Organization of the book
We need to bear the lesson of figure 1.16 in mind when we look at the rest of this book. it's organization as set out in figure 1.17 is one way, i hope a logical and interesting way, of introducing geography. but other geographers would use different approaches and join up the 'dots on the map' in different and equally valid ways.
how important that geographic view is will depend on the problem being examined. in many instances, the importance of spatial and environmental considerations may be negligible. in such cases the contribution of the engineer, the economist, or the educator will surely outweigh that of the geographer. when large-scale environmental issues are discussed, however, a geographer's viewpoint will certainly be needed.
we do not intend to argue in this book for a purely geocentric view of the world's problems. at a time when the walls between academic subjects are crumbling, the isolationist subject makes about as little sense as an isolationist state. Geography has always been heavily dependent on its academic neighbours such as mathematics, the earth sciences, and the behavioural sciences, and it has everything to gain by remaining so.
Geography is interesting today not because of its solution of past problems, but because of its potential contribution to resolving future difficulties. Geographers as a group have been a little embarrassed to discover that locational and environmental questions, so long a part of their classroom discussion, are now a daily topic in the news media, in congressional and parliamentary committee rooms, and on the campus. for over two thousand years, geographers have been studying the world and the place of human beings in it. suddenly, at the start of the third millennium, these seemingly academic preoccupations are being regarded as relevant-to us and to our children. we are talking a new look at ourselves and our world, and, like T.S. Eliot's explorer, or Di Caprio's backpacker, 'knowing the place for the first time.'