaches that many of the papers could

9780415590662). have been readily clustered in more
than one of the sections. Three key
Reviewed by Nancy D. Lewis, themes are addressed: the ecological
Research Program, East-West dimensions of health and vulnerability,
Center, Honolulu, HI. the sociopolitical dimension of human
health, and the intersections between
the ecological and social dimensions
The authors in this edited volume ad- of health. The contributions to Part
dress the social, political, and ecologi- III, “Disease Histories, the State, and
cal dimensions of human health and (Mis)management,” were most closely
vulnerability, emphasizing the inter- aligned and have the greatest reso-
sections, tensions, and synergies be- nance with common conceptions of
tween them. The volume had its origins in a session at the political ecology of health. I found the chapter by
the 2009 Association of American Geographers (AAG) Kendra McSweeney and Zoe Pearson in Part III on the
annual meeting. Some of the volume’s strengths, and to political ecology of indigenous health and well-being in
a lesser degree, some limitations could be traced to its lowland Latin America particularly insightful. Despite
origins as a conference session. In the forward, Billie Lee very high maternal morbidity and mortality, the women
Turner suggests that the volume contributes a new “hy- (and men) in their study see high parity as both health-
brid sociopolitical-ecological health” (p. xix) approach ful, especially for the group, and also a critical condition
to understanding the human–environment dimensions for indigenous resurgence. They explore how health can
of health. I would only add that this is not an entirely be used as a tool of resistance to shape sociopolitical and
new hybridization. While Kelley A. Crews does present environmental outcomes. These authors, as well as others
a conceptualization that places health at the center of in the volume, stress that we must explore much more
a socioecological systems (SES) framework in Chapter nuanced understandings of health and well-being than
2, Turner also correctly points out that the chapters in those provided by the conventional biomedical model.
the volume are generally less concerned with developing
an explanatory perspective and, using mixed methods, In the introductory chapter, King and Crews explain
more focused on understanding the many aspects of the that the central objective of the volume is to bring to-
complex relationships that affect health. Most of the gether contributions from the natural and social sciences
chapters indeed do this. The varied lenses of integration to examine the social and ecological dimensions of hu-
suggested by Turner and the fact that each chapter ad- man health. A review of the authors’ brief biographical
dresses the intersections between the sociopolitical and sketches reveals that most are geographers (albeit span-
ecological dimensions of human health are strengths of ning the expanding range of geography’s subdisciplines)
the volume. with a few sociologists and economists, not surprising
for a volume based on an AAG session. The contribu- Africa by McCord et al.—and the third on urban health
tion from the natural sciences was actually quite limited, stress by Wilhelmi et al.
although the multiauthored papers included contribu-
tions from ecologists, a public health practitioner, and As the editors point out, it is most typical to consider eco-
researchers at interdisciplinary research centers includ- logical factors in the context of infectious disease; they
ing the Center for International Earth Science Infor- also noted that it is equally important to consider the
mation Network (CIESIN) and the National Center for ecological in urban locations. My expectations raised, I
Atmospheric Research (NCAR). If we were to judge the was somewhat disappointed when almost all of the chap-
volume only on how effectively it brought together the ters with the exception of the one on urban heat stress
natural and social sciences, then it would fall somewhat had a largely rural focus. A partial exception is Robbins
short of success. I agree with the editors when they sug- and Miller’s discussion of varying examples of mosquito
gest that calling for integrating the social and natural control in three different counties in Arizona. Young
sciences into a multidisciplinary (or even interdisciplin- mentions increased asymmetries between urban and rural
ary) approach is neither new nor helpful and concur with populations of tropical countries, but largely stressing the
their suggestion that “what is needed is an approach to political and economic power cities wield over rural areas,
health that leverages these fields not merely to supple- and Castro and Singer briefly discuss extended urbaniza-
ment each other but to fuse them together in ways that tion and population mobility associated with the spread
are unanticipated, synergistic and transformative” (p. 2). of malaria in Amazonian cities. With over 50 percent of
Although some of the chapters are outstanding, neither the world’s population living in cities, the complex socio-
the chapters themselves, nor the book as a whole, truly ecological healthscapes of cities demand more attention.
reaches this transformative goal. It does, however, ad-
vance the discussion in valuable ways, and the chapters The inclusion of a chapter on accidental injuries in Ban-
are rich with varied examples of the “lenses of integra- gladesh was a welcome addition. Morbidity and mortality
tion” mentioned earlier. resulting from injuries are too often neglected, especially
in the global south. They should not be. Root and Emch
As a single cause of ill health, HIV receives the most point out that in low- and middle-income countries, the
attention. In two case studies, Pope employs a dynamic mortality rate from unintentional injuries is nearly double
relational approach to explore HIV and AIDS and the that in high-income countries.
marginalization of rural Mayan communities in west-
ern Belize. She concludes that the confounding factors In the conclusion, the editors of the volume suggest that
of poverty and abstinence education could have created we should pay more attention to the interplay of health
high-risk behaviors and environments. Economists Still- with changing land use and land cover (LULC), climate,
wagon and Sawyers suggest that the behavioral paradigm and migration patterns. I could not agree more, but I am
that defines African HIV and AIDS epidemics almost biased, having recently been part of a coupled natural–
exclusively through the lens of heterosexual behavior, human systems team exploring the relationship between
based on the belief that there is something exceptional land use change and the emergence of avian influenza in
about sexual behaviors in Africa, does not explain HIV poultry in Vietnam. The changing climate is the dynamic
and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Other explanations in- envelope within which all these social, ecological, and
clude nutritional status and comorbidities. They further political processes are interacting. Many of the chapters
argue that AIDS policy remains misguided because of in- do deal with LULC and migration in one way or another,
stitutional momentum and the politically powerful orga- including Vanwey et al. on health and livelihoods in small
nizations that have defined the discourse. King provides holder frontiers, Young on changing tropical landscapes,
a review of the literature on social and ecological impacts and Castro and Singer in a strong chapter on human set-
of HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and questions tlement and frontier malaria in the Brazilian Amazon. It
whether conceptualizing HIV and AIDS as a transforma- is not surprising that geographers, with grounding in both
tive shock captures either the diversity of its impacts or human and natural science, have been in the forefront of
the multiple processes that shape human vulnerability to much LULC research and geographers exploring LULC
disease. He argues that HIV and AIDS might be better are well represented in this volume.
understood as a dynamic, disproportionate, and dispersed
health experience. Three other chapters present useful It is definitely a volume worth reading. As I read, I re-
overviews, two on tropical disease—Buruli ulcer disease flected on the voices of the medical geographers who in-
by Qi et al., and the tsetse fly and trypanosomiasis in formed me as a graduate student more than three decades
SPRING 2015 69
ago: John Hunter, Charles Good, Robert Roundy, Me- as sustainability. Central to this volume is a conceptu-
linda Meade, and later, Jon Mayer and a myriad of oth- alization of health that is centered on social and eco-
ers. With the exception of Mayer, those authors shared logical security, well-being, equity, and sustainability. In
a rural, largely infectious disease focus in much of their the introduction, the authors also argue that humans
work. Although King and Crews outline some of the cannot be artificially separated from the environment
shortcomings of earlier medical geography, geography has and that doing so ignores the reciprocal relationships
a long tradition of exploring the health implications of between human health and vulnerability and ecosystem
human–environment interactions. The global commu- health and vulnerability. The volume includes many of
nity is on the cusp of adopting a new set of Sustainable the characteristics of ecohealth, which is characterized
Development Goals that will come into effect in 2015. by transdisciplinarity, participation, gender and social
Geographers are well positioned to continue contribut- equity, systems thinking, sustainability, and research to
ing to the understanding of the complex interactions that action (Charron 2012). I anticipate that many geogra-
result in the health and ill health of humans and ecosys- phers, including some of those contributing to this vol-
tems. There will be many theoretical and methodological ume, will make valuable contributions to this emergent
paths for these contributions. If the focus is on the inte- field. One contribution will be to assure that the po-
gration of the natural and social sciences as this volume litical dimension, including environmental justice, well
attempted, however, an important framework is presented addressed in this volume, is part of the transdisciplinary
by ecohealth. mix.
This emerging field brings together social scientists, nat-

ural scientists, colleagues from the humanities, as well Reference
as communities, policymakers, and other stakeholders to
address how social, economic, and ecological dynamics Charron, D. 2012. Ecosystem approaches to health for a
affect the health of humans and of ecosystems as well global sustainability agenda. Ecohealth 9 (3): 256–66.

The Fragility of Things:

Self-Organizing Processes,
Neoliberal Fantasies, and
Democratic Activism
William E. Connolly. Durham, ideologies (particularly those of Hayek
NC: Duke University Press, and Friedman, embraced by institu-
2013. 247 pp., notes, bibliogra- tions like Fox News, the Tea Party, and
phy, index. $23.95 paper (ISBN the Republican Party), then thinks
through the ways that we might begin
9780822355847); $84.95 cloth
to envision the intricate intertwining
(ISBN 9780822355700).
of neoliberalism with the fragility of
both human and nonhuman systems.
Reviewed by Neil Nunn, Depart- By thinking about neoliberalism as
ment of Geography and Planning, unstable, vulnerable, and fragile and
University of Toronto, Toronto, weaving this idea into his discussion,
ON, Canada. Connolly’s critical work attempts to
belie the commonly accepted idea that
deregulated and free-market systems
At first glance, William E. Connolly’s are stable and rational. According to
The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Connolly, the fragility of “things” to-
Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and day becomes most apparent when hu-
Democratic Activism reads like arche- man culture (and all its creative and
typal scholarly fare. He begins the book vicissitudinous evolution), nonhuman
by highlighting a particular problem, devotes the core to force fields (earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, insect in-
an esoteric and theoretical discussion underpinned by the festations), and the nexus of both human and nonhu-
works of primarily deceased white men (Hayek, Foucault, man forces are faced with the “acceleration of neoliberal
Hesiod, Kant, Voltaire, Deacon, Nietzsche, and White- capitalism” and the increasing gaps, expansion, stresses,
head), and concludes by reformulating the problem and and demands that neoliberalism places on the planet (p.
highlighting a particular call to action. Despite what by 10). Connolly’s central argument is that it is neoliberal-
many accounts might appear to be a fairly traditional ism’s capacious interconnectivity with other relational
academic approach, however, I found Connolly’s contri- and self-organizing systems that offers an opportunity
bution to modern social political thought to be patently for one’s “awareness of the fragility of things to become
atypical. Most notably, the book’s unique approach is felt heightened” (p. 12). Or put differently, the widespread
through its active political stance and sharp and direct prevalence of neoliberalism as an economic, cultural,
call to action; in the end, Connolly makes no bones about and relational system itself creates possibilities to envis-
it: The world needs revolution. age change by exposing, in myriad calamitous ways, the
complex and delicate state of the world.
The book builds an argument for its bold claims of col-
lective revolt by considering a revolutionary ethos that This concept of self-organization—that is, a process
defies normative ideas of freedom, justice, and politics. In through which shock or disturbance produces a rhyth-
formulating a critical conversation around neoliberalism, mic interaction between multiple entities and inevitably
Connolly first provides an outline of dominant neoliberal comes to a new resting point—is an important element
of Connolly’s attempts to critically rethink neoliberal- analysis. Although Connolly does offer an attunement
ism. Thinking of neoliberalism as a self-organizing sys- to the importance of nonhuman process and embraces
tem, he suggests, presses up against dogmatic economic a commitment that might “render us more sensitive to a
and social-based convictions held by advocates of the variety of nonhuman force fields that impinge upon polit-
system and discloses the highly unstable character that ico-economic life as it too impinges upon the force fields”
is pronounced by such factors as war, elite collusion, and (p. 9; see also p. 13), his call for revolution is oriented
natural disasters. For Connolly the concept also affords toward an ultimately human-centered end. Similarly, in
an opportunity to begin to imagine the integration of his efforts to make neoliberalism unrecognizable, I also
economic markets “as merely one type of imperfect self- question whether he fully bridges this distinction be-
regulating system in a cosmos composed of innumerable, tween neoliberalism as a system created by humans and a
interacting open systems with differential capacities of decentered more-than-human system. There are glimmers
self organization, set on different scales of time, agency, of an engagement with neoliberalism as a system beyond
creativity, viscosity, and speed” (p. 25). This is power- human control and design; however, I feel the author fails
ful and mind-bending stuff made possible by stretching to push the limits of this thinking far enough. Connolly
scale—ranging from microbes to the planetary cosmos, does note that the focus adopted in the book allows him
and including various velocities and temporalities—to “to concentrate on the relations between neo-liberalism
dizzying heights. almost as an ideal type of nonhuman force fields” (p. 12),
but I wonder why he insists on maintaining neoliberal-

As a feminist and social geographer interested in analyz- ism, a system that is amorphous and has clearly grown
ing the profoundly blurred and contested lines between well beyond human control and design, as almost more-
the human and more-than-human, I found Connolly’s than-human? Why insist on maintaining this distinction
most laudable achievement to be his attempt to envis- between the human and non? By doing this, how is the au-
age neoliberalism afresh. By thinking beyond the way thor complicit in reproducing the same binary distinction
the concept has been naturalized through processes of and privileging of the human over the nonhuman world
iterative normativity, Connolly attempts to make this of which he is critical? This is the very distinction that
dominant social system, which figures prominently in has allowed for the alarming ecological exploitation and
our quotidian engagements with space, unrecognizable. transformation of the earth that marks the anthropocene,
Most notably he does this by articulating the ways that and permits senseless torture of innumerable nonhuman
neoliberalism—commonly regarded as fundamentally beings (here I am thinking of egregious practices that
anthropogenic—exists beyond human control. By at- take place in zoos and aquariums and countless question-
tempting to explore the manner through which a mar- able animal food production and harvesting practices).
ket system interacts with other “nonhuman” systems we What, then, of a complete embrace of more-than-human
come into contact with each day, and highlighting how conceptualizations of life in gaining a deeper understand-
neoliberalism is the driving force in a number of fragili- ing of neoliberalism and the fragility of things? Perhaps a
ties in the world (i.e., climate change, human-caused seis- more radical approach that does not insist on etching this
mic events), in my mind, he does a fine job of capturing distinction between the human and nonhuman might al-
how political and economic theories can be enriched by low for a more expansive look into the way that neoliber-
bringing them into conversation with narratives of post- alism operates through the world. I believe that to make
human becoming. Offering a stance from which to begin a truly novel contribution to contemporary sociopolitical
to see ideological systems beyond human scale and design thought and offer geographers the opportunity to think
contributes to the various attempts in the last decades to neoliberalism afresh would require taking a much greater
dissolve the sharp distinction between human and non- epistemological leap.
human systems.
Notwithstanding my reservations, the book takes mean-
It is these very engagements with the more-than-human ingful steps toward reconceptualizing our role as a species
that I find discomfort in, however. Although Connolly and does important work in beginning to consider nu-
does indeed remain attuned to a posthuman sensibil- anced imaginaries to address highly problematic systems
ity that requires an “enhanced sensitivity to nonhuman that currently hold sway in the world. The most inspiring
processes” (p. 10), by adopting an existential orientation aspect of the piece, however lofty, is Connolly’s aim of
and framing our predicament as still primarily human, inciting revolution. One can only dream that—even if in
the book places the human as the privileged object of just some small way—the book does this.

Reclaiming American Cities:

The Struggle for People, Place,
and Nature Since 1900
Rutherford H. Platt. Amherst: change our approach to planning the
University of Massachusetts U.S. city.
Press, 2014. xii and 298 pp.,
photos, diagrams, notes, bibliog- The crux of Platt’s book revolves
around the notion of “humane ur-
raphy, index. $28.95 paper (ISBN
banism,” which the author defines as
978-1-62534-050-4).
“efforts to make cities and suburbs:

Greener . . . Healthier and safer . . .
Reviewed by Dean Sinclair, More equitable and multicultural . . .
Department of Criminal Justice, More efficient . . . [and] More people-
History, and Social Sciences, friendly and fun” (p. 7). This expan-
Northwestern State University, sive definition of humane urbanism
Natchitoches, LA. provides a template for the future of
city planning, which sets benchmarks
against which future plans can be
If the city represents the largest ex- judged. The author situates his argu-
pression of material culture, as it is ment in the context of past planning
sometimes billed, then the collection periods in which urban planning was,
of writings about the city would surely presumably, less humane.
fill several overstuffed library shelves.
The difficulty, of course, is in saying something new and To present his argument for the new emphasis on humane
different that will provoke the interested reader to pick urbanism, the author divides U.S. planning history into
up one book rather than another. The question becomes three periods: the Patrician Decades (1900–1945), the
this: What more can be said about the city, particularly in Technocrat Decades (1945–1990), and the (More) Hu-
a generalist book like Reclaiming American Cities? mane Decades (1990–present). Each of these periods is
given approximately equal treatment, although the Pa-
Truth be told, there are new things to be said about cit- trician Decades seem to get a little less attention than
ies, and Rutherford H. Platt has made a worthy contri- the later periods. The narrative of the first two periods
bution to the urban library. Although he is not plowing in Platt’s book presents little that is new or revelatory,
new theoretical ground, the author does an excellent job although his exposition represents useful summaries of
summarizing historical trends in U.S. city planning as complex events in the development of planning in the
well as providing a blueprint for future developments in United States.
this often troubled and contentious field. Although the
planning history sketched by Platt is far from comprehen- Platt nicely summarizes the major events of what he la-
sive, it is lively and provides a quick tour of the planning bels the Patrician Decades, essentially a review of the ma-
traditions in the twentieth- and early twenty-first-century jor plans and planners of the City Beautiful movement
United States. The main point of the author’s work, how- and the Progressive era. Of course, the myriad events
ever, is not to delineate this historical dimension, but to chronicled here are not given much space in the sum-
reexamine this history as a struggle between competing mary, but they are here nonetheless, from Jane Addams
interests involving, as the subtitle indicates, people, place, to zoning. Although there is little new here, the author
and nature, and to provide insight into recent efforts to does a nice job extending his argument past just the plans
and planners to incorporate two critical events in this pe- to urban gardens, illustrating the possibilities for cities
riod, the Chicago International Exposition of 1933–1934 across the country.
and the New York “World of Tomorrow” fair of 1939. Platt
sees both of these events as a continuation of City Beau- Platt’s efforts to document the sometimes disturbing his-
tiful, driven by an urban elite interested in an aesthetic tory of city planning in the United States and to hold out
that seemed little connected to the actual flesh-and-blood examples—and thus hope—for a more humane planning
denizens of the city. process are ultimately both helpful and successful. For the
reader who is looking for a brief and readable history of
The Technocrat Decades get a bit more attention, largely the convoluted City Beautiful/Progressive era city, this
because of the many consequences of the baleful eye of serves as a nice introduction. Likewise, the alphabet soup
government, like the eye of Sauron, turning its gaze on of the post–World War II governmental planning efforts is
the city. The result of this interest is well documented also well charted, navigating a full range of issues without
in the author’s summary of the era, including the results bogging the reader down in the clutter. This is not Platt’s
in two critical “hs” in urban policy and planning during major objective, however, which is to provide a primer for
this period, highways and housing. The author effectively successful efforts at building more livable cities. Although
navigates through the tangled web of local, state, and most of the efforts that Platt discusses in his third sec-
federal efforts to reshape the city, which led directly to tion are ongoing, and the jury might still be out on their
the sprawling cities of the present. Reading over this his- ultimate success or failure, it is clear that individuals can
torical account, one is reminded again of the notion of have an impact on the fabric of their lived environment.
unintended consequences, although Platt makes a good Clearly the need for leadership in these efforts is a huge
argument that much of the urban dysfunction created by issue in most cities, where many of the inhabitants are
technocrats like Robert Moses—only the most infamous struggling just to get by in minimum wage jobs, much less
of a host of similar technocrats—was in fact intended as a getting involved in efforts to create a new playground, a
response to real estate, retail, and other interests. walking trail, or a pocket park.
Platt concludes this particular section with a chapter Reclaiming American Cities effectively provides back-
entitled “Battling the Bulldozer,” which functions as a ground to planning’s past and a roadmap to a possible
bridge to the humane urbanism that the author sees re- future. The photographs in the text are evocative and
placing the Technocrat Decades. This chapter discusses useful in illustrating Platt’s narrative. At various points
efforts to stop the onslaught on places like the Indiana in the text, the plethora of acronyms can overwhelm the
Dunes and Thorn Creek Woods in Illinois. Although reader, but that is not the author’s fault; instead it is the
geographically small pieces of land were involved in these way in which engagement between citizens and govern-
efforts to save natural places in and around the city, Platt ment in the post–World War II United States is negoti-
sees them as setting a new template for preserving open ated. One issue with the book is the dearth of maps to
spaces. By celebrating these efforts, as well as those by illustrate the projects discussed in the last section. There
Jane Jacobs, William Whyte, and others, the author lays must be interesting designs for some of the projects that
the groundwork for the citizen involvement that he traces would have been useful as illustrations, particularly for
in his third and final section. those who might seek to emulate these plans. In addition,
there were a number of typographical errors in the book,
The notion of humane urbanism is a powerful one. Platt and although they do not detract from the overall qual-
develops his argument for a more humane urbanism by ity of the book, it is surprising in a publication from the
introducing numerous examples of individuals and small University of Massachusetts Press.
groups taking on the challenge of building a better city.
The author draws attention to the concepts of Smart A final notion that came to mind relates to Platt’s dispar-
Growth and the New Urbanism as expounded by notable agement of the planning approach of the City Beautiful/
figures like Andres Duany and Peter Calthorpe. The two Progressive era elite. The author would have us believe
physical features that Platt highlights are parks and wa- that the leaders of this movement were out-of-touch dilet-
terways, employing several examples of improvements to tantes, with the possible exception of the women involved
existing features as well as creation of new ones that make in the settlement house movement. In reading about the
the city more humane and livable. A concluding chapter projects and plans of the humane period, it seems likely
focuses on the people “on the ground” involved in efforts that many of the leaders of the various nongovernmental
to improve the city, from the creation of pocket parks organizations and protection societies are probably much

like the elite from the City Beautiful movement. This fixed as he would have the reader believe, and that hu-
struck home in the section on efforts to save one Forbus mane urbanism is in some ways a reinvigoration of the
Butternut tree in Poughkeepsie, New York. The outcome City Beautiful and Progressive era movement? This would
of this effort was the creation—at public expense—of a imply that the Technocrat Decades were an aberration
1.3-acre park. It seems that this would likely have been in planning for the American city, and that maybe an
a project to which the proponents of the City Beautiful emphasis on nature and an aesthetic sensibility can make
movement would have given an approving nod. Is it pos- a comeback in the urban United States.
sible that the time dimension of Platt’s narrative is not as
SPRING 2015 75
Creative Economies in Post-

Industrial Cities: Manufacturing a
(Different) Scene
Myrna Margulies Breitbart, ed. a number of the case studies are some-
Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. what muted in their critique beyond
xvii and 326 pp., figures, index. an acknowledgment of the sway of lop-
$119.95 cloth (ISBN 978-1-4094- sided power relations and revelations of
structural barriers to grassroots efforts.
1084-3).
The most astute critiques are primarily
found in Breitbart’s own contributions,

Reviewed by Brenda Kayzar, De- of which there are four. In her intro-
partment of Geography, Univer- duction to the collection, she skillfully
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, challenges Landry and Florida’s prom-
MN. ulgation and dissemination of their
limited conceptualization of what a
creative economy and creative popu-
I accepted the invitation to review lation can be. She argues against the
Myrna Margulies Breitbart’s edited sorting of cities, and neighborhoods
book about the economic role played within cities, into the spaces able to
by arts and culture in postindustrial grow “creative enterprise” and every-
cities with both curiosity and trepida- thing else (i.e., the realm of “work-
tion. Much has been written about the ing class and low level services”). She
economic fate of postindustrial cities. notes being motivated by a “largely
Declining employment options and populations and un- uncritical dissemination and translation” of the processes
derutilized manufacturing infrastructure have been at the civic leaders are encouraged to employ to foster the shift
center of urban discourse for several decades. Although from postindustrial decline to creative success. And more
not all cities in the deindustrializing West demonstrate important, she acknowledges the breadth and bearing of
the perfect dystopia of Detroit, most have nonetheless the collusion between the promoters of trending regen-
seen a notable reduction in their manufacturing sector eration strategies, planners, city leaders, development in-
and realized an impact from the loss of this economic terests, and investors.
engine. Much also has been written about the reconfigu-
ration of urban policy with the aim toward resuscitating This is evident in her critique of outside investment plans,
moribund economic opportunities and material spaces of such as those depicted in her study of Holyoke, Massachu-
the city. Therefore, my interest was piqued by the poten- setts, in Chapter 3 (a theme she returns to in Chapter 6
tial of an alternative perspective, as the book’s title sug- in her study of Barnsley, England). She demonstrates how
gests. My apprehension, on the other hand, was primed by the replicated template for developing a creative econ-
the recent plethora of uncritical pieces extolling creative omy, suggested by an outside consultant, denigrates the
economies and creative place-making’s best practices. value of existing residents. The template calls for the en-
ticement of new middle-income populations to the area to
The authors in this collection direct much of their at- lead the economic revitalization. In this scenario, where
tention to the adaptations and modifications made to the outside capital plays the primary role, the city’s “physi-
creative economy template in the smaller postindustrial cal infrastructure” such as the mills and canals become
cities they study. Although Breitbart suggests in the in- “little more than ambient backdrops for tourism” and the
troduction that each author “maintains a critical edge,” talents and largely unexamined capacity of the existing
residents (an alternative regenerative option) are over- is embraced, they argue, by artists who eschew the de-
looked. In this empirically rich study, Breitbart details ef- mands of the exclusionary arts milieu in larger cities. The
forts she was involved in that sought to understand how authors praise the more “democratic and horizontally
the community, half of which is comprised of Puerto Ri- integrated” grassroots ingenuity largely responsible for
can immigrants, interprets the role of arts and culture in the arts and cultural activity in these two Canadian cit-
their everyday lives. Based on what became much broader ies and suggest a template of recommendations provided
interpretations of creative activity, organizations within to the provinces through formal governmental networks
the city fostered more inclusive collaborative community would “flatten” the “unique textures of the endogenous
economic development strategies. local cultural landscape.”
Likewise, in Chapter 2, Salkind provides an interpreta- Likewise, Gee applauds grassroots organizations in small
tion of how Providence, Rhode Island’s arts and cultural- postindustrial cities in northern England that share a po-
based economic transformation is neighborhood-based, litical ethos of collectivism. He notes that since the rise
a collective of creative economies that make up a whole in liberal government practices in the 1980s, conserva-
as opposed to a center-driven hub that is expected to tive governments have invoked the power of the arts as
foster ancillary benefits. His historical-geographical ap- an aid to both social and economic ills and this cultural
proach to understanding what was foundational to the rhetoric had been disseminated through planning knowl-
city’s neighborhood-based success includes historic pres- edge networks. Yet instead of adopting the individualism
ervation efforts started in the 1950s, infrastructure in- and entrepreneurialism advocated by the Arts Council
vestments in the 1980s and 1990s, and an arts collective of Great Brittan, Gee states that arts organizations such
nurtured in the 1980s by non–Rhode Island School of as Metal have been able to negotiate national and local
Design (RISD) affiliated artists. He suggests the scale of funding while addressing issues like deindustrialization
certain projects such as the reclamation of the downtown and its impacts to working-class populations with site-
river, conversion of a former foundry, historic preserva- specific installations.
tion ordinances, and arts-promoting sales tax exemptions
necessitated collaboration between active and vocal local In each chapter the authors appear to celebrate rather
advocates and civic supports—in many cases provided by than critique the tension created by the mismatched ide-
former Mayor Cianci. Yet although he highlights the suc- ologies presented via formal (governmental) and informal
cess, for example, of a local artist-developer and suggests (local arts and cultural practitioners) networks. For ex-
this is an outcome of decades of “ingenuity of resident ample, while noting the demise of governmental funding
culture makers and bureaucrats,” the benefits to an exist- that once established a “network of galleries and museum-
ing larger working class within the city are unclear. What like spaces” run by artists, that have been existence since
is more distinct is the value the city places on creating a the 1960s, Bain and McLean focus on a legal triumph in-
landscape amenable to the retention of RISD and Brown volving the placing of posters in public space rather than
University graduates. critically analyzing the fiscal and human resource dispari-
ties between small and large cities. Although I appreciate
Other contributors such as Bain and McLean (Chapter 4) the insights garnered from the grassroots examples, these
introduce readers to the cultural transformation of the discernments would have been well balanced by a more
Canadian cities of Thunder Bay and Peterborough, and pointed revealing of the limits to enactment of Canada
Gee (Chapter 5) directs readers to engage with the eco- and Great Britain’s recommendations through their for-
nomic and identity redefinition of cities in northern Eng- mal arts and cultural planning knowledge networks. In
land. Each chapter provides insight into postindustrial both chapters this seems an opportunity missed.
transformations under the auspices of provincial knowl-
edge networks and an entrepreneurial and indigenous In Chapter 6, Breitbart rounds out this first section of
social welfare model. These chapters enhance this collec- the book with her study from a UK mining town that
tion by establishing political contextual significance, as flourished under the adoration of outside investors in the
a way to argue against a universal postindustrial creative prerecession era. Under the regional Yorkshire Forward
economy template. revitalization plan, the city was reenvisioned as a cultural
hub and allocated a density of architecturally creative
Bain and McLean conclude that the arts environment and innovative spaces. Breitbart notes that community
in their smaller and formerly industrial Canadian cities engagement fostered this entrepreneurial-centric plan to
consists largely of informal networks that include shared reshape the city’s image and the local population’s oppor-
spaces of practice as well as audiences. This eclecticism tunities and she emphasizes the importance of regional
SPRING 2015 77
ties in facilitating the city’s transition. She also notes, on a conversation between Breitbart and Liza Fior, an ar-
however, how the stability of the plan is decidedly linked chitect with London-based muf architecture/art, details
to outside investment, a problem made evident during the active design approaches to understanding space, place,
recession. and citizen interaction with the intent of offering alterna-
tive perspectives aimed at reshaping current institutional-
In the remaining chapters, Breitbart suggests a move ized arts and cultural discourses.
beyond neoliberal methodologies as the authors grapple
with conceptions of the creative class, the ideology in of- In her conclusion for this eleven-chapter collection of
ficial cultural discourses, revealing urban regeneration’s case studies pertaining to arts and cultural-driven revi-
relationship to aging, and ways of maintaining local and talization in small postindustrial cities, Breitbart returns
place-specific culture that is thought to suffer homoge- to her argument for more and better informed critical
nization in the face of large-scale regeneration schemes. analyses of “the social and economic outcomes of creative
This second section is less about the critique of impacts economy planning.” Without doubt there is a dearth of
and outcomes, and more about developing new ways to critique in the urban literature in light of the volume of
understand the local that enables a broader engagement best practice planning treatises. Often the critical per-
with the creative and productive potential of existing spective is embedded in more abstract political economy
residents. discussions of neoliberal concepts and praxis. Although
important to the foundational understanding of global

In Chapter 7, Osorio offers ethnographic methodologies capital and private–public partnership trends, this work
as a way to comprehend daily life practices of, in this case, floats somewhere above the material realm of downtowns
artists in adaptively reused factory space in Easthampton, and neighborhoods.
Massachusetts. He argues against Florida’s delimited cre-
ative class characteristics and describes an unbounded Case studies, on the other hand, too often fetishize prop-
group with varying goals and expectations, thus throwing erty value increases and ancillary investment, or romanti-
the stability of arts and cultural planning based on a spe- cize adaptively reconfigured landscapes, the patina of in-
cific set of social characteristics to the wayside. Likewise, dustry, and the cohesiveness and capacity of arts-infused
in Chapter 8, Fitzpatrick’s study of Liverpool, England, communities. Therefore, there certainly is a place for a
she argues that the way populations come together in collection such as this that offers a critical perspective on
creative space is fraught with extenuating circumstances how smaller postindustrial cities enroll creative economy
that reach well beyond the idealized coalescence set forth planning to envisage an alternative economic future.
in official creative economic planning language, which Moreover, Breitbart’s contributions based on practice
again, creates a problem in fostering creative activity methodologies as well as her ability to critically engage
through planned spaces. In Chapter 9, Handler explores material outcomes and urban theoretical debates in intro-
interventions aimed at mitigating the impact of change ducing this relevant urban issue make this edited volume
for elderly residents. Similarly, Chapter 10, which is based worth examining.

Review Essay
The Geographer, Flying High
Le Géographe et le Tapis Volant [The technique—geographic information

Geographer and the Flying Carpet], systems, palynology, the weather sta-
André Humbert. Essais de la tion or stream gauge, soil pits or solip-
Casa de Velázquez, No. 5. Ma- sism, Marxism or numeration—each

drid, Spain: Casa de Velázquez, of those comfortably supportive. Not
so the edginess of flight—and Hum-
2012. 189 pp., foreword, maps,
bert is a master of small plane avia-
figures, photographs, color
tion, using the light private aircraft as
plates, notes, acknowledgments. a research tool. The limits and possi-
€22, paper (ISBN 978-84-96820- bilities are for him clear enough:
86-9).
The study of the face of the earth
Paul F. Starrs, Department of using a conceptual and systematic tool
can give a clear identity to geography.
Geography, University of Nevada, Such a technique does not dismiss hu-
Reno, NV. man company, but its primary purpose
is not the study of society itself. Geog-
raphy needs the social sciences—and
many another fields—to understand
Over the last few days, I have been able how people create and develop spaces.
to see my life as from a great altitude, The geographer must examine all
as a sort of landscape, and with a current and former players who edify,
deepening sense of the connection of transform, and destroy, to understand
all its parts. the constant remodeling of the surface
—Oliver Sacks (2015) of the earth. (p. 179)
Small and graceful books sometimes turn into adventure Such a melding of pilot and professor is nothing entirely
stories, resonant with erudition, pleasure, and the tim- startling. After all, the adept student of physiography
bre of a life of observation and action. Le Géographe et le Erwin Raisz, a cartographer and for twenty years a lec-
Tapis Volant, by the French geographer André Humbert, turer in geography at Harvard, explained in more than
a professor emeritus at the now-consolidated University one essay that he did much of his preliminary landform
of Lorraine, admirably fits that bill. It’s all but impos- sketching in the 1930s and 1940s while flying—exactly
sible, in reading this slender but far-reaching volume as Humbert began doing twenty years after Raisz’s (1957)
published by the Casa de Velázquez—an institution dear Landform Map of the United States emerged in its legend-
to researchers in Madrid that since the early 1900s has ary 6th edition. Willis T. Lee wrote The Face of the Earth
sponsored work by French scholars interested in Iberian as Seen from the Air in a hortatory 1922 American Geo-
studies—not to smile at Humbert’s devotion to the land- graphical Society publication. Peirce Lewis has always in-
scapes of Spain, France, and the Mediterranean Basin. sisted that geographers take the window seat, and unfurl
An affection for the aerial view is everywhere. There Raisz’s map to track paths across the North American
are some geographers irremediably linked to a given continent. J. B. Jackson’s magazine, Landscape, during its
first five years of publication from 1951 to 1955, carried an and “Of Scenes Admired and Landscapes Explained: The
open invitation on its title page: “Landscape is interested Macroscope of the Geographer.” Humbert’s last massive
in original articles dealing with aspects of human geog- chapter is 120 pages long, but reviews a great deal of his
raphy, particularly those suited to illustration by aerial published work. He ends with “Conclusion: A Privileged
photographs”; little wonder that many of the early covers View of the Planet.” His research using flight photography
were aerial views. In that spirit, Humbert quotes Antoine began in 1978, when Humbert agreed to help geographers
de Saint-Exupéry (1984), author of The Little Prince but and archeologists with an aerial survey of Spain; a last
the writer of even better nonfiction (Bunkse 1990), in his major trip in 2011, before the book’s publication, was an
foreword: “The plane is a machine, no doubt, but what an expedition quartering southern Morocco (p. 40). Across
instrument of analysis! This instrument lets us discover a long career, Humbert’s books, chapters, and essays—of-
the true face of the earth” (p. xii). ten published by the Casa de Velázquez—are the embodi-
ment of what, in a subtitle to an earlier book, he calls
Humbert is convinced that there is special knowledge, “Prospections aériennes,” or aerial surveys—although
laden with insights, that awaits the aeronaut, especially that term could almost and more precisely be translated
when the plane is your own. For almost forty years he has as “prospecting.” But just as flight gave Saint-Exupéry
traveled Spain, France, the Mediterranean, and through- (1984) freedom to explore, Humbert revels in a joining of
out North Africa. He’s done it from an airplane, cam- flight and geography. One chapter subhead in the mem-
era in hand, dodging the various complications that can oir is “An Old Dream Becomes Real”; another is “The
arise when a foreign national energetically documents the Great Aesthetic Pleasure.” In earlier writing by Humbert,
countryside (and urban firmament) of a land not his own. the insights and views, so carefully discussed with nearby
Or maybe it is his, after all. As Jackson (1951) contended, photographs almost always printed in color, were for me
from the air most international boundaries recede into a reminder of the value of perspective. In four decades of
something indistinct; more a curiosity than a firm bor- teaching at Berkeley, James J. Parsons would start off a
der, although considerably more recent books by the likes field class with travel to a suitable high vantage point, of-
of Dear (2013), Goin (1987), and Turner et al. (2003), ten as easy as a trip to the Lawrence Hall of Science, with
and the elegantly geographical writing of Dan Arreola its San Francisco Bay Area panorama at 1,107 feet (338
do remind us of difference and similarity on the ground; m). When I returned to southern Spain to start a research
NASA’s EOS “Images of the Day” provides satellite im- trip after being away for nearly twenty years, Jim’s advice
ages with often learned explanations of earthly phenom- before I left was to ride a public bus to any nearby airfield,
ena, and the desk-bound can thank Denis Cosgrove for loiter artfully, and ask if anyone there was interested in
putting larger themes of earth perception into context in a few hours of flying time. Someone would be willing, if
his later work (Cosgrove 2001; Cosgrove and della Dora I volunteered to pay for the fuel: Sure enough, the high-
2005). wing Cessna is ideal. Pilots like to fly, and it is probably
safer for someone else to handle the mechanics of flight
Humbert argues there is much to be discovered in seeing
while as a passenger you duct tape or lock the window
what the Swiss journalist Georg Gerster (1986) once de-
open, wrestle with a map, and photograph away—so
scribed as below from above. If consciously artistic work by
much easier now with digital cameras than it was chang-
Gerster and many another aerial photographers splashes
ing Kodachrome cassettes in a Leica rangefinder camera.
color and amazement before our eyes, using aerial views
for scholarly inquiry is another affair, as Humbert’s career I remind my own students about the value of an aerial
makes clear: flying to make sense of the existence and his- overview; not many make it into a plane to follow up on
tory of patterns on the land. Images gathered from kites that suggestion, but a few do, and they never forget.
or balloons or space stations or, for that matter, drones do
contribute. All the photography included in the book is Among the themes Humbert raises are problems unique
from the air, all in oblique photographs, and handheld, to the “voyager on a flying carpet”—his reflections on the
from the pilot’s perspective (Dyce 2013). Aerial surveys risks of field work. Changeable weather, skeptical local
themselves go well back in time, but to make such matters authorities, securing safe fuel, and traversing suspect ter-
a professional passion is less usual. rain are unsurprising issues. An essential—and haunt-
ing—problem of the private pilot is knowing where you
The book’s four main chapters are followed by a gallery are, and being certain just how welcome you are in that
of color photographs and a conclusion: “A Day of the airspace (p. 41). Locating yourself, Humbert notes, has at
Flying Geographer,” “Dreamlike Flight and Contempla- least grown easier with Global Positioning System (GPS)
tion of the World,” “The Unsettling Nature of Flight,” equipment (pp. 45–55). It could be argued that many of

the same problems exist for field workers on the ground, There is a military airstrip in Badajoz almost at the
but the ordnance and legal apparatus that can be brought Portuguese border where civilian aircraft are allowed.
I filed a flight plan to avoid around an enormous
to bear against an errant plane makes the risk of blunder-
disturbance that was sliding slowly eastward. A short
ing into unfriendly space a more serious matter—and in time, in flight: it does not take more than an hour to
the air there might be less of an opportunity to talk your cross this empty space of Iberian forests dotted with
way out of trouble. Joys and apprehension can go hand in light green holm and cork oaks. I always feel solitude
glove in the frisson of field work: flying over this region where villages are rare and the
human presence is in the form of cortijos [large rural
estate houses] scattered through a mass of oak wood-
It was not the first time I felt this feeling of bliss, as lands. Those structures loom large in a dehesa [managed
over thirty years—and even a little more—there have oak woodland] that can cover hundreds or thousands
been hard times in flights around the western Mediter- of hectares. Inherited large properties here were passed
ranean. Clouds that trap and suddenly enclose the plane down in landed families since the Reconquest, from the
in mediocre weather; a mountain with its peaks and 12th to the 19th centuries, though great estates may
gorges that leaves a pilot no possible recourse should the also trace back to the sale, during the 19th century, of
engine stop; the sea, over which we must venture to go huge expanses of forest once owned by rural or urban
from France and Sardinia, or to move from Alméria to communities where in winter animals hailing from the
eastern Morocco—hardly welcoming to a pilot poten- cold lands of the North would graze: merino sheep of
tially in trouble. (p. 3) the Mesta, that great confederation of Castilian breed-
ers. These lands of raw rock, where soil is acid and poor,
could not nourish a large peasantry; however dehesa
In reading and rolling Humbert’s elegant French phrasing
estates symbolize in the eyes of the agrarian proletariat
around my tongue, I found much of interest in larger les- an unbearable tyranny of the latifundia, a yoke they
sons laid out about how to cipher what is happening in a could not shake off, and little wonder it was therefore
landscape. There is an education about the role of the ge- one of the main issues of the Spanish Civil War of 1936.
ographer, as a trained aerial observer, in that process. No . . . The landscapes of these solitudes are anything but
monotonous, especially in the Sierra Morena [north of
doubt the aerial view (and I won’t be the last to express
Seville] where a contrast of barrens and long montane
delight in the possibilities offered by Google Earth) adds corridors reveal quite a varied vegetative cover, with
spice to the sauce: hard dark scrub but also well-spaced oaks, whose under-
story is often cultivated by the ancient practice of long
Indeed, geography is the science of space, places, and fallow, where a grain harvest may be brought in once
territories, which is to say the study of often large every year or two, but sometimes only once every fifteen
objects. There is no doubt that, for a scientist, not being or twenty years. (pp. 21–22)
able to take in at once the entirety of an object of study
is a major handicap. That, precisely, is what happens There are recognizable costs involved in favoring one
to the geographer. For so many disciplines, instead of main research technique, whether the ethnographic in-
taking in all the territory within a study area we must terview, a deep dive into paleography and the archive, the
be content with partial and quite fragmentary views, a Web-based or mailed survey, data instrument-collected in
space of tens or hundreds of square kilometers in which the field, or idylls derived from the airiest realms of the-
the view is constrained and tiny. Granted, someone who
knows a landscape surpassingly well can compensate for ory. Having read this book and absorbed past lessons from
such inferiority by raw force of intellect, with ratio- André Humbert that document from the air the long lots
nal deductions and logical relationship used to piece of Morocco and southern Spain, the presence of the noria
together pieces otherwise observed separately, one after (an Islam-derived water-raising technology), an exquisite
the other. But doing this can lead to erroneous conclu- hydrogeology of all-but-disappeared qanats or foggaras
sions, absent sound reasons for surmises. Not all sciences
suffer from this drawback. (pp. 57–58) used for irrigation and urban water, or seen the crumbling
walls of now-abandoned North African cities, I recognize
the profound value of mixing ground work with an as-
But in closing, there is truly a special pleasure in reading, sessment from the air of land history (Humbert 2014). So
studying, and reveling in the work of someone who has much to see, so many conversations to have, such policies
shared many of my own experiences in a familiar land- and perturbations to learn: Who would not relish them
scape that we both much enjoy, the dotted woodlands of all? I feel the broad embrace makes me a better geogra-
southwestern Spain and Portugal, known as the dehesa, pher. As the lyrical author put it, “I get off my flying car-
with its mix of evergreen holm oaks and the still more pet willingly to pose specific questions, but I return to it
colorful cork oak, with its brilliant red cambium right af- as often as possible to see again and again the spectacle of
ter the cork is stripped—something that is not evident the world” (p. 179).
from the air (Campos et al. 2013). Yet the overall land-
scape is captured well by Humbert: Translations from the French are by Paul F. Starrs.
SPRING 2015 81
References Goin, P. 1987. Tracing the line: A photographic survey of
the Mexican–American border. Reno: Black Rock Press,
Bunkse, E. 1990. Saint-Exupéry’s geography lesson: Art University of Nevada.
and science in the creation and cultivation of land- Humbert, A. 2014. University of Nancy 2. http://cerpa-
scape values. Annals of the Association of American Ge- geographie.univ-lorraine.fr/content/humbert-andre
ographers 80 (1): 96–108. Jackson, J. B. 1951. Chihuahua; as we might have been.
Campos, P., L. Huntsinger, J. L. Oviedo, P. F. Starrs, M. Landscape 1 (1): 16–24.
Díaz, R. B. Standiford, and G. Montero (eds.). 2013. Lee, W. T. 1922. The face of the earth as seen from the air.
Mediterranean working oak woodland landscapes: De- New York: American Geographical Society.
hesas of Spain and ranchlands of California. Berlin: Raisz, E. 1957. [Map of the] Landforms of the United States,
Springer-Verlag. 6th ed. Jamaica Plain, MA: Erwin Raisz Landform
Cosgrove, D. E. 2001. Apollo’s eye: A cartographic geneal- Maps.
ogy of the Earth in the Western imagination. Baltimore, Sacks, O. 2015. My own life: Oliver Sacks on learning he
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. has terminal cancer. The New York Times Op-Ed, 19
Cosgrove, D. E., and V. della Dora. 2005. Mapping global February:A25.
war: Los Angeles, the Pacific, and Charles Owen’s pic- Saint-Exupéry, A. de. 1984. Airman’s odyssey: A trilogy
torial cartography. Annals of the Association of Ameri- comprising Wind, Sand and Stars; Night Flight; and
can Geographers 95 (2): 371–90. Flight to Arras, introduction by R. Bach. San Diego,
Dear, M. 2013. Why walls won’t work: Repairing the US- CA: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Mexico divide. New York: Oxford University Press. Turner, R. M., R. H. Webb, J. E. Bowers, and J. R. Hast-
Dyce, M. 2013. Canada between the photograph and the ings. 2003. The changing mile revisited: An ecological
map: Aerial photography, geographical vision, and the study of vegetation change with time in the lower mile of
state. Journal of Historical Geography 39 (1): 69–84. an arid and semiarid region. Tucson: University of Ari-
Gerster, G. 1986. Below from above: Aerial photography, zona Press.
New York: Abbeville.

BOOK REVIEW FORUM
Making Human Geography
Kevin R. Cox. New York: Guil- human geography’s place in the social
ford, 2014. ix and 292 pp., sciences, and different ways of trying
to understand the history of recent
index. $40.00 paper (ISBN 978-

1462512836); $85.00 cloth (ISBN geographic thought (including such
issues as the questions of novelty and
9781462512898); $40.00 elec-
progress).
tronic (ISBN 9781462512911).
This rich overview of the field was the
Introduction by John Agnew, De- subject of an “author meets critics” ses-
partment of Geography, UCLA, sion at the Association of America Ge-
Los Angeles, CA. ographers Conference in Tampa, Flor-
ida, in April 2014. Four commentators
spoke to the book from very different
This is a book about the course of the positions. Three of the commentaries
academic discipline of human geog- and one by the chair of the session are
raphy in the late twentieth and early provided in this review symposium,
twenty-first centuries by someone who plus a response from the book’s author.
has been at the center of the field in his The commentaries are from Gordon L.
contributions to the field as a whole. Clark (Oxford University), Denise Pu-
The book’s nine chapters and postscript take two comple- main (University of Paris IV, Sorbonne), Linda McDowell
mentary approaches to the task at hand. The first four (Oxford University), and John Agnew (UCLA). Agnew
chapters are chronological in tracing the broad intellec- was organizer and chair of the session.
tual history of the field and its significant practitioners.
After a first chapter that provides the backdrop to the field
and its various “traditions” (environmental, area studies,
and spatial), successive waves of theoretical innovation Reviewed by Gordon L. Clark, School of
are examined from the spatial-quantitative revolution to Geography and the Environment, University of
the social-theoretical approaches associated with Marxist Oxford, Oxford, UK.
and other critiques of mainstream thinking to human-
istic and postmodern perspectives. This first half of the It is a pleasure to be invited to comment on Kevin R.
book is followed by a series of chapters that address key Cox’s book. In many respects, it is also an opportunity
analytic issues that have animated debates and succes- to pay due respect to a human geographer who has made
sively divided and moved the field over the fifty years that significant, long-term contributions to the vitality of the
Kevin R. Cox has been an active figure in human geogra- discipline. Many of us have benefited from being included
phy. These range from new understandings of space and in his research program, including graduate students,
questions about methods (particularly quantitative vs. younger academics, and colleagues. More than any other
qualitative, analytic-interpretive, categorical-dialectical, political geographer of the past thirty years, Cox has situ-
pluralizing-totalizing) to the structure–agency debate, ated the field in fundamentally important debates across
the social sciences about liberalism and modern democ- my fellow commentators, or readers of this commentary
racy. Cox’s book demonstrates many of his traits as an need to agree with my three-part argument, but it does
academic: It’s a tour de force, it hones in on crucial issues, provide an important reference point in understanding
and it is written with evident enthusiasm and sympathy why my generation went from quantitative human geog-
for a discipline finding its feet in the much larger world of raphy, to historical materialism, to society and space, and
ideas and competing visions of scholarship. so on. Furthermore, it provides a thread for his narrative,
enabling the reader to understand why someone could
As other commentators on the book have noted, he seeks start from a certain intellectual position and migrate
to introduce the reader to the intellectual history of hu- over their career through to a more central position.
man geography as understood in the Anglo-American As I see it, one of the problems of his narrative is that
world. More particularly, his book is a primer on the se- people pop up as the bearers of an intellectual tradition
quence of movements or threads of argument that have only to disappear as the narrative moves on to the next
dominated human geography over the past forty years. movement.
He begins with the quantitative revolution, explaining its
significance in relation to the heritage of historical and To put the issue more specifically, reading his account of
cultural geography. He then takes the reader through the the formation of society and space (the idea and the jour-
rise of historical materialism, the research program initi- nal) did not resonate with my knowledge of the relevant
ated by those concerned about the intersection between events, personalities, and issues involved in the project.
society and space, postmodernism, poststructuralism, From my perspective, at least, the idea and the journal
post-pretty-much-everything, and feminism. Throughout, were (1) a reaction to the closed, self-referencing discourse
he situates each piece of the puzzle in what amounts to associated with historical materialism; (2) a project con-
an evolving tableau of intellectual ferment and debate. ceived to better understand society and space in all its
Cox provides a history that the discipline needs, even if diversity; (3) a means by which we could construct not
each generation seeks to remake the discipline they have simply inherit or apply an intellectual framework through
inherited in their own guise. which to understand Anglo-American societies; and (4) a
collective enterprise aimed at understanding what holds
Throughout, he demonstrates a sense of balance and societies together, even if we weren’t really interested in
sympathy for those caught up in the shifting sands of in- fundamentally changing society. We were interested in
tellectual perspective and, indeed, fashion. In my com- questions such as the role of the state in capitalist societ-
ments, however, I wish to inject some unease about his ies, the rhetoric and practice of liberalism, the legitimacy
narrative. In doing so, let’s begin with a simple question: of democracy, and the mechanisms used to tame dissent.
Why are we academics? Curiously, this question is never But, to put it crudely, we could not really understand
raised directly in his book. It is implied that we are party “false consciousness.”
to a debate about the intellectual heart of the discipline
as if we are combatants on the field of academic endeavor. There is no doubt that establishing the idea and the jour-
Missing in the book is reflection on how the flux and flow nal disrupted the putative hegemony of historical materi-
of ideas in human geography is embedded in contempo- alism. Whereas this was taken, by some, to be a personal
rary society. Missing, for example, is an account of the attack on ideas and people, it can also be understood as
significance of the Vietnam War for those schooled in one of the series of interventions designed to catch up
quantitative human geography, and for those of his gen- with the way liberal capitalism is lived. Furthermore—
eration who could see plainly the mismatch between the and missing in Cox’s account of the time—there was a
optimism embodied in quantitative human geography way of establishing the idea and journal that broke with
and the world around them. the rather staid professional associations: There were
entrepreneurs who wanted to capture the ideas and re-
Let me provide an answer to the question of why we search programs of a younger generation of academics
are academics. It’s in three parts. First, we are intrinsi- in new journals and related publishing ventures. Then,
cally interested in understanding our place in society. as now, it was possible to break with the past and build
Second, we want to construct a systematic way of put- another community through journals that enabled the
ting the pieces together, thereby providing a theoretical proliferation of countercultures. Indeed, we might look
logic whereby instances can be understood in relation back over the past thirty to forty years and marvel at the
to a larger whole. Third, we aim to make a difference to role that these entrepreneurs have had in giving each
our collective prospects, whether in the short run, the new community of scholars a legitimate voice in the aca-
long run, or both. Now, I don’t mean to imply that Cox, demic parade.

I note that other commentators have pointed to topics theories were fashioned about behavior and institutional
missed, topics only briefly noted, and topics more or less development, and how these theories play an important
irrelevant to the contemporary world of human geog- role in public debate about climate change mitigation and
raphy. I can’t imagine that Cox has missed these topics adaptation around the world. It would be a celebration of
because he does not appreciate their significance or be- what human geography can achieve rather than being a
cause his own “position” blinds him to the obvious. But record of intellectual debate.
I do want to suggest that his overwhelming interest in
the jousting between schools of thought tends to leave I hope I’ve done justice to this book. Clearly, it has
aside the concern of many academics, especially in hu- prompted me to think long and hard about the purpose
man geography, in key issues such as feminism, race, and of human geography and the social sciences more gener-
inequality. I am concerned that theory is the overwhelm- ally. Furthermore, as a participant in the story told about
ing focus of his book where, in fact, theory was used, and the evolution of human geography over the past thirty
is used, to fashion a way of understanding contemporary years, it made me reflect on how and why the discipline
society. If you are concerned about why poor people’s job has evolved in the way it has. As such, few books about
prospects in major cities are so problematic, you need an human geography have had such a positive impact on the
explanation. Abstract, timeless, disembodied argument discipline. Cox has created something unique.
about theory does not work. Some of the best feminist
writing connects these motive forces: a concern about a

problem, the search for an explanation, and the engage- Reviewed by Denise Pumain, Institute of
ment with theory with an eye to its limitations. See, for Geography, University of Paris IV Panthéon-
example, Phillips’s (2013) Our Bodies, Whose Property?
Sorbonne, Paris, France.
Before closing, consider the following. Humanity faces
Professor Kevin R. Cox has had a remarkable career as
the existential threat of climate change. Our colleagues
an American geographer. He has maintained a distinc-
in the physical sciences have done a sterling job in pro-
tive position and had the courage to defend views that
ducing evidence about global warming, our contributions
have not always been in the mainstream, especially on
to CO2 emissions, and prospects for the future. Every day,
the political side. I admire him for that. Although he con-
yet another blue ribbon panel reviews the evidence and fesses to have shifted from being a “spatial-quantitative
brings forth arguments about how we, separately and to- geographer” to being a “behavioral geographer,” he still
gether, should take steps to either mitigate or adapt to underlines the major turn brought into geography by the
climate change. Even so, it is evident that many people “spatial-quantitative revolution.” Moreover, he speaks
are blasé about the issue or, worse, deny its relevance to French clearly and expertly with French scholars. I think
their lives and the lives of their children and grandchil- the book quite fulfills its objective of both explaining
dren. In many countries, the political debate is acrimoni- what geography aims at doing and how the discipline
ous and fundamentally at odds with a genuine long-term has evolved in its quest for explanation. Personally, I do
perspective on the issue. How should we tackle this prob- share many of the views that he develops in the book and
lem? Have we, in human geography, the relevant ana- my remarks are only intended to convey to Anglophone
lytical and theoretical tools that can explain time–space scholars a response from “old Europe” while reading it.
myopia and institutional paralysis? We need new tools to
better understand behavior, institutional formation, and Actually, the history of human geography that is retraced
intergenerational equity. Can we find these tools in the in this book is rather surprising to a French geographer.
threads and themes of human geography in Cox’s book? This history is by no means universal and the way U.S.
I don’t think so. geography has evolved seems rather strange to us on the
other shore of the Atlantic. In a sense, this book is a sort
Just as the physical sciences have rediscovered an organiz- of cultural geography, as it recalls how an intellectual dis-
ing principle and purpose in global climate change, so, cipline evolved in a specific social context.
too, must the social sciences remake themselves in ways
consistent with adding insight and knowledge about how The book recovers very well many aspects of the evolution
we might mobilize societies over the long term. In ten of human geography in the United States. Of course, there
years’ time, when we welcome yet another revised edition are some similarities in this “grand récit” with some Euro-
of Cox’s book, I hope that it tells a story about how the pean trends. Indeed, Cox recognizes that what he calls the
discipline was mobilized around this problem, how new “spatial-quantitative revolution” was a major turn. But is
SPRING 2015 85
it now actually “marginalized”? I have doubts, and I think was spatial quantitative geography” (p. 242). In France, a
that Cox underestimates the fate of what we call in Eu- Marxist geography developed as early as the 1950s, before
rope the theoretical and quantitative movement in geog- and not after the quantitative revolution: Jean Dresch
raphy (since 1978 a colloquium without any institutional (physical geographer) and Pierre George (political and
support reassembles every two years with some 150 geog- economic geographer) were Marxists, and they conveyed
raphers from across all European countries). There are some of their political convictions in their geography in
many fully active fields in “spatial-quantitative” research: an explicit way. Moreover, many among the persons who
the processing of geographical data, especially those pro- developed later on during the 1970s the theoretical and
vided by new sources of geolocalized information, includ- quantitative revolution were both Marxists and “spatial-
ing interest in “big data” and that retrieved from all kinds quantitative” geographers. Their “others” were more con-
of social networks; the building of simulation models of servative scholars, methodologically and politically. Of
spatial processes is well advanced among geographers course there were arguments among them between those
who learned from specialists in complex-systems science, insisting on the “spatial” and methodological side and
computation, and ecology and now provides inspiration those preferring the “social” banner, but there was a mix
for historians and archaeologists; students trained in geo- of references and this history cannot be read as a mere
graphical information systems with some competence in succession of fashions. In this respect, Cox’s book will be
statistics find interesting jobs very easily; even the new a very useful textbook for young geographers because he
craze for “volunteer” geography disseminates access to demonstrates that the concerns of the new waves were
numerical information and cartographies to a large pub- not always so contradictory with the one of the previous
lic. Perhaps the pessimistic view expressed by Cox can be “turns,” despite sometimes rather aggressive arguments to
related to the absence in the index of his book of words that effect. He regrets in his preface that too little con-
and concepts that are nowadays central to these types of cern for knowledge accumulation is the sad counterpart
activities in geography, as complexity or complex systems, of this type of evolution and I share this view.
dynamics, self-organization, simulation, and so on. I won-
der why I could not find any reference in the book to ge- May I tease a specialist in political geography by rais-
ographers such as Michael Batty or Michael Goodchild, ing questions about the political interpretations that I
who have contributed greatly to modernizing numerical would have expected in this historical book? Although
approaches and who have directed the National Center the French geographer Vidal de la Blache is quoted at
for Geographic Information and Analysis, for example, a the beginning of the story, nothing is said of the German
U.S. program about geographical information science. and French domination of the International Geographi-
cal Union until World War II, and conversely, there is
The word technique does not appear in the index. Being no appraisal of the impact of U.S. imperialism on the ge-
simultaneously a woman, a user of quantitative methods ographies of the rest of the world today. Although the
and models, and a mild political “leftist,” I think that Cox dominant role of the major journals and big bibliographi-
underestimates the power of scientific techniques that are cal databases is mentioned, the fact that many are Ameri-
an important factor of our intellectual work, as well as an can is not discussed! From his well-recognized expertise
environmental component from surrounding fields affect- as a political geographer, I also would have expected Cox
ing our intelligence and interacting with it. Here I would to provide a more effective analysis of the situation of
make reference to Simondon rather that Foucault because U.S. geographers and their institutions in local social,
this is a part of “social theory” as well. economic, and political networks. Would it be similar to
the subordinate position attributed by Bourdieu (1988) to
The book should have a subtitle; it is indeed a history of French geographers because of their lack of social capital
human geography, but of U.S. geography, not even An- in his book Homo Academicus? The pessimistic tone of
glophone geography. The evolution that is described is some of the final statements in the postscript of the book
typical of a culture that praises above all novelty. The might reflect this uncomfortable position.
tale appears as a succession of intellectual fashions, of
pioneer waves and ghost towns that seem to have devel- To summarize my impressions, I fully agree with the ideas
oped under the constraint, “Invent or perish!” This is that are expressed in the preface, but not so much with
very surprising for us because this history is completely the postscript. Perhaps we could, from our shared expe-
different on the European side. For instance, Table 3.1 (p. riences on both sides of the Atlantic, think of a better
67) opposes quantitative geography and Marxist geogra- future for geography? This could perhaps be the subject of
phy, and Cox says “for the Marxists of the 1970’s, ‘other’ Cox’s next book!

Reviewed by Linda McDowell, School of I want to return later to this absence of the now exten-
Geography and the Environment, University of sive list of wonderful feminist geographers and a good
Oxford, Oxford, UK. deal of work in different subfields of the discipline, and
first praise famous men before burying them. And there
is much to admire in the book, including its dual aim of
My first comment is to say how much I enjoyed engaging
exposition (how to do human geography) and interpreta-
with Kevin R. Cox’s book and his masterly (and I chose
tion (critical assessment of the field), although it feels as
the word deliberately) survey of a fifty-year history and a
if there is more emphasis on the latter than the former,
career that has spanned the same period. I have been an
even though there are four chapters on each aspect, plus
academic for many of the same years and so I read the
pages with a sense of recognition but also some surprise. one final chapter. The book starts with an assessment
Gender and the location of our careers on different sides of what was termed for decades the man-land approach.
of the Atlantic made a difference to our recollections. When I went to Cambridge in 1968, one of the first books
it was suggested that we read was Man’s Role in Changing
In his introduction, Cox suggests that geographers have the Face of the Earth (Thomas 1956), even though Cam-
been too quick to replace one type of theorization of the bridge was just then at the forefront of the quantitative
causes and consequences of spatial relationships with revolution and Dick Chorley gave us lectures on models
another, as well as rather too superficial in their under- in geography—a very puzzling term for a girl taught ge-
standing of the foundations of different social theories. ography at school by an already elderly teacher who was
Further he claims in the introduction—and argues in wedded to a regional approach. In 1968 I knew about coca
the chapters that follow—that, despite the enormous chewing in the Andes but nothing at all about statistics
changes that have characterized human geography, espe- or modeling. When I did fall under the influence of the
cially since the early 1960s, there is a “shared history, a modelers, doing a factorial ecology of a British town for
shared body of concepts, and a set of debates of interest my dissertation two years later, I still wondered about
and importance to all human geographers” (p. viii). Al- the absence of those coca-chewing indigenous occupants
though I largely agree with this, I think, I do not agree of the Andes. Indeed, I wondered about the absence of
that we need to be as concerned with the range and va- pretty much everybody apart from the strangely named
riety of theory and methods as Cox suggests that he is (p. “rational economic man,” whom I never actually met
vii). Instead, I believe that the social sciences are defined then or later. It was this absence of power, of people, of
and distinguished by theoretical diversity, by the distri- politics, other than what Cox nicely terms when talking
bution of scholars into what the renowned anthropolo- about governments as “a sort of reified force over which
gist Marilyn Strathern termed “knowledge communities,” people had no control” (p. 9), even though he is rather
which are noncommensurate ways of seeing the world. In interesting on the practical politics of earlier geographers
the last chapter of his book, Cox discusses Kuhn’s no- such as Mackinder and Bowman whom he dubs “men of
tion that progress is made through the rejection of earlier action . . . with a public agenda.” He is devastating in his
paradigms, but in my view this is not an accurate rep- critique of Darby, still head of department in Cambridge
resentation of a social science discipline such as human when I arrived, whose massive doomsday geography was,
geography. I am never going to agree, for example, with as Cox dryly notes, a “study devoid of analysis” (p. 18).
someone who sees gender as biological or as a measure of I wish I had been able to listen into debates in the staff
natural difference, or with an economist who sees male room between Darby and Chorley, as well as Gus Caesar
superiority as the effect of human capital. and David Keble, who also taught there then. Not able
to do this, reading Chapters 1 and 2 are a good substi-
Of course this brings me to my greatest disappointment tute, as Cox captures the excitement of that period in
with the book—two and a quarter pages under the head- which human geography made claims about its scientific
ing feminist geography (pp. 80–82), in which the only nature. In Chapter 3, the focus shifts, as Marxist analysis
people mentioned in more than passing reference (Kirsten becomes important, stimulated in particular by the mas-
Nelson, Susan Hanson, and Gerry Pratt are there in sive undertaking of another Cambridge-trained geogra-
brackets) are Doreen Massey and me. All of us are of a pher—David Harvey, a geographer who like all of us has
certain generation and certainly not representative of also moved across paradigms, or turned, in his case away
the generations of new young feminist geographers doing from a model-based analysis of the diffusion of the Kent
excellent work now. I am in the index under the head- hop industry for his PhD to a Marxist analysis from which
ing “McDowell: genderizing geography,” which makes me he has not moved over his long career. There is a nice
sound like nothing less than a steak hammer. Cambridge story that when Harvey’s PhD was examined
SPRING 2015 87
by Jean Mitchell, a good historical geographer who died of claims about the contribution of human geography to
in the 1980s and who does not feature here, he was told the social sciences (Chapter 8) and a second summary
to remove the word spatial from the document, as in her chapter headed “Making Sense of Human Geography
view it did not exist. Past and Present.” Chapter 8 in particular deals with that
persistent feeling among geographers that we are bluff-
Chapter 3 of Making Human Geography is called “Material ers. The old label “Jack of all trades” still haunts us, a
Matters,” and it includes a range of different approaches— discipline that someone once said about to me at a dinner
as well as Marxism per se, behavioral geography, early po- for a very distinguished colleague, “Oh geography, perfect
litical ecology, and feminist geography (the two pages I subject for a faculty wife, as you can talk about anything
mentioned earlier) are discussed, as well as the founding for five minutes.” Of course, as we know now, our time
of Antipode and Society and Space, now of course a very has come with the new focus in many social sciences on
different theoretical journal from when it was founded. difference and diversity, on the effects of globalization, on
The great men of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s stride across different responses to policy initiatives in different places,
these pages, and one or two women: Susan Christopher- and so forth, and we no longer feel inferior.
son is mentioned, a person called the early Massey (p. 77),
later referred to more precisely as Doreen Massey, and, as I ended the book feeling slightly disappointed, although
I noted earlier, Linda McDowell, although I am damned impressed by its range. I think I wanted a more celebra-
for my lack of attention to “traditional themes of inquiry tory book, a more contemporary book—in places it feels
in human geography” that is the connections between rather dated. There was little discussion of approaches
gender and place. As I have long argued about the public developing now or over the last ten years, no actor net-
and the private, the meaning of home, the performance work theory, no nonrep theory, nothing about the ideas
of masculinity and femininity in different types of work- of more-than-human, about nonclass politics, about how
places, and the links between global migration and caring to analyze the Occupy movement or the brief moments
work on the body (a location that the feminist poet Adri- of hope in North Africa, but then this book isn’t about
enne Rich termed the geography closest in), I find this a geographical movements, but the changing discipline and
bit tough, although as I place the body of workers at the methodological approaches. Here it succeeds admirably
center of my analysis rather than the locality or the region, and will prove a valuable addition to the texts we all rely
perhaps this critique is justified. Chapter 3 is the longest on for teaching courses under the generic heading “Ideas
one, I think reflecting Cox’s own career and contributions and Methods.” I salute Cox for his wide-ranging insights.
(which he is too modest about—I felt there should be more
about him in the book). This is followed by a rapid survey
of humanistic geography and then various posts—post- Reviewed by John Agnew, Department of
modernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism—which Geography, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
make for rather awkward bedfellows with humanistic ap-
proaches. At the end of this chapter there is a fascinating For those of us involved in human geography as part of
short section headed “A Balance Sheet” (pp. 115–17), in our academic careers over the past fifty years, this book
which Cox laments what he sees as evident tensions be- provides both a nostalgic overview and a critical review
tween different approaches, rather than rejoicing in the of a field that has experienced both a significant increase
freedom and insights available to the theoretically eclec- in its public reputation and a complex redefinition of its
tic (and see Wright’s [2006] book Disposable Woman for content. Both aspects of this experience come through
a good example) or what the late and much missed Julie in Kevin R. Cox’s lively personal take on one important
Graham once termed at an Association of American Ge- practitioner’s own involvement and perspective on the
ographers meeting the joy of “being a theory slut.” field’s theoretical development from the 1950s until the
past few years. The book is important as a statement of
The book then itself takes a different turn—one toward trends that all those who aspire to understand the field
an exposition of key concepts—space, and scale and in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries will
then to methods—the quantitative and the qualitative, want to read.
analysis, interpretation, deconstruction, discourse, the
structure–agency debate, and so forth. The comments are Obviously, one person’s perspective is going to differ
sensible and sometimes more than this, but typically I felt at least to some extent from that of someone else. The
the discussion was too brief, a feeling that also nagged me book misses the opportunity to show how geography
reading Part 1. The book concludes with a passionate set can count in making this so. I would have liked to see

some geographical analysis of why Cox’s story is a story of that it makes sense to see the making of a field as much
places and colleagues more than simply a view from no- more immediately political in the sense that times (and
where. As Barnes (2004) and Livingstone (2005), among places) affect both its constitution (which topics receive
others, have pointed out, the venues in which given funding, what kind of work is rewarded, which depart-
people are embedded will affect not only their contribu- ments expand and which contract, etc.) and its public im-
tions by inflecting their work with specific biases, but also age (knowing something about “over there” seems to pay
their readings of the broader academic fields they claim as off, “space matters” when old certainties about borders
their own. Cox’s own career is a good example of how his and social orders are disrupted, etc.). The period covered
close collaboration with various colleagues, such as Larry by this book approximates the era of the ending of the
Brown, Ned Taaffe, and Reg Golledge, had important ef- Cold War and the emergence of globalization. Arguably,
fects on his own research in the 1960s and 1970s. His in this period a real new global geography was providing
encounter with the writings of Harvey’s post-1970 turn grist for old and new ways of theorizing about it. But there
to Marx’s Capital for intellectual inspiration is vital for is little or nothing about any of this. Human geography
making sense of much of what Cox has written since the was being made in a cocoon.
1970s. Of course, none of this is just Cox’s story alone, but
certainly, how he reads the making of human geography Does all this criticism suggest that the book is a failure?
over the past fifty or so years is very much an outcome Hardly. My purpose was neither to praise nor bury Caesar.
of his own encounters and experiences in specific places As a result of wording constraints, I have had to focus on
at particular times. It is not a disembodied history, but a major points of contention. In fact, the book successfully
deeply personal one. It is all the better for being so. captures in many respects the theoretical trends of the
period with which it is concerned. My criticisms are more
Cox’s experience, if the book is any guide, also seems to by way of suggestions for a more nuanced reading of the
have been paradigmatic in character. It is undoubtedly of trends of the time period from a geographical perspective
some general validity that the spatial analysis of the 1970s sensitive to both the larger geopolitical context and the
was challenged in the 1980s by a radical political economy direct social effects of the venues in which human geog-
as a perhaps dominant theoretical strain in human geography was being made.
raphy. In turn, since the 1990s, an eclectic brew of post-
modern approaches suspicious of the political-economic
theoretical narratives that Cox himself favors have come Response by Kevin R. Cox, Department
to greater prominence. Whether these are straightfor- of Geography, Ohio State University,
ward displacements, though, seems questionable. If Cox Columbus, OH.
himself remains loyal to the broadly capital-determinist
reading of Marx he came to adopt in the 1980s, others of I appreciate the sympathetic, even generous, reading that
that ilk have taken on board many aspects of the post- the critics have given to my book. They recognize its
structuralist and cultural-Marxist critiques that suggest, critical, interpretive character and the novelty of many
inter alia, that capitalism is never just about “capital” as of the points that I make. There seems to be agreement
such, but about forms of exploitation that predate and ac- that in the rush to be different, the field has been at risk
company it, and that states are likewise political forms of discarding too much. In part, the book is a work of
that predate industrial capitalism and that are not nec- recuperation. On the other hand, the critics have made
essarily simply political fronts for Capital with a capital some points that have made me give pause. Others have
C. Be this as it may, the more important point I wish to left me slightly puzzled. All in all, though, receiving the
make is that the various theoretical trends are more akin comments and reflecting on them has been a very helpful
to fuzzy sets than to completely worked out and compet- exercise.
ing positions. The book misses this complexity.
Although it is, as Agnew notes, a personal view formed by
Perhaps most surprisingly, given Cox’s theoretical predi- an immersion in the field that has lasted over a half-cen-
lection as a student of worldly realities, this book is largely tury, during which the field has been utterly transformed,
internalist in its focus on a field largely isolated from wider it is also, I think, a view that would be shared by others
sociopolitical influences. Geographers seemingly work de- of my generation. I was aware from time to time that that
tached from the world at large. I would claim, as I have for was the position from which I was writing the book, but it
the longue durée in the making of political geography as a was only after I had finished and the final draft had gone
subfield of human geography (Agnew and Muscarà 2012), to the publisher that the full force of that and what it
SPRING 2015 89
meant struck me. It is a generation that experienced and of what Thrift called “jumbo Marxism,” might well have
participated in the exhilaration of the spatial-quantita- been a reflection of broader changes in the world of the
tive revolution and then in the more critical reactions of sort noted elsewhere (Offe 1985; Lash and Urry 1987). I
a left-leaning sort that would follow. I am thinking here of could indeed have said these things, but I did not find the
people like Allen Scott, Ray Hudson, Mike Webber, Ron connections sufficiently persuasive.
Johnston, Peter Taylor, Dick Morrill, David Smith, and, of
course, David Harvey. Agnew’s criticism is slightly different. He would have
liked to see geography enter more into my interpretations
Our experience left us, I think, with a very particular
of the twists and turns of the discipline: the difference
slant on the field. It was one that was analytic, materialist,
that places and the connections of people made to what
and modernist, and that tended to privilege an urban and
happened; that what I provide is a view from nowhere.
economic focus. Although recognition of the weaknesses
What, for example, does it mean to talk about a Berkeley
of positivism came easily, the more radical questioning of
School or a California School of urban studies? On the
the real tended to be seen as a step too far. We were firmly
other hand, geography does enter into my explanations,
wedded to the spatial and perhaps a little less interested
just not at the scale that I think Agnew would like to
in the ecological, even while the way it was resurrected
have seen. Neither Mackinder nor Bowman are explica-
was welcome and contrasted sharply with what we had
ble outside their national contexts, as I discuss. In this re-
experienced in undergraduate work. Our experiences also

gard of national difference, I found Denise Pumain’s com-
left us with a particular view of the quantitative, one that
ments utterly fascinating. In the first place, she believes
in its insistence on number and a qualified interest in gen-
that the book is actually more about American than it
eralization over space rather than visual representation
is about Anglo-American human geography, something
has left us somewhat underwhelmed by geographic infor-
also hinted at in McDowell’s comments. There have, in-
mation systems. I hope that I have not misinterpreted my
deed, been differences and it is true that I pay them little
peers in this.
attention. Not least, British human geography was always
We were virtually all men, for that was the nature of the more skeptical of the spatial-quantitative work. Pumain’s
profession then, and Linda McDowell and Gordon L. comments, though, imply that U.S. geography is distinc-
Clark are both concerned that my attention to the work tive because of the way it has been driven by the search
on gender and geography might have been more ample. I for novelty. She compares this very instructively with the
find this a little unfair. Gender issues are taken up else- French case and what she says rings true, at least to me.
where in the book, other than the two-and-a-quarter I can see the virtues of a human geography that does not
pages identified by McDowell, even if not under the head- so easily discard its past and Pumain acknowledges that
ing of feminist geography. Elsewhere I talk about patri- this is why I felt a book like Making Human Geography,
archy as a separate structure of social relations, a claim which emphasizes what indeed has been accomplished
that I find unpersuasive and that is one reason why I but then gets consigned to something of a limbo, needed
did not give more attention to feminist geography. And to be written.
some of the lessons of feminist geography were absorbed
in the way I thought through the argument in the book. There is also an anxiety in some of the reviews about
Without it I would never have recognized the masculinist what is seen as my skepticism about the copresence of,
character of the spatial-quantitative revolution for what it in McDowell’s words, different “knowledge communities,”
was, and looking back it was not a pretty sight. which she defines as “noncommensurate ways of seeing
the world.” Agnew is slightly less inflective in a “post”
Both Clark and Agnew would have liked to have seen direction, but he also seems uncomfortable with my total-
more on situating the various changes in human geogra- izing approach to understanding human geographies. But
phy that I relate. Clark emphasizes the importance of so- totalization should not be confused with determinism. I
cial change. Again, I’m just a little surprised by this, given would not contest the diversity of the world, but we need
my discussions, among others, of the spatial-quantitative to show not how it is reducible to a single capitalist logic,
revolution and Marxist geography. It is true that although but, first, how that logic imposes limits on that diversity;
I see the turn to society and space at the beginning of the and second, how that diversity needs to be interpreted
1980s as an important development, I don’t try to shed in relational terms—which to pick up on something said
light on it, other than an intellectual reaction to Marxist earlier in my comments is the reason I am skeptical of the
geography. The pluralism that was in the air at that time, foundational claim of feminist geography that patriarchy
as in Sayer’s structures of social relations or the critique is a separate structure of social relations. And I do worry

about the pluralism implicit in McDowell’s “noncommen- Bourdieu, P. 1988. Homo academicus. Stanford, CA: Stan-
surate ways of seeing the world.” ford University Press.
Lash, S., and J. Urry. 1987. The end of organized capitalism.
So, in conclusion, this particular author has to be very Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
happy with what his critics had to say and is grateful to Livingstone, D. N. 2005. Text, talk and testimony: Geo-
them. Obviously the last word on Making Human Geog- graphical reflections on scientific habits. An afterword.
raphy has yet to be written, but the overall drift is more British Journal for the History of Science 38:93–100.
Offe, C. 1985. Disorganized capitalism. Cambridge, MA:
than favorable and even when critical, the comments of-
MIT Press.
ten serve to underline the coherence of my position and Phillips, A. 2013. Our bodies, whose property? Princeton,
why I thought a book like this should be written. NJ: Princeton University Press.
Thomas, Jr., W. L. (ed.). 1956. Man’s role in changing the
References face of the Earth. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press.
Agnew, J., and L. Muscarà. 2012. Making political geogra- Wright, M. 2006. Disposable women and other myths of
phy. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. global capitalism. New York, NY: Routledge.
Barnes, T. J. 2004. Placing ideas: Genius loci, heteroto-
pia and geography’s quantitative revolution. Progress in
Human Geography 28:565–95.
SPRING 2015 91
BOOK REVIEW FORUM
Keys to the City: How Economics,

Institutions, Social Interaction,
and Politics Shape Development
Michael Storper. Princeton, the same set of weapons, but also skill-
NJ: Princeton University Press, fully blends literatures from economic
geography and sociology. Storper views
2013. 288 pp., illustrations,

notes, index. $39.95 cloth (ISBN urban systems as geography of produc-
tion, where changes in technology and
9780691143118).
trade costs shape the “origins of spe-
cialization,” and ultimately, spatial in-
Introduction by Yuko Aoyama, equalities. Innovation’s space and time
Graduate School of Geography, pathway is driven by local interactions,
Clark University, Worcester, MA. which has its own “specific supply ar-
chitecture”—comprised of ideas, en-
trepreneurs, partner firms, consumer
For more than a decade, economic ge- tastes, and habits—and it generates
ographer Michael Storper has taken “overlapping worlds of face-to-face
the lead in actively engaging with the contacts.” This, in turn, is the key to
economists. And a true engagement is understanding the “buzz” of the city.
an onerous task; it is far easier to side-
step the works of what Storper calls My focus for this review is on the
the new neoclassical urban economics book’s Part III, “Social Interactions
(NNUE) on ideological and methodological grounds, ac- and Urban Economies,” which deals with local interac-
knowledging its contributions but content with coexis- tion context within a globalizing economy. In Chapter
tence as if in a parallel universe. A true dialogue requires 9, “Technology, Globalization, and Local Interaction,”
an in-depth understanding of their logic, assumptions, Storper begins with a statement: “Globalization and local
operating principles, and analytical frameworks, while interactions are complementary” (p. 140). A distinction
mastering skills to communicate our research contribu- is made between transport cost and trade cost; whereas
tions but in their terms. Storper accomplishes true cross- transport costs have declined significantly, trade costs
disciplinary engagement with this book, and he does so are sticky and remain persistently high, which works to
expertly and meticulously, with admirable results. reinforce Marshall–Arrow (M–A) rents. Seven forces
that shape the geographical patterns of innovation are
This book represents his latest contribution to this dia- examined in detail: codes and communication, channels,
logue. As such, it speaks to the community of urban clustering, communities, context or “local genius,” coor-
economists, and explicitly and implicitly, those debates dination, and competition. Storper dedicates the entire
led by Glaeser (2011) on the role of amenity in inducing Chapter 10 to elaborate one of the forces, “Local Con-
labor mobility. By claiming that the NNUE overempha- text: The Genius of Cities.” The context is described as
sizes the mobility of labor and capital, Storper not only an information environment for individuals, arising out
effectively critiques each one of the assumptions, mod- of the structural component such as the division of la-
els, and conclusions, by staying within the scope of their bor and the networks, and where individual actors en-
understanding and yet fielding criticisms using much of gage in a variety of behaviors ranging from search, goal
formation, evaluation, and learning, to tweaking. Storper more effectively with issues such as urban resilience, which
speculates a shift from a local to a “geographically distrib- could be supported by economic sectors that might not be
uted” context, as an outcome of fragmented production, particularly distinctive nor globally competitive, but might
organizationally and geographically. Chapter 11, entitled simply be just enough to make locally viable and stable
“Face-to-Face Contact,” returns to the resilience of geo- creation of employment? Also, it is worth reexamining
graphical clustering and brings us to the core of localized whether globalization and local interactions would always
interactions. This chapter is signature Storper; it includes be necessarily complementary. Perhaps the sections of the
a synthesis of the relevant literatures in geography, sociol- book where he discusses community and context come
ogy, and political economy, which is followed by a presen- closest to the very core and the nuances of the “buzz,” and
tation of two economic models of face-to-face contacts, what makes cities function as economic magnets.
and culminating with a discussion of localized “buzz” in
globalized cities. Creating the “buzz,” ultimately, is what Third, to me, the book had a strong retrospective, rather
Storper considers the keys to the city. than prospective, flavor. What remained unclarified was
the forces and factors that would be rendered obsolete in
Overall, the book represents a highly sophisticated dis- the near future, and which of those forces would remain
cussion, and provides a very comprehensive overview of in effect. Is there a new logic that is altering or reinforc-
ongoing debates on city regions under the dynamics of ing the existing structure of cities? Storper’s view on what
globalized economic forces today. It is a painstakingly these newly emerging trends might be, working to dis-
detailed work, meticulously researched and extensively lodge, relodge, and transform the geographically distrib-
argued with almost dogged persistence. The book repre- uted context, and how such processes are shaping on the
sents a cross-disciplinary paradigm Storper has developed fate of the cities, would have been useful.
over the years on the growth and decline of city regions.
Storper’s synthesis of geographical and sociological lit- Finally, this book’s perspective was quite surprisingly but
eratures is a significant contribution, and the new gen- decidedly American. In spite of the considerable attention
erations of economic geographers would benefit from this paid to global economic forces, and a frequent mention of
well-executed overview. cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, São Paulo, and Mex-
ico City notwithstanding, the cities of Storper’s imagi-
With its high merits notwithstanding, a few questions re- naries are clearly New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and
mained with me after reading this book. First, whereas San Francisco. Even the largest European cities such as
Storper’s expertise clearly demonstrates the value of het- London and Paris do not figure prominently in the book.
erodox economic geography to NNUE, what economic His theorizing over the logics of economic dynamism, in-
geographers can learn from NNUE was less clear. In de- novation, and production organization most dominantly
scribing economic models in Chapter 11, Storper even come from the paradigm born and bred through the ex-
kindly suggests that “The nontechnical reader may want periences of U.S. cities. Given the theme of the book and
to skip this subsection” (p. 173). This, however, is precisely Storper’s long residency in Europe, I had expected a much
the symptom of our disciplinary problem, and a source broader geographical coverage as a basis of his theorizing.
of nondialogue in some cases: Is the value of economic We are left wondering what Storper’s views are on cities
models a lost cause to economic geographers today, and outside the Western world, and how his theory of context
would the current division of labor, or the “specialization might be adapted or modified by the experiences of mega-
of skills” continue with NNUE taking the driving seat city regions such Jakarta, Delhi, and Cairo. The cities in
in modeling? It signaled deficiencies, or at least a lack of the global south is where we expect the most dynamic
methodological versatility, which requires not only train- growth in the coming decades, and where the keys to the
ing, but open-mindedness. Nevertheless, a discussion over future of the cities are most likely held.
solutions is in order.
Second, I kept wondering if Storper’s disciplined paradigm

might have left out some of the contexts we developed as
Reviewed by Edward J. Malecki, Department
geographers; that is, what makes cities not just an “eco- of Geography, The Ohio State University,
nomic” production system, but generates a quality that is Columbus, OH.
“urban.” Storper is undoubtedly intimately aware of the
urban appeal, which goes beyond the summation of eco- Michael Storper has made major contributions to the field
nomic opportunities, social networks, and amenity. Con- of regional economic development on many topics, some
texualizing more of the urban will offer a scope to engage of them only slightly related to the idea of “keys to the
SPRING 2015 93
city.” In this book, he reassures us that he is a scholar of Chapters 2 and 3 are a detailed deconstruction of the
innovation and of cities. The book is an important con- models of the new economic geography (NEG) and of the
tribution to our understanding of how urban and regional new neoclassical urban economics (NNUE). Chapter 3
economic change—“a noisy and complex phenome- is a broad-side critique of the theories of the NEG and of
non”—takes place. Although the book’s title suggests the the NNUE. Storper demolishes amenities as an explana-
focus is cities (perhaps as a competitor to Glaeser’s 2011 tion for the locational choices of people—and even more
Triumph of the City), it is actually more about regional so the choices of firms. His core point is this: Economic
development. models are able to explain what happens within clusters
and agglomerations once they form, but the models are
Storper identifies four contexts that shape urban eco- unable to predict the “where” of clusters (p. 42).
nomic development: economic, institutional, innovation
based on interaction, and political. These are the keys to Numbers are kept to a minimum. An “almost-infinite”
the city, and each is addressed in the book’s four parts. range of forces that shape urban and regional economic
After an introductory first chapter, Part I unwraps “The development (p. 5) is reduced to “a twelve-dimensional
Economic Context of City and Regional Development.” statistical problem with four main aspects: population,
In these four chapters, cities are workshops and innova- output (GDP), GDP per capita (productivity), and in-
tive motors, and people choose locations in these job-rich comes. These, in turn, have three ways they can be mani-
regions. Part II is “The Institutional Context of Cities fested: levels, rates of change, and mass of change” (p.
and Regions.” Here, Storper unravels the “where” of de- 64). Later, in Chapter 9, are the seven “Cs”—seven forces
velopment—the winners and losers—using institutions, that shape geographical patterns of innovation.
social capital, and community as central constructs. Part
III, “Social Interaction and Urban Economies,” focuses on Chapter 4, on disruptive innovation, is the heart of the
social interaction, including globalization, local context book, in my view. Here, Storper outlines a critique of
(or the genius of cities), and face-to-face contact. Part IV, equilibrium thinking in economics, and tosses aside the
“The Political Context of City and Regional Develop- perennial search for income convergence. He focuses on
ment,” includes a chapter on U.S. exceptionalism based
on mobility (exit) rather than voice, a chapter on justice, the normal operation of the economy to generate its
own shocks in the form of innovations. These innova-
and a wonderful conclusion, written as a letter, “Dear tions generate geographical concentration and must
Policymaker: Some Keys for You.” be compensated with rents in order to exist—in turn
generating high wages and prices in certain localities,
My focus is the first key, the economic context. One of and divergence between places. . . . Innovation will
always be reflected in the creation of high-income cities
Storper’s most useful assertions is that “Regional business and regions. The day that this phenomenon stops and
ecosystems or clusters generate or attract their own factor all places have the same incomes is the day that the
supplies, and create their institutional and interaction en- economic system’s progress grinds to a halt. So disrup-
vironments. These conditions cannot be readily imitated, tion—economic and geographical—is the permanent
nor can their costs or prices be bid down through interre- norm and necessary condition of development. This
latter view does not fit comfortably within the edifice of
gional competition and sorting of firms and people” (p. 7). economics in general or . . . urban economics. (p. 54)
Storper identifies two versions of the “holy grail”: The In the end, do we know more about the “where” of re-
first is, “Understanding the space and time pathway of gional development or of innovative success? There is no
innovation and growth is the holy grail of development list of most innovative cities or of most successful econ-
economics and geographical economics” (p. 9). The sec- omies. Storper’s familiarity with Silicon Valley comes
ond is, “The origins of the economic specialization of through in numerous examples and comparisons between
particular places are in some ways the holy grail of both the Valley and other regions, but this is not a cookbook
urban and development economics” (p. 92). Perhaps these for policymakers, despite the helpful letter with which the
are the same, but the first one seems more general, and book concludes.
the second more like a table of top-ranked places. A third
holy grail is identified in research on city systems: “to de- Somewhat surprising is Storper’s failure to engage with
termine whether there is a right—most efficient—mix of the creative class. Amenities, and their attraction to some
the number of cities and their sizes, and whether urban mobile workers, are present, but occupations—creative
systems are moving toward this first-best equilibrium for or otherwise—are absent from this account. In a sense,
territorial development” (pp. 46–47). this is odd. If cities are workshops, there must be workers.

What kinds of workshops—what kind of specialization, In the penultimate chapter, Storper takes up a discussion
to use Storper’s term—need (or produce) which kinds of of philosophy and the values of civil society. Storper’s dis-
workers? Can clusters of the “right” workers be created to cussion focuses on the choices we make about the kinds
create wealthy regions? of places we wish to inhabit and the level of wealth and
security we wish to share.
Second, specialization is a frequently used term, but it re-
mains vague and undefined. A useful approach, even if Spatial inequality and regional differentiation are central
regional data do not exist, would be to engage with Haus- to the chapter on politics. Storper engages the types of
mann et al. (2011) and Hidalgo et al.’s (2007) notions of needed institutional responses through a discussion of
product space of traded products and economic complexity. justice considerations arising from the inherent uneven-
ness of place-based starting conditions. He couples pre-
I imagine that we can’t predict specialization completely existing conditions with the formation of institutions,
because we can’t predict disruptive innovations. But we chance events, and the distribution of power, which he
can be certain that there will be innovations, which are suggests combine over time to set regions and cities on
the upside of capitalism. And we know more or less where paths of development. I find the discussion of this all-
they will occur: in today’s cores. Later in the book, Storper important conceptualization direct and to the point.
zeroes in on inequality, one of the downsides of capitalism. Storper asks, “What kind of a world do we wish to live
in,” and suggests that the answer requires some type of

philosophical agreement about what constitutes fairness
Reviewed by Amy Glasmeier, School of and required effort. But, for those not so well endowed,
Architecture and Planning, MIT, Cambridge, MA. Storper ventures into a set of philosophical musings about
the value of and requirement for compensatory schemes
to ensure that there is some basic level of existence af-
From the outset, in his book, Keys to the City, Michael forded everyone.
Storper forges a middle ground between economists’ an-
tiseptic view of what makes cities endure and resist ob- As a citizen of one of the least compromising societies,
solescence, and an economic geographer’s view of what the United States, I find it difficult to know how we can
constitutes the origin, evolution, and persistence of cities ever achieve distributive justice given that the nation is
and their economies. What Storper attempts is to counter predicated on a stark moral dilemma: Everyone deserves a
the fashionable argument that the growth of cities is a chance, and yet you are expected to make it on your own.
function of their attractiveness in terms of amenities and I offer my own perspective on his question. Consider for a
cultural experiences. His goal is to reassert the role of cit- moment, this unpleasant fact: Americans hate the poor.
ies as sites of specialized activities that pay high wages and Why? Because they despise the thought of becoming like
offer economic mobility. In challenging Glaeser’s view of them. Our view of ourselves is deeply rooted in a moralis-
amenities as a causal force in city growth, Storper sug- tic belief that we were formed as a nation to allow people
gests that industrial specialization is the more grounded to achieve their highest and best position in life. Hence
and tractable basis of urban growth. The book’s strength our hatred or disdain for the poor is not that we have less
is the discussion and elucidation of the mechanisms that of a chance of becoming one of them, but because self-
accompany growth through economic specialization. The loathing accompanies the prospect of how we might in
book is less effective in offering policy recommendations fact become poor if we don’t act to avoid such a miserable
that venture beyond formulaic suggestions of the need for outcome.
positional alignment based on initial conditions.
Although the book makes some attempt at global refer-
The two domains I focus on in reviewing Storper’s book encing, it is in fact about the U.S. experience. It surpris-
are politics and policies. In the realm of politics, the ingly suggests that Americans are spatially parochial,
book focuses on four mechanisms: (1) the formation of being most comfortable when referencing not the wider
governmental jurisdictions, (2) migration of people and world, but instead home, the familiar, the same. And yet,
capital, (3) the land development process and the regula- history suggests Americans can be moved when bad luck
tory structure guiding and governing its progression, and stares them in the face. Surely the creation of the poli-
(4) wages. These four are parts of an elemental structure, cies of the 1960s were in part tolerable, if not made pos-
drawing in and repelling investments of nonhuman and sible by the imagery of the places that were poor, where
financial capital forming, an important component of the resources were scarce, environments were degraded, and
book’s substructure. the necessary ingredients for success were unfounded.
SPRING 2015 95
And importantly, at the time, these were places where rebalanced with respecialization. I take this to mean they
anyone of us could have been from. need to go hunting once again for a new star. Whatever
happened to the idea of broadening the base through di-
The final chapter engages policy. To talk policy, Storper versification rather than chasing specialties?
uses an unexpected literary device—the letter, written to
policymakers to discuss what they should do to right ur- The policy discussion then turns to low-wage places and
ban growth’s wrongs and to set a decision maker’s ship on the recommendation to get into the game. Interestingly,
the right course. In this discussion, Storper offers intelli- whereas we have important examples of how medium-
gent if standard policy recommendations based on the po- wage places have taken steps to enter a new game, there
sitionality of cities as high-wage, medium-wage, and low- are relatively few truly low-wage players that can suc-
wage locations. Starkly stated, Storper lays out a scheme cessfully play catch up. Amsden’s (2001) work, The Rise
that states this directly: The development of a region’s of “The Rest,” demonstrates how follower countries and
productive forces will largely determine its skill mix, pop- regions choose wisely and aim not for the top, but for
ulation changes, and income level. He goes further to say somewhere in the middle, content to be second, a de-
that economic geography tells us what will happen given velopmental trajectory every bit as job generating and
a set of sectors (important point here); that sectors are af- developmentally stimulating as being in the pool of high
fected by trade costs, and that sectoral fortunes shape the flyers. It is important to note that few of Amsden’s lo-
economies of cities and regions. cations were true downtrodden number threes in a fun-
damental sense; all were historical players (colonies of
There is nothing profound nor problematic about these Japan, entrepots, centuries-old cultures) that were then
comments; they are in fact eminently practical and pro- focused down on and gained advantage from strong state-
vide a set of good foundational elements offering a general led development.
introduction to economic development. The remainder of
the book presents a categorization of city types into de- I suppose for me one of the missed opportunities in Stor-
velopment clubs and then development prospects are read per’s provocative book is an engagement with the impor-
off of club membership. It is here where the three-element tance of history and the legacy effect that places enjoy
categorization scheme imparts the impression that a city’s or are denied and with which they are enabled to shape
position in the hierarchy is likely to be made permanent if and reshape their fortunes. The history of “star” cities
not preordained given initial starting conditions. referenced in the book never completely emerges. And
yet, policymakers are often blind to factors that underpin
City types are categorized into three buckets. The first their localities and that shape the likelihood of change.
bucket of cities is filled with the “stars,” the high-achiev- Importantly, history embraces the capabilities a place has
ing locations with all the right stuff. The “stuff” is in built into its DNA and that in periods of difficulty are
such abundance that path dependence and technologi- often referenced as a means of emerging from dark condi-
cal lock-in can either be avoided or at least the result- tions.
ing consequences overcome. Storper suggests these high
flyers should avoid playing to their weak suit, the pur-
suit of low-wage, low-skill jobs. High-end places should
Reviewed by Susan Christopherson, Department
avoid the emotions attendant with, and the burden of
low-wage, low-skill jobs. But not to be overlooked is that of City & Regional Planning, Cornell University,
low-wage work is a necessary by-product of a division of Ithaca, NY.
labor that includes activities that are part of the nonbasic
sector—low-skill and low-wage work such as box making We live in a world in which more than half the popula-
and packaging. Clearly smokestack chasing for high-wage tion live in cities, small, large, and global, and in which
locations makes little sense, but unless the local economy urbanization is increasing. The reasons for urbanization
can be cleansed of the basic elements comprising a com- are complex but represent a recognition, even by the very
plex division of labor, there will always be demand for and poor, that there are advantages to be gained from living
need of low-wage work. in concentrated settlements.
Like their high-flying counterparts, the middle-income Michael Storper’s Keys to the City is made up of a series
places also can’t rest on their laurels, as they, too, have of thoughtful reflections on some of the central processes
weaknesses in the form of short-term advantages such shaping contemporary city regions, recognizing the spa-
as cheap land and labor, which when used up must be tial complexity of the urban settlements we blithely refer

to as cities. The book reads more as a compendium of location. An individual’s decision to move to a megac-
Storper’s recent research and thinking on regional issues ity, such as Lagos or Miami, might indicate something
than an extended argument, although the question of ur- about the options open to that individual but not reveal
ban concentration or agglomeration is a unifying thread preferences in any meaningful definition of the term. If
throughout the book. a rural resident is displaced from his land and village by
a “land grab” or industrialization of agriculture and is
Each chapter constitutes a careful theoretical and meth- forced to migrate to a city to find work, that should not
odological examination of a central question. In his be construed as an expression of preference. Similarly,
choice of questions, Storper demonstrates his consider- people who continue to live in small communities might
able knowledge of the literature that intersects urban and well prefer to move to an urban center, but that ability
spatial economics with the new economic geography. The is constrained by personal circumstances, such as family
topics he addresses are important to an international au- responsibilities. Storper’s implicit critique of some of the
dience of academic researchers in economic geography, assumptions underlying behavior economics reaffirms the
regional science, and spatial and urban economics. The broader and more open interrogation of human motives
first part of the book is particularly compelling because for migration in economic geography.
of Storper’s effective critique of the limitations of spatial
equilibrium models. These models are coming under in- Storper’s analysis in Keys to the City also contributes to
creasing scrutiny because of the failure of climate ame- the ongoing debate about regional fortunes in capitalist
nity locations to rebound in the aftermath of the Great economies. Again, his analysis raises questions about for-
Recession. mulaic assumptions, in this case about the reasons behind
regional economic growth or decline, and points to the
One valuable contribution of this book, in fact, derives need for close attention to the role of institutional fac-
from Storper’s ability to recognize and address key theo- tors and governance in influencing regional development
retical questions that bedevil the field of regional eco- paths. It is the very indeterminacy of regional economic
nomic geography. A second contribution arises from development paths that makes them a continuous sub-
Storper’s education in sociology and his consequent skep- ject of analysis for economic geographers. This perspec-
ticism about methodological individualism. Among the tive emanates from geographers’ recognition of time and
most important of the questions he addresses is whether change in global economic and institutional conditions
people move to jobs or jobs move to people. This is a pe- affecting the fortunes of differently positioned regions.
rennial question but one that has been confused by recent This perspective is almost wholly missing from economic
population growth in so-called amenity regions, typically assumptions, which are timeless.
defined by higher median temperatures. Storper’s research
on this question reaffirms the importance of tradable sec- In the part of the book devoted to communities and the
tors in regional economic growth. Cities are essentially economy, Storper takes on another taken-for-granted as-
workshops, even if the work that people are doing is en- sumption in economic analysis that preferences adhere to
tertaining visitors. the individual and exist in isolation from institutions, so-
cial relations, and social norms. He very effectively skew-
His critique of the literature on amenity-based urban- ers this nonsensical assumption about human preferences
ization is particularly important in undermining a very by considering how we discover and know our preferences
narrow and mechanical understanding of human behav- and how we act with others to shape and realize our life
ior and relationship to place. The economic proposi- goals. While acknowledging the need to keep examining
tion is that people are essentially “sorted” based on a the relationship between agency and structure, his analy-
narrow range of preferences. Storper’s work refutes this sis takes community and society seriously, and so supports
simplistic conception of human behavior, arguing for a a more political-economic conception of markets as al-
more difficult and robust understanding of the complex ways “governed.”
factors that influence urban settlement over time. The
marriage market, international migration streams, fam- Finally, Storper’s analysis demonstrates the role for social
ily obligations, and cultural preferences all enter into science perspectives in interpreting urban and regional
the complex decision to live in one city rather than in economic development paths. He doesn’t reject the con-
another. tributions of the new economic geography, but contrib-
utes analysis and ideas that bring our understanding of
A related idea that should be obvious but is not is that how people make urban economies closer to their lived
we cannot deduce people’s preferences from their current experience.
SPRING 2015 97
Storper’s careful, rational analysis of theoretical positions income, and tax revenue. Even in Europe, where we spend
around and empirical exploration of issues such as territo- enormous amounts of money and policy effort on “cohe-
rial innovation systems is likely to engage many economic sion” and place-based policy, we mostly fail. She is right
geographers. I am not convinced, however, that urban to say that I open up some questions in this area, but fall
economists (who favor “parsimonious” explanations) are far short of solving them.
willing to entertain any broadening of their theoreti-
cal vision so as to encompass Storper’s more geographic To Malecki, I would say, as he points out, that my focus is
and social scientific approach. It is ironic, perhaps, that on specialization and especially how high-wage specializa-
Storper has written a book aimed at economists but that tion is driven by innovation, which is the central disrup-
few Anglo-American economists are likely to read. An tive force in shaping cities and city systems. I don’t believe
economics audience for this book is more likely in conti- in creative class theory, because I think that highly skilled
nental Europe where the subject matter of economics has workers are not an independent cause of urban economic
always been construed more broadly. development, but an element in the wider problem of
how regions specialize and respecialize in high-wage ac-
tivities, or why some regions are knocked down the urban
hierarchy by broad change in the spatial structure of the
Response by Michael Storper, Luskin School of economy. Creative classes don’t shape that process. They
Public Affairs, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.
follow it. To several of the commentators, I’d say that I

think the four keys apply pretty well to cities in the global
Every social science discipline offers theory and research south as well as the global north, and to different areas
on the development of cities, and urban development is of the global north. I used mostly U.S. examples because
one of the noisiest, most complex problems in social sci- that’s where a lot of the good data come from, but having
ence. My book tries to negotiate a middle ground between spent most of the last twenty-five years primarily outside
being so parsimonious that this complexity disappears, the United States, I’m pretty convinced of the usefulness
and being so broad that all scientific rigor and possibil- of the questions raised by the book for other regions in
ity of generalization is lost. This is why I tried to take the world. As with any conceptual framework, of course,
insights from a variety of social science disciplines and when it is applied to a specific region, additional ele-
formulate them as fundamental “keys”—in the sense of ments of context have to be brought in. This is always
analytical approaches, each with its own theory and em- the thorny part of the geographer’s work, negotiating that
pirical output—to understanding cities. fine line between good detail without loss of theoretical
rigor and possibility of generalization—the issue I opened
Yuko Aoyama, Susan Christopherson, Amy Glasmeier, with earlier.
and Edward J. Malecki all offer insights into what this
book accomplishes and does not accomplish. To Aoyama These are just a few of the issues raised in these four re-
I would say that the future of cities will be somewhat views by distinguished people in the field, and I’m grateful
different from the recent past, due to the advent of cy- to all of them for spending the time to comment on my
bermediated interactions and distributed contexts. I also book, in itself an honor to me.
predict, though, that density and face-to-face contact are
here to stay and that there will be considerable continuity References
between what I analyze in the book and what is to come
in the next few decades. To Christopherson, I would say Amsden, A. 2001. The rise of “the rest”: Challenges to the
that I agree that economists are not likely to pay much West from late-industrializing economies. Oxford, UK:
attention to a book like this, but that I still think that we Oxford University Press.
geographers should engage with urban economics, up our Glaeser, E. 2011. Triumph of the city: How our greatest in-
game in that area, and not let it be dominated by econo- vention makes us richer, smarter, greener, healthier, and
happier. New York: Penguin.
mists who lack the wider culture we think is necessary to
Hausmann, R., C. A. Hidalgo, S. Bustos, M. Coscia, A.
deal with the city at a level of necessary complexity. If we Simoes, and M. A. Yildirim. 2011. The atlas of economic
do so, one day they might read us. To Glasmeier, I would complexity: Mapping paths to prosperity. Cambridge,
say that I agree that one of the most elusive problems we MA: Harvard CID.
have is in knowing what to do about places whose roles Hidalgo, C. A., B. Klinger, A.-L. Barabási, and R. Haus-
in the overall geographical division of labor become less mann. 2007. The product space conditions the devel-
favorable, causing them to lose high-wage jobs, people, opment of nations. Science 317:482–87.

BOOK REVIEW FORUM
The Power of Narrative in

Environmental Networks
Raul Lejano, Mrill Ingram, and networks and their multivariate role in
Helen Ingram. Cambridge, MA: environmental governance. The book
delves into literary theory and uses its
MIT Press, 2013. 240 pp. $44.00

cloth (ISBN 026201937X), $19.80 tools to bring narrative analysis within
the realm of geography, causing us to
paper (ISBN 9780262019378).
ponder the potential and the limita-
tions of this theory for the field, espe-
Introduction by Margaret Wilder, cially for human–environment, cul-
School of Geography and Devel- tural, and political geography.
opment, University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ. Knowledge is at the heart of narrative
networks. Networks often form to con-
front environmental problems when
Marine turtles and the Mapun clan the win–lose or other binary solutions
in Malaysia, organic farmers in the offered up by conventional science and
U.S. Midwest, and conservationists technology are unsatisfactory and ac-
and policymakers in the Sonoran des- tors in the network seek alternative
ert borderlands of the U.S. Southwest rationalities that might be derived
and Mexico’s Northwest are examples from traditional knowledge or weighed
of “communities that narrate themselves into existence” in the context of emotion or personal experience. What
or “narrative-networks,” according to a recent book by emerges are “stories or narratives” (p. 2)—“complex log-
geographer Mrill Ingram and two policy scholars, Raul ics” (p. 14)—that serve as a “glue that binds people” in a
Lejano and Helen Ingram. In The Power of Narrative in network together (p. 2).
Environmental Networks, the authors ask this questions:
What are networks and what is their “magic” (p. xii) or What is the work that narratives do in networks? Narra-
power to configure and refigure our understanding of the tives establish not only the existence of, but the quality
“natural” environment? How do the stories we tell about of ties among actors and actants in a network. They allow
ourselves and our places lead to the development of net- for heterogeneous and subaltern ontologies regarding the
works? What is the force of narrative and how does it multiple ways in which humans and nonhumans relate to
shape our relationship to the environment in network one another and the environment, which in turn enables
with one another and with the more-than-human? How the development of hybrid identities that capture the full
does the dialectic between networks and narratives work? complexity of social-ecological relations. At their best,
narrative networks can inspire “new ways of living with
This important book advances a theory of “narrative- the world” (p. 3), inspire fresh imaginaries, and lead to
networks” (p. 2) that has emancipatory potential to move more democratic decision making.
beyond strictly utilitarian and structural notions of en-
vironmental networks. It signals a more ample capacity Despite flights into the heady atmosphere of narrative
to capture the theoretical and conceptual dimensions of theory, the volume makes a point of remaining grounded
and never loses sight of the real-world relevance of its the organic farmers’ network to sustain alternative agri-
approach. The authors are careful to make transparent cultural practices in the face of resistance.
the connective tissue that links narrative with networks
in specific instances throughout. Three case studies pre- This fine book has the potential to change and enrich the
sented in the second half of the volume precisely spin out lexicon of environmental governance so as to insist on
examples, like the mindful unraveling of a skein of yarn, the integral nature of narratives and networks. It makes
of how the networks are bound by narrative. Each case a compelling case that we should focus not only on the
is presented using five “tools” of literary theory—emplot- structure of environmental networks, but also on the nar-
ment, characterization, alterity, plurivocity, and breach— ratives that sustain them. It has interdisciplinary signifi-
to organize the analysis. In the Sonoran desert region of cance and particular resonance for geographers interested
the U.S.–Mexico border, an environmental network of in environmental governance and justice. This collabora-
scientists, lawyers, desert enthusiasts, and government of- tive review came about as a result of an authors-meet-crit-
ficials has coalesced over several decades to champion the ics session at the 2014 annual meeting of the Association
protection of endangered wetlands in the Colorado River of American Geographers (AAG) in Tampa, Florida, and
delta. By employing the narrative analytical tools, the au- was sponsored by the Southwest Center at the University
thors demonstrate the value-added in the approach. For of Arizona. In the sections following, four scholars with
example, the narrative network study shows not only the diverse intellectual interests and from different geograph-
connections in and density of the network, in line with ical subfields review the book, and in the final section,
traditional network analysis, but also is able to explain two of the book’s three authors respond to the reviews.
how and why the Sonoran desert network has sustained
itself, by discerning a shared “metanarrative” (pp. 92–99)
about actors’ relationships with the desert that contours Reviewed by Eric Magrane, School of Geography
the actions of those in the network. A second case study and Development, University of Arizona, Tucson,
details the traditional management by the local Jama Ma- AZ.
pun clan of green and hawksbill turtle rookeries in Ma-
laysia. In the “informal” conservation system described What does it mean to think about stories as steering
(p. 120), traditional experts on turtle nesting behavior mechanisms of networks? What implications does this
known as “egg probers” (p. 121) regulated the harvest- have for addressing environmental issues? These are
ing of turtle eggs for the community, based on seasonal a couple of the key questions at the root of The Power
and spatial factors held in their traditional knowledge of Narrative in Environmental Networks, which is a very
base. When the national environmental ministry arrived compelling text. In one sense, knowing and mapping
in the 1980s to set up a marine conservation program, how these narratives move in the world—through the
they were instead obligated to adopt the traditional eco- framework of narrative network analysis that the authors
logical management practices already in place. Here the present—helps us to better understand how narratives are
narrative network analysis challenges the conventional used. Having a stronger idea of how narratives work in
understanding of an ecological system as well as the stan- environmental networks could prove important in both
dard marine conservation principle that would prohibit analysis of environmental issues and policy, as well as in
the taking of the by-products of an endangered species. science communication. By bringing techniques of lit-
It illuminates institutions as a network of relationships erary analysis through frameworks such as emplotment,
and introduces an alternative rationality regarding com- characterization, and breach of convention to the analy-
mon-pool resources management. In the third case, the sis of their case studies, the authors make an important
authors show that long before organic agriculture became claim for closer attention to these narratives as linking
mainstream, alternative farming networks in the U.S. up- networks. I want to caution, however, against a reading
per Midwest had sustained organic production for over of or adaptation of this framework to think about solely
seventy years. At their essence were narrative networks in the realm of communication and rhetoric. The au-
of alternative agriculture, farmers who shared knowledge thors are clear about this, as well—at the beginning of
about crops, microbes, pest management, and risk avoid- the third chapter, “The Turn to Narrative Analysis,” for
ance, and who, during long decades when it was not in example, they write: “in this book, we are not concerned
fashion, suffered unfavorable comparisons with farmers with narrative as a vehicle for ‘spin-doctoring’ (though
practicing techniques ostensibly informed by modern sci- that is a part of the modern realpolitik). Narratives are
ence. The value added by narrative network analysis pro- much more important than that, especially with regard to
vides insight into the methods and strategies employed by the roles they play in networks” (p. 50).

Although having a deeper understanding of narrative Pipe—as the epic heroes themselves. Doing so would
analysis can be useful for those working on specific issues, make it an updating of a heroic narrative where place—
and the awareness of and mobilization of specific narra- rather than an individual human subject—becomes the
tives might have great purchase in connecting science hero. (And there is literary precedence for this place
and decision making or in shifting environmental per- hero, for example in twentieth-century U.S. poetry ep-
ception, I suspect that we need to be careful of only apply- ics in which place becomes the hero: see William Carlos
ing these insights into a forum where specific stakeholders Williams’s Paterson or Charles Olson’s Maximus Poems,
attempt to control narratives. Here it’s important to re- or more recently, Eleni Sikelianos’s The California Poem).
member that a narrative is not necessarily a message. Nor This might also have interesting ramifications for more-
is it always the same as a discourse or a frame, terms that than-human geographies, the critique of the liberal hu-
are often used interchangeably with narrative, but that manist subject, and do work to further foreground the
the book points out aren’t necessarily the same things. crucial geographic concepts of place and landscape in
The lessons that the authors draw in the last chapter of network narrative analysis.
the book, “Expanding the Ecological Imagination,” reflect
this, calling, for example, for forums that “allow for plu- In projects that build on the innovative groundwork in
rivocity” (p. 192). Keeping this in mind is key. In short, this book, I wonder what might happen if the idea of
it’s not about controlling environmental narratives, but capture is shifted, and we come from a position where
about allowing alternative narratives to arise and prolifer- our orientation toward narratives, as well as being one
ate. In that way it actually reminds me of the postcapital- of analysis, is also one of collaboration. If a narrative is
ist politics of J. K. Gibson-Graham (2006). This is about an actor, does it mean anything different to the way that
the way that narratives both shape and are reflective of we approach environmental issues? For example, Yusoff
alternative environmental subjectivities. Traditional eco- (2013) recently asked this of fossils: What happens to the
logical knowledge, and a focus on personal stories and ev- Anthropocene narrative if fossil fuels are thought of as
eryday life, is one direction in which I suspect this work collaborative materials rather than something to use or
will intersect. rule over? This gets at two strains of geohumanities: On
the one hand, we have work that uses literary analysis
In oral traditions, stories have efficacy. They can make techniques as in the narrative network analysis of this
things happen in the world. But the world isn’t static— book, and on the other hand we have creative geogra-
and neither are the stories. One of the lessons in linking phies that are productive and reproductive of narratives
narratives to practice is this: “In a narrative framework, themselves.
the past is not simply regarded as sunk cost, and new ways
of doing do not simply displace the old—rather, they all I greatly look forward to seeing how the narrative net-
lend to the evolving metanarrative” (p. 193). That the work framework that this book proposes is taken up in
narrative evolves might seem like a given, but it is im- future work. It’s an excellent book and I suspect that the
portant to remember the implications of this—in short, work here will prove useful and important for environ-
we can think of the narrative, or the story, here, as an mental studies broadly for years to come.
adaptive organism or system itself. This has implications
for both our study of the work that narratives do and our
crafting of narratives. Reviewed by Mara Miele, Cardiff School of
Planning and Geography, Cardiff University,
The Sonoran Desert case study uses the Odyssean home- Cardiff, Wales, UK.
coming narrative to place the narrative network in a
larger, mythological realm. The authors point to the The Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks, by
work that the homecoming metanarrative does in fos- Raul Lejano, Mrill Ingram, and Helen Ingram addresses
tering this network, an important insight. In the tradi- the role of stories about the protagonists and the spaces
tional Odyssean story, the hero has to leave home and that help to constitute new environmental networks and
most of the travails are in an attempt to get home. In the a sense of common place shared by their members. In
book’s narrative network, the characters in the story are the book the authors address the question of why people
mostly embedded within home already, or moving from join in and participate in a set of practices and activities
elsewhere. I’d like to think also about whether we might and come to identify themselves with a common narra-
look at the places of the Sonoran Desert—here specifi- tive that holds them together and gives them a shared
cally the Colorado River delta, the Pinacate, or Organ identity. The role of “stories” or the construction of a
SPRING 2015 101

common narrative is an aspect that has been neglected in beautiful that was not there before: attachment upon at-
much of the literature about environmental movements tachment, digit upon digit” (Haraway 2012, 3).
that, conversely, has privileged more strategic, utilitarian,
or functional motivations for joining and constituting The Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks con-
such networks. I particularly appreciated the overcom- tributes to this genre of literature and it proposes a series
ing of the idea of rational behavior in this process and of compelling case studies that enliven the complexi-
the engagement with the less rational and more affective ties, difficulties, and contradictions in the establishment
aspects afforded by this perspective that are described as and actions of such networks. Through the stories of
“commitment” that might not or not only spring from a the protagonists, the authors are able to explain their
sense of normative obligation, but also from affect, aes- motivations for sharing of a common narrative and to
theticism, or simple habituation (p. 31). identify the values that hold them together. If this is
the very strength of the book, the “narrative” method
So the networks that they describe are emplotments of brings with it some limitation. Although the authors ar-
diverse actors (persons, groups, organisms, objects, and gue that the networks that they describe are “more than
places) within sequences of events and characters such social” and “heterogeneous” in nature and refer to the
as to constitute a set of activities (conservation in the actor-network theory (ANT) approach (pp. 37–39), the
Sonoran Desert area and in Turtle Islands, farming in the nonhuman characters of these stories are brought to the
Oregon organic farmers’ group) that has the features of an stage only through the “voices” of the human characters
effective narrative such as “homeland,” “mutual survival” (p. 65).
and “inclusion” and “salvation” and “awakening.” Actors
can engage in narration and, in so doing, bring their own In the three fascinating case studies illustrated in the book
stories to the overall narrative. In essence, the network is the authors’ engagement with the nonhuman animals
a story of stories. Networks are communities that narrate (turtles, jaguars, etc.) and plants or soil is through the
themselves into existence or, as the authors argue, “while narration of the human participants and their “agency”;
we do not equate networks with narratives, networks do the affordances and the effects of their lives are left in the
not exist without them” (p. 49). background, largely unexplored. In this sense the book
does not take us to the more radical engagement with
The emphasis on the role of stories in the constitution the more-than-human (Whatmore 2002) terrain that the
of new networks echoes the insights of recent feminist ANT perspective proposes, and the networks that they
and Science and Technology Studies literature. For exam- describe are wholly human and grounded in a human-
ple, Haraway (2012) emphasized the role of stories about ist perspective; that is, the relevance that the “nonhu-
scientific discoveries in the field of marine biology and man animals” or soil are afforded it is only presented in
animal behavior that help to question the origin and the terms of the human effects. The heterogeneous networks
constitution of the human body as well as to shed light on that the ANT proposes, as Strathern (1996, 517) pointed
the affordances of the nonhuman animals. She located out, “address the mixture of technical/human/nonhuman
her interest in these scientific studies in a specific time that constitute the social.” This requires a departure from
and place (that might be characterized as the Anthro- the human narrative to the ethnographic approach most
pocene) and asked the same question that Rose (2008) often used by the ANT practitioners (see Callon [1986]
posed: “What is it like to write and think and act in a for a seminal case study) that abandons the very ques-
time of extinction and extermination?” tion of “why” certain actors take a course of actions and
focus on “how” humans, animals, artifacts, and discourses
Haraway (2012, 3) proposed the concept of “string fig- are participating and have significant “effects” in certain
ures” to characterize the achievements of these scientific practices (in scientific laboratories as well as in farming
endeavors, stories of scientific practices that redo ways of or environmental conservation). This perspective has led
living and dying in multispecies present and future en- to a search for more experimental research methods that
tanglements: “String figures are like stories, they propose depart from verbal communication, to engage with the
and enact patterns for participants to inhabit a vulner- more tacit or unspoken aspects of the hybrid networks. In
able world with excess multispecies suffering.” She pro- recent studies we see a blossoming of experimental meth-
posed looking at these string figures “As the possibility of ods, from visual ethnographies to the recent multispecies
partial recuperation. Not a dream of restoration or rec- ethnography that centers on how a multitude of organ-
onciliation, but the possibility of partial recuperation . . . isms affect and are affected by political, economic, and
as a search for finding something that works, something cultural forces that explicitly talk to “our entanglements

with other kinds of living selves” (Kohn 2007, 4, italics complex management practices evolved to sustainably
added). harvest turtle eggs, in ways more just and effective than
typical conservation schemes. The authors also examine
the development of narrative networks promoting organic
Reviewed by David Prytherch, Department of agriculture in the U.S. Midwest, where cultivators draw
Geography, Miami University, Oxford, OH. inspiration from key figures and writings to turn from
conventional farming toward a relationship with nature
as “partner” (p. 160). Such stories illustrate the complex
A key challenge for geographers is to understand how
implications of narrative for understanding, impacting,
meaning and materiality interact to constitute net-
and finding meaning in human–nonhuman relationships.
worked people and places. Lejano, Ingram, and Ingram’s
The Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks high- Thus this book is perhaps of direct interest to political
lights the construction of environmental networks not ecologists and cultural geographers. But environmental
merely through discourse but narrative, defining social networks can be taken to include a wider variety of actors
relations—and ultimately the environment—through the and processes less inspirational, narratives less coherent,
stories people tell about themselves and place. Its well- and conflicts less focused on natural resources than those
developed and highly useful framework helps us approach featured here. How then might this book’s insights be ap-
and analyze the narrative frames that emplot, charac-
plied to confront—analytically and politically—a fuller

terize, other, and contextualize actors both human and spectrum of environmental networks, narrative frames,
nonhuman. Its case studies offer a rich portrait of people and places of interest to geographers?
working together to engage each other and the nonhu-
man, and make sense of challenges to, and opportunities For if networked social relations are often structured by
for, more sustainable environmental relationships. But its narrative, they are not always defined or contained by
insights could yet apply to other, and less inspirational, them. Places can contain other actor networks structured
narratives and practices of resource management. by other meanings, and perhaps other material impera-
tives, such as furtive spatial interactions among migrants,
The book engages actor-network theory with literary coyotes, and resource managers on the U.S.–Mexico
analysis to look beyond networks and discourses to nar- border; commercial transactions between turtle egg col-
rative networks, opening promising new avenues for ge- lectors and purchasers in the Turtle Islands; or interac-
ographers. It accords beautifully with cultural geographic tions between organic farmers and their customers and
understanding of landscapes as “discourses materialized” neighbors in the Upper Midwest. Narrative analysis may
(Schein 1997), as well as recent approaches to networked certainly be extended to actors who are part of but not
and nonhierarchical social relations by focusing attention central to the story, however, perhaps as “extras” and not
on the weaving of various networks through narrative to main characters. These techniques can also be applied
transform both social relations and the environment. It beyond tightly knit communities to the complexity and
takes a distinct approach to social networks, focusing on sometimes confusing nature of globalized and urbanized
how connections and relations among people are forged societies. Attention to both narrative and action, at the
and sustained with shared stories about place. Its empiri- center of the story and its periphery, can help understand
cally rich case studies provide fodder for analysis as well the wider range of relationships that define place.
as models of mixed-method research. The book thus chal-
lenges geographers to consider how ideas of the narrative At the same time, diverse social networks and narratives
network can be applied to understand and perhaps effect overlap in local environments, some of which are better
meaningful change in local places. materialized than others. How are we to understand and
distinguish environmental narrative networks vis à vis
The book articulates its compelling theoretical frame- others, which share the same places but draw very differ-
work through inspirational case studies of actors work- ent lessons from—and have distinct impacts on—them?
ing within local environments in the face of change. We For example, powerfully coherent narrative networks ex-
learn of researchers and activists—American, Mexican, ist among Sonoran Desert place marketers, developers,
and Native American—along the U.S.–Mexico border, real estate agents, and home buyers. They, too, frame the
whose shared narrative of the Sonoran Desert as “home Sonoran Desert as a unique place, but their narrative—
place” (p. 88) helps promote conservation despite ma- backed by capital—is materialized with the aid of bulldoz-
jor political and environmental challenges. We learn of ers, with very different consequences for the nonhuman.
local residents in the Philippine Turtle Islands whose These might not be the kind of environmental networks
SPRING 2015 103

celebrated by this book, but they equally call for narrative short space, I make some comments about the book vis
analysis. The same can be said of the Turtle Islands and à vis cultural geography and the (potential) complemen-
the agricultural Midwest, where divergent narratives and tarity of its methodological prescriptions before raising a
networks lay claim to the same spaces. question more directed at the policy implications of the
authors’ suppositions.
The challenge presented by this book, therefore, is to
consider how a focus on narrative might help not only The book will resonate conceptually with cultural geog-
understand environmental networks, but also become raphers of a certain age and training. We are two gen-
more effective in relation to other networks and narra- erations into the discipline’s full-on literary and textual
tives. Confronting the positivist and atomistic discourses turn that drew on anthropology’s crisis of representation,
of science is one challenge, but there are yet more ma- art history’s critical stance, Marxian cultural studies, and
lign narrative networks capable of depriving places of literary theory. Thus many of the themes, ideas, and au-
both their meaning and their environmental integrity thors cited in this book are familiar, and this book pro-
(e.g., neoliberalism, growth machines, resource extrac- vides a pleasant interdisciplinary common ground linking
tion, etc.). Complex processes and competing networks to environmental concerns that might animate cultural
and narratives constitute places with very uneven results. geography. It also will resonate broadly with classroom
The Power of Narrative in Environmental Networks offers a teachers, as our professional remit in the information age
framework for analyzing and perhaps responding to them. has transitioned from content provider to storyteller. The
Lejano, Ingram, and Ingram might have focused their book supports the power of stories (narratives) to struc-
theoretical framework on narrative meaning in “environ- ture understanding, to effect action, and to draw out the
mental” narratives and networks, but the framework they fact that we are the authors of and governed by the stories
offer is more widely applicable. we tell ourselves about ourselves. The book will appeal
to geographers interested in the realm of the “practical”
Their book concludes, “Narrating a good story to which intervention—and here I write as a publicly appointed
many subscribe and contribute is worthy work” (p. 194). planning commissioner ever cognizant of the two-minute
As social creatures, although emplotted in a story bigger limit on public statement—by providing an argument for
than ourselves and species, narration remains our ines- accepting alternative evidence in the local public arena.
capable way of comprehending and representing a com-
plex world. No understanding of the materiality of the
There is a welcome methodological clarity in this book
world, and its capacity for change, makes sense without it.
and especially in the case studies (see, for instance, p.
84ff in the Arizona–Sonora case). Narrative is presented
as a method of engagement, an accessible articulation
Reviewed by Rich Schein, Department point for individuals and the larger structures of every-
of Geography, University of Kentucky, day life—in this case envisioned around environmental
Lexington, KY. knowledge, appreciation, and livelihood, but theoretically
pertinent to any range of sociospatial processes. Narrative
Lejano, Ingram, and Ingram set out in this book to cre- becomes a point of mediation where (perhaps) Foucault
ate a theoretical framework—both conceptually sound meets Latour. Their attention to narrative allows other
and methodologically precise—for explicating the place voices and here might link to recent concerns in geogra-
of narrative in environmental networks, elucidated and phy that move beyond simply valorizing qualitative data
supported by a set of case studies drawn from the Ari- or evidence to take seriously the marginalized, the disen-
zona–Sonora border, the Malaysian Turtle Islands, and a franchised, and alternative voices, both in the context
historical analysis of alternative farming in the United the author brings to a project as well as in terms deter-
States. The book brings together two policy scholars with mined by the subjects themselves. In this latter vein there
a geographer in an eminently readable and clearly stated is scope for this book to engage recent (feminist-derived)
theoretical intervention built around stories, networks, geographical methodologies associated with critical and
environmental meaning, individual actors, and environ- progressive scholarship, heretofore underused techniques
mental coalitions. Ultimately they valorize the normative (e.g., oral and life histories), and even participatory action
dimensions of alternative environmental narratives in research.
everyday situations, by figuring out how to derive what
networks mean to people. Rather than treat the book in In this methodological context, I might pose three related
the traditional sense of a book review, in the remaining questions for the authors. Could they do the following:

1. Elucidate the claim (p. 17) that they are “interested might challenge (for instance) the hegemony of “science”
in how networks challenge a conventional ontology” or “health and safety” as the only acceptable terms (es-
regarding people and the nonhuman; that is, address pecially in these neoliberal times) in public policy debate
more directly “how diverse ways of knowing” especially seems to be about more than just process, even to the
for “participants that lack language” are “brought to point of suggesting a radical critique of the status quo.
bear?” It might seem as though nonhumans are impor-
tant only as they are caught up in human representa-
tional practices.
Response from Mrill Ingram, Independent
2. Reflect on the positionality that their framework en- scholar and writer, Madison, WI, and Helen
genders, especially in light of their concern (p. 187) for Ingram, School of Social Ecology, University of
representational accuracy. On the one hand, this is an California, Irvine, CA, and the Southwest Center,
admirable concern (and one addressed in much femi- University of Arizona Tucson, AZ.
nist methodology on working with rather than on sub-
jects, a point they almost address through reference to
We are deeply appreciative of Margaret Wilder for her in-
their long-term involvement in each case study). On
troduction and for organizing a panel on our book at the
the other hand, it also suggests that attention to alter-
2014 AAG meetings, and of our four reviewers for their
native stories is part of a realist ontology that aims to

creative and serious engagement with our book. A geog-
accurately capture the whole picture once and for all,
rapher was part of the author team, and the book was
when it might be claimed that (a) narratives are never
aimed toward geographers among other social scientists.
fixed, and always are in the process of becoming; and
Yet, we fear the potential of the book for the discipline
(b) there is an inevitable political position taken in at-
of geography was not fully developed. We think there are
tention to alternative narratives, especially as they are,
promising connections in that direction, and very much
in this case, about environmental change.
appreciate the willingness of our reviewers to consider the
3. Address how they propose we adjudicate conflicting book in light of their own work and how our approach
narratives, as the book’s focus seems primarily to be might be useful to the work of others in the discipline.
“bringing the margins to representation” (to borrow
from Stuart Hall) or theorizing in the service of here- Our aim in writing this book was to engage seriously with
tofore unheard and unvalorized affinity groups more the idea of humans as “storytelling” animals, such that
than proposing an analytical framework for resolving stories are not only detectable in our individual efforts
difference. to make sense of the world, but also in our collaborative
work to organize and to accomplish environmental ends.
The last question leads directly to the policy question. We share a Ricourean belief in the power of narrative as a
The authors raise the questions (p. 72) of “how does one process through which we shape identity and the quality
construct a good narrative-network . . . how does one of one’s relations with other people, as well as informing
write a storyline that is sure to win the policy game?” material engagements with the environment around us.
Yet they claim, “This is beyond us . . . and it will suffice We adapted tools developed for narrative analysis to scru-
to simply describe elements of narratives to look for . . . tinize self-organizing networks of people engaging with
without spelling out how they are optimally employed.” the nonhuman world. A common theme in the histories
Why not? Two of the authors are policy specialists, and of many environmental networks is the unlikely nature of
perhaps we should not let them off the hook so easily. their emergence: Despite minimal resources and strong
More conceptually, this statement begs the question of resistance in official or mainstream discourse, people or-
what motivates the desire to bring alternative stories to ganize themselves around desired environmental goals.
the table in the first place if not for progressive change Such networks can be the vanguard of institutional and
and (as is addressed throughout the book) in the interests policy change, framing issues and undertaking collab-
of, for instance, ecological democracy or environmen- orative actions that foreshadow later formalization. We
tal justice. I wonder why they shy away from “the policy wanted to consider more carefully ways of understanding
game” when at least for one reader, part of the book’s not only the nodes, which work like Latour’s (1987) has
strong appeal is its promise to open public (and in this helped us do in terms of opening up the heterogeneity of
case, environmental) discourse to a wider constituency. nodes in a network, but also the links: How can we think
Democratic process as a goal per se is an obvious good, about the nature of the ties? If agency is distributed, what
but the book’s emphasis on stories and meaning that are the various methods we might use for capturing the
SPRING 2015 105

relationality of that agency and understanding how one because it is so well organized, and has very formalized,
link might be similar or different to another? institutionalized processes for its data-gathering methods
and communication, dominates a great deal of our con-
We developed the concept of narrative networks as a temporary environmental discourse. (Indeed, one of the
framework for ethnographic investigation into the forma- main arguments in our book is that its dominance in en-
tion and maintenance of networks, as they are an impor- vironmental policymaking over other “ways of knowing”
tant part of the environmental policy process. We aimed the nonhuman world is problematic.) But even in scien-
to move beyond a kind of generalized use of discourse, tific discourse, we argue, narrative is a fundamental pro-
narrative, frame, or story to more specifically engage with cess for interpreting and communicating “findings.” Al-
different analytical entry points into narrative as it is both though the narrative drive can be submerged, and black
reflective of relationships, and also constructive of them. boxed in scientific discourse, we argue in our book that it,
too, is undergirded by narrative.
One theme among our reviewers was how we understand
these networks to challenge conventional ontology. Rich So, in specific response to the question about the “nonrep-
Schein and Mara Miele are both concerned about treat- resentational” from Miele and Schein, we point out that
ments where “nonhumans are important only as they are the creation of environmental policy is a set of processes
caught up in human representational practices,” as Schein dominated by verbal, human storytelling. Our intent here
inquires. Miele notes that our reliance on narrative brings is to unearth the role of narrative as it shapes the sharing
with it “some limitation,” in that the nonhuman char- of data, and to argue that embracing narrative is a way of
acters of our stories emerge “only through the voices of broadening the policymaking process to be more inclu-
the human characters.” As Miele observes, engagement sive and participatory, and to include the very specific af-
with the “more-than-human” is a well-developed subfield fective nature of human–other-than-human interaction.
in geography supported by work that will be familiar to a
broad set of geographers and including more recent work Ultimately, if there is a conflict here, it is perhaps our un-
on “multispecies ethnography.” This is a rich, exciting derstanding that no matter how quiet you make yourself
field that has pushed geographers to broaden not only the in the field, or experimental in ways that you “sense” data,
subject matter of investigations, but the kinds of research these activities are shaped by a fundamentally narrative
methods employed. human process of mind. And a process that, we argue, has
been neglected in policy formation to the extent that it
We offer our approach not as one limited by a focus on relies overly much on science (as it is understood to stand
human nonrepresentational practice, so much as one apart from storytelling) as a source of unbiased informa-
that can complement whatever methods are employed to tion that would help identify the most successful policy
sense, perceive, and acknowledge other ways of being. For, approach.
at the end of the day, when a human returns from the field
(whether it was for experimental research, exploration, or After years of working in the fields represented in our case
a food production-related activity), that person will begin studies, we would also hazard to say that our efforts at
to process the experiences and then perhaps seek verbal gathering stories were very specifically an effort to capture
or textual communication with other human beings over just exactly the kind of nonrepresentational understand-
what was seen, heard, and felt. In his review, Eric Ma- ings about the nonhuman that work like Miele’s honors. In
grane touches on this when he notes that the book’s cen- our view, these understandings do not necessarily emerge
tral interest is exploring how alternative narratives “arise from a season or two of field work, but are ways of knowing
and proliferate” and both shape and reflect alternative that emerge over decades, and can be handed down over
environmental subjectivities. We maintain that stories, as generations. Anyone reading across agricultural literature
they organize our thoughts, are a central mechanism by knows that the writing offers specific, practical guidance
which we capture singular, nonverbal experiences. Even built on years of multisensory experience. Our ambition is
prior to communication between people, we suggest that to honor these activities, especially as they emerge from
the processing of “data” (scientific and not) internal to nonscientific investigations, and are combined with sci-
any of us is a process very much shaped by narrative and entific research. In this sense we argue that our approach
value-laden images. What are the mechanisms by which has a radical aspect not always explicitly embraced in all
we capture what it feels like to walk across the desert in nonrepresentational geography, which is to foreground
late May? Or to watch the turtles emerge yet again to seek the knowledge and experience gathered by the nonac-
a nesting spot? How do we begin to mentally process all credited and “local,” rather than by experts from else-
those visceral, affective experiences? Scientific research, where, whether they are social scientists or life scientists.

To be somewhat provocative, we might even argue that Good questions. Our ambition is to reckon with the cre-
some nonrepresentational field work of the nonhuman ative and reactive nature of all environmental relation-
might be reinventing multisensory wheels that have long ships. And, perhaps to a fault, we don’t see limits to the
been a part of hunting, farming, researching, and other- use of this finer grained take on discourse. Because we
wise exploring the environment. We offer narrative as an are distinctly interested in resistance to a status quo, we
endeavor to try to capture and share some of the variety sought case studies of “unlikely” emergences, situations
and depth of alternative expertise, and a mechanism by calling out for some mechanism to enable us to better
which we might honor it and make it more influential in comprehend how and why people organized themselves
the policy process (as we note in our final chapter). in the context of forces working against any kind of alter-
native coherence. It is certainly not our intent, though,
In his review, Magrane notes this ambition of ours, and ob- to limit the framework to the surprising or unanticipated.
serves (correctly, we think) that we are not so much trying The status quo against which any of our case studies
to analyze a process via which narratives control others, emerged could easily be mapped via narrative networks.
as trying to imagine situations where a bounty of narra- The results, we think, would have made for a less com-
tives proliferate. Our reviewers ask good questions, and as pelling book. Indeed, one way to anchor comparisons of
a way to point to future directions (and Magrane begins different environmental networks in the same “place”
to do this) we hazard to suggest that one reason the ques- might be via some specific material, nonhuman presence.
tion about representation arises is because we have used a Prytherch mentions the Sonoran Desert as a unique place
conventional, dare we say old-fashioned, approach to nar- materialized by real estate developers as well as the con-
rative. There is much more to be done, we suggest, via ex- servationists studied in our book. A narrative analysis
ploring networks from the perspective of more radical, re- quickly reveals, however, differences in the elaboration of
cent explorations of the narrative form (we really need to characters and actors that emerge from individual nar-
write another book); for example, a narrative that refuses a ratives, and the range of actions attributed to them. We
single, first-person narrator, or a linear sense of time. might easily imagine the actual limits to the specifics of
the “specialness” of the Sonoran Desert materialized by
We hazard the prediction that emerging narratives reflect
real estate developers telling a story about “carefree liv-
a front-line struggle to trouble the anthropocentric, not to
ing,” clean air, convenient shopping, and beautiful views.
reinvent it, and that as an “adaptive organism” as Magrane
Compare this “could be anywhere story” to the dramatic,
describes it, story is one way we can begin to understand
intimate, and place-specific tales that we tracked in our
the contemporary concerns around our desperate attempts
research of the border environmental networkers who de-
to acknowledge and to “listen” to an unknowable non-
spite the searing summer heat and lack of water are en-
human world (that is both influential but in many ways
snared by harsh and dramatic desert landscape that, for
also shrinking). Magrane offers ideas of where we might
example, “twist inside me like a catclaw” (p. 89).
look in this direction, where, as he suggests, humans are
not the central heroes, but places are, and the idea that
narrative is not something told by a single, and of course Schein also raises a similar point in his review when he
human, narrator, but is “collaboration.” We really like Ma- wonders how we propose to adjudicate conflicting narra-
grane’s suggestion to think of narrative as “adaptive” and tives. It’s true, as he also observes, that this book is not so
emphasize that we see narrative as processual and mul- much about “resolving difference” in narrative, as about
tiple. Although ultimately captured in verbal discourse, understanding genesis, proliferation, and maintenance.
narratives contain the voices of many different characters But that does not at all mean that we think our analy-
as they are encountered and explored by humans via all ses stop short of policy relevance, or fail to inform actors
their senses. Because, in the end, that is all we have. about what makes for stories that attract adherents. The
original appeal of environmental networks for all of us
David Prytherch observes that as much as networked so- was part of a general swell of interest in networks as an al-
cial relations are structured by narrative, they are not alternative policy mechanism (we spend part of Chapter 1
ways “defined or contained” by them. He remarks that as detailing this). In the interest of avoiding the failures
important as narrative might be, we need also to under- of top-down and command-and-control environmental
stand the “wider range” of relationships that define place; policies, many scholars have looked to networks as both
the periphery of the story as well as its center. He also a remedy and a way to accurately describe emerging gov-
raises a question about the particularity of environmen- ernance. Indeed, we were compelled to examine the nar-
tal networks; in short, how might we distinguish different rative networks by virtue of the impressive policy accom-
narratives according to how they are materialized? plishments of both the alternative agricultural networks
SPRING 2015 107

and the Sonoran Desert networks. Our third case study, In the end, we hope that an exercise of exploring human
we offer as an example of policy failure—Turtle Islanders environmental relationships via narrative can be used to
in the Philippines were unable to create a story that car- celebrate the diversity and creativity as well as plain old
ried beyond anyone on the islands themselves, and thus perseverance that we observe characterizes much obdu-
they had no way of countering the story informing policy rate human knowledge about the nonhuman. There is an
decisions made in Manila. underlying activist desire on our part, that in recognizing
the power of our environmental narrative networks we
Perhaps what is at root here is that the initiation of a can encourage the creation of more. We note with some
policy proposal, the choice of specific policy tools, how concern the paucity of opportunities for new narratives
the policy design is amended in the legislative process, and for increasing the plurivocity of existing ones, where
and might or might not become a law that is then imple- many human lives are shaped by generally homogeneous
mented, is a complicated process on which many books interactions with much of the nonhuman world. This
have been written, including a couple by ourselves. Fur- isn’t at all to run contrary to the important recognition
ther, the book concludes with five lessons for planners, of nonhuman agency, and all the ways that nature “kicks
policymakers, and managers. In this book, however, we back.” We do argue, however, that by leaving the stories
spend little time looking at the development of formal up to the experts, we do risk a much less interesting and
environmental policies, and much more trying to under- fulfilling existence.
stand the informal agreements and understandings that

emerge to guide people in environmental networks out-
References
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Callon, M. 1986. Some elements of a sociology of transla-
Schein and Prytherch also express interest in how we un- tion: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen
derstand the politics in our networks, as Schein puts it, of St Brieuc Bay. In Power, action and belief: A new
the “inevitable political position taken” by virtue of our sociology of knowledge?, ed. J. Law, 196–223. New York,
NY: Routledge.
attention to alternative narratives. Again, as we discuss
Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2006. A postcapitalist politics. Min-
in Chapter 1, our book follows a general flow of interest in neapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
the literature in networks as a kind of alternative policy Haraway, D. 2012. SF, speculative fabulation and string
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(p. 30) that although many people laud networks for their Ostfildern, DE: Hajte Cantz.
flexibility, and especially for the place-specific sensitiv- Ingram, M., and H. Ingram. 2005. Creating credible ed-
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the literature emphasizes, that sometimes these networks Australian Journal of Anthropology 19 (1): 81–84.
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Making Human Geography

Article · April 2015

John Agnew Linda Mcdowell

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Reviewed by Keys to the City:

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Executive Director Secretary Publications Committee Chair

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Landscape, by Yi-Fu Tuan

Dreaming of Dry Land:

of the lake water as possible. Ideally,

56 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

The American Reaper:

an almost annual basis. Consolidation

The approach Winder takes differs

Romantic Geography: In Search

down in too many of these stories,

Throughout the book, story after story, we are reminded

62 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

Climate Change in Bangladesh:

during the same period based on data

64 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

Animal Oppression & Human

of other animals in farming.

Reviewed by Kathryn A. Gil- Nibert employs a historical-materialist

Ecologies and Politics of Health

proaches that many of the papers could

This emerging field brings together social scientists, nat-

70 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

The Fragility of Things:

but I wonder why he insists on maintaining neoliberal-

72 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

Reclaiming American Cities:

“efforts to make cities and suburbs:

74 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

Creative Economies in Post-

found in Breitbart’s own contributions,

important to the foundational understanding of global

78 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

The Geographer, Flying High

Le Géographe et le Tapis Volant [The technique—geographic information

Casa de Velázquez, No. 5. Ma- sism, Marxism or numeration—each

80 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

82 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

Making Human Geography

index. $40.00 paper (ISBN 978-

84 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

writing connects these motive forces: a concern about a

86 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

88 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

experienced in undergraduate work. Our experiences also

90 THE AAG REVIEW OF BOOKS

Keys to the City: How Economics,