front cover of 10 Geographic Ideas That Changed the World
10 Geographic Ideas That Changed the World
Hanson, Susan
Rutgers University Press, 1997
When geographic ideas change the world in our heads, the impact can be read on the ground and in our lives. In these thought-provoking, witty essays, some of America's most distinguished geographers explore ten geographic ideas that have literally changed the world and the way we think and act. They tackle ideas that impose shape on the world, ideas that mold our understanding of the natural environment, and ideas that establish relationships between people and places. Every one of these ideas has had--and continues to have—a deep effect on the way we understand the world and our place in it. A compelling introduction to the discipline of geography, this colleciton will change the way you look at both geography and the world!

The contributors, who include several past presidents of the Association of American Geographers, members of the National Academy of Sciences, and authors of major works in the discipline, are: Elizabeth K. Burns, Patricia Gober, Anne Godlewska, Michael F. Goodchild, Susan Hanson, Robert W. Kates, John R. Mather, William B. Meyer, Mark Monmonier, Edward Relph, Edward J. Taaffe, and B. L. Turner, II.



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front cover of What Wildness Is This
What Wildness Is This
Women Write about the Southwest
Edited by Susan Wittig Albert, Susan Hanson, Jan Epton Seale, and Paula Stallings Yost
University of Texas Press, 2007

Winner, WILLA Literary Award for Creative Nonfiction, 2008

How do women experience the vast, arid, rugged land of the American Southwest? The Story Circle Network, a national organization dedicated to helping women write about their lives, posed this question, and nearly three hundred women responded with original pieces of writing that told true and meaningful stories of their personal experiences of the land. From this deep reservoir of writing—as well as from previously published work by writers including Joy Harjo, Denise Chávez, Diane Ackerman, Naomi Shihab Nye, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gloria Anzaldua, Terry Tempest Williams, and Barbara Kingsolver—the editors of this book have drawn nearly a hundred pieces that witness both to the ever-changing, ever-mysterious life of the natural world and to the vivid, creative, evolving lives of women interacting with it.

Through prose, poetry, creative nonfiction, and memoir, the women in this anthology explore both the outer landscape of the Southwest and their own inner landscapes as women living on the land—the congruence of where they are and who they are. The editors have grouped the writings around eight evocative themes:

  • The way we live on the land
  • Our journeys through the land
  • Nature in cities
  • Nature at risk
  • Nature that sustains us
  • Our memories of the land
  • Our kinship with the animal world
  • What we leave on the land when we are gone

From the Gulf Coast of Texas to the Pacific Coast of California, and from the southern borderlands to the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, these intimate portraits of women's lives on the land powerfully demonstrate that nature writing is no longer the exclusive domain of men, that women bring unique and transformative perspectives to this genre.

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