Recalibrating The Quantitative Revolution In Geography

This book brings together international research on the quantitative revolution in geography. It offers perspectives from a wide range of contexts and national traditions that decenter the Anglo-centric discussions. The mid-20th-century quantitative revolution is frequently regarded as a decisive moment in the history of geography, transforming it into a modern and applied spatial science. This book highlights the different temporalities and spatialities of local geographies laying the ground for a global history of a specific mode of geographical thought. It contributes to the contemporary discussions around the geographies and mobilities of knowledge, notions of worlding, linguistic privilege, decolonizing and internationalizing of geographic knowledge. This book will be of interest to researchers, postgraduates and advance students in geography and those interested in the spatial sciences.

This book cogently examines how human geography has developed from a field with limited self-awareness regarding method and theory to the vibrant study of society and space that it is today. Kevin R. Cox provides an interpretive, critical perspective on Anglo-American geographic thought in the 20th and 21st centuries. He probes the impact of the spatial-quantitative revolution and geography's engagement with other social sciences, particularly in social theory. Key concepts and theories in the field are explained and illustrated with instructive research examples. Cox explores both how new approaches to human geography get constructed and what each school of thought has contributed to understanding the world in which we live.

Integrating a discussion of the application of quantitative methods with practical examples, this book explains the philosophy of the new quantitative methodologies and contrasts them with the methods associated with geography's `Quantitative Revolution' of the 1960s. Key issues discussed include: the nature of modern quantitative geography; spatial data; geographical information systems; visualization; local analysis; point pattern analysis; spatial regression; and statistical inference. Concluding with a review of models used in spatial theory, the authors discuss the current challenges to spatial data analysis. Written to be accessible, to communicate the diversity and excitement of recent thinking, Quantitative Geography will be required reading for students and researchers in any discipline where quantitative methods are used to analyse spatial data. `This is a veritable tour de force of everything that is exciting about quantitative geography and GIS. It is a timely, thorough and exciting account of the state of the art and science of spatial analysis' - Paul Longley, University of Bristol `A highly innovative and up-to-date text. It is unique in its coverage of the many developments that have taken place in the field over the past few years. The book is one that is highly readable and stimulating for those with some background in the field, and its expositional style and many examples will make it stimulating to newcomers as well' - Peter Rogerson, State University of New York at Buffalo `Brings the field thoroughly up to date, integrating modern methods of GIS with a comprehensive and easy-to-read overview of the most recent and powerful techniques of spatial analysis. The book will be valuable to students and researchers in any discipline that seeks to explore or explain phenomena in geographical context, and will make excellent reading for geographers, political scientists, criminologists, anthropologists, geologists, epidemiologists, ecologists, and many others. It offers a spirited challenge to critics of a scientific approach to social science, and demonstrates the value of its subject matter through abundant examples' - Michael Goodchild, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University of California, Santa Barbara `There is a view within some parts of academic geography that what used to be called "quantitative geography" is dead, having been subsumed within "geographical information systems" or else of no continuing interest. This book should correct this view. First, it shows that quantitative methods have remained an exciting area of development and, second, it shows that, if anything, they have more relevance to substantive problems of interest than they have ever had. Although not specifically about GIS, it is a book that should be read by everyone concerned with the analysis of geographical information' - David Unwin, Birkbeck College, University of London

The study of Human Geography has changed. From the quantitative revolution of the 1960s to the recent 'cultural turn', new theories, approaches, methodologies and arguments have completely remapped the discipline of Geography. Methods and Techniques in Human Geography provides the fullest available introduction and assessment of these changes in both quantitative and qualitative Geography. Clearly, concisely and generously written, Methods and Techniques in Human Geography will become the students' companion to one of the most widely misunderstood, contested and fascinating areas of Human Geography. Geography / Social Science Contents Introduction Exploring Geographical Data Testing Hypotheses Measuring Associations Multivariate Analysis Generalised Linear Models and Categorical Data Analysis Spatial Allocation Spatial Interaction Spatial Statistics, Spatial Models and Spatial Structure Space and Time Systems and Geographical Information Systems Investigating Behaviour and Perception Qualitative Methods Marxist Analysis in Human Geography Feminist Geographies Postmodern Geographies.

The quantitative revolution in geography has passed. The spirited debates of the past decades have, in one sense, been resolved by the inclusion of quantitative techniques into the typical geographer's set of methodological tools. A new decade is upon us. Throughout the quantitative revolution, geographers ransacked related disciplines and mathematics in order to find tools which might be applicable to problems of a spatial nature. The early success of Berry and Marble's Spatial Analysis and Garrison and Marble's volumes on Quantitative Geog raphy is testimony to their accomplished search. New developments often depend heavily on borrowed ideas. It is only after these developments have been established that the necessary groundwork for true innovation ob tains. In the last decade, geographers significantly -augmented their methodologi cal base by developing quantitative techniques which are specifically directed towards analysis of explicitly spatial problems. It should be pointed out, however, that the explicit incorporation of space into quantitative techniques has not been the sole domain of geographers. Mathematicians, geologists, meteorologists, economists, and regional scientists have shared the geo grapher's interest in the spatial component of their analytical tools.

This volume gathers a collection of the most seminal essays written by leading experts in the field, which identify or signal many of the changing directions of regional research in geography during the past fifty years. Various forms of 'new regionalism' or 'new regional geography' have emerged over the last several decades, especially in political and economic geography, but in general the region has been a concept in declining use. Despite this, the region has gained new currency in sub-areas of political and economic geography and a so-called 'new regionalism' has emerged in studies of the changing nature of the nation-state in a globalizing economy. Taken together, the essays in this volume provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of academic developments in this area of geographical research.

This volume of specially commissioned interpretative essays marks the centenary of the establishment of the International Geographical Union in 1922. Written by leading human and physical geographers from all parts of the world, A Geographical Century considers the history and present condition of geography as an international science. Based on the latest research, A Geographical Century provides new and critical analyses of the different forms of geographical internationalism that emerged during the 20th century; the changing relations between geography and cognate disciplines in the natural and social sciences; the geopolitics of international geographical collaboration; and the prospects of geography as a 21st century international science.