The betweenness of place : towards a geography of modernity
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The betweenness of place : towards a geography of modernity
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. 135-177
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
What makes New York City different from Moscow? Are small towns looking more and more alike? What criteria should we use to distinguish one place from another? Today, geographers and other social scientists are debating not only the answers to these sorts of questions but even whether or not to ask them at all. This ongoing controversy about how (or whether) to study place and its meaning in modern life forms the focus of J. Nicholas Entrikin's pioneering work.
Those who point to a decline in the study of place in geography, Entrikin explains, cite three main causes: the apparent homogenization of world culture; the belief that studying particular places is somehow "parochial;" and the tendency of the scientific method to generalize. Entrikin treats each of these in turn, addressing topics that include the Marxist view of a world economy, the moral implications of place (in such notions as community and provincialism), and the empiricist versus neo-Kantian traditions in philosophy.
To geographers arguing the merits of hard, scientific data versus subjective experience, Entrikin offers a compromise. "To understand place," he suggests, "requires that we have access to both an objective and a subjective reality. From the decentered vantage point of the theoretical scientist, place becomes either location or a set of generic relations and loses much of its significance for human action. From the centered viewpoint of the subjective self, place has meaning only in relation to one's own goals and concerns. Place is best viewed from points in-between."
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. The Betweenness of Place
Chapter 3. Place, Region, and Modernity
Chapter 4. The Empirical-Theoretical Significance of Place and Region
Chapter 5. Normative Significance
Chapter 6. Epistemological Significance
Chapter 7. Casual Understanding, Narrative and Geographic Synthesis
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Notes
Author Index
Subject Index
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