Science Geography

What is a country? While certain basic tenets - such as the clear demarcation of a country's borders, and the acknowledgment of its sovereignty by other countries and by international governing bodies like the United Nations - seem applicable, journalist Joshua Keating's book explores exceptions to these rules. Through stories about these countries' efforts at self-determination, as well as their respective challenges, Keating reveals that there is no universal legal authority determining what we consider a country.

This book offers a much-needed new political theory of an old phenomenon. The last decade alone has marked the highest number of migrations in recorded history. Constrained by environmental, economic, and political instability, scores of people are on the move. But other sorts of changes - from global tourism to undocumented labor - have led to the fact that to some extent, we are all becoming migrants. The migrant has become the political figure of our time.

Here, political scientist Jakub J. Grygiel brings to light the importance of incorporating geography into grand strategy. He argues that states can increase and maintain their position of power by pursuing a geostrategy that focuses on control of resources and lines of communication.

One couple's inspiring memoir of healing a Rwandan village, raising a family near the old killing fields, and building a restaurant named Heaven. Newlyweds Josh and Alissa were at a party and received a challenge that shook them to the core: Do you think you can really make a difference? Especially in a place like Rwanda, where the scars of genocide linger and poverty is rampant? While Josh worked hard bringing food and health care to the country's rural villages, Alissa was determined to put their foodie expertise to work. The couple opened Heaven, a gourmet restaurant overlooking Kigali, which became an instant success.

Geologists have amassed data that indicate that islands have disappeared in the Pacific, a phenomenon that oral traditions of many groups of Pacific Islanders also highlight. This book explores the issue of vanished islands in the Pacific by bringing together the geology and the myths.

The Big Ratchet is the story of the ratchets: the technologies and innovations, big and small, that propelled our species from hunters and gatherers on the savannahs of Africa to shoppers in the aisles of the supermarket. Our species long lived on the edge of starvation. Now we produce enough food for all 7 billion of us to eat nearly 3,000 calories every day. This is such an astonishing thing in the history of life as to verge on the miraculous. The Big Ratchet is the story of how it happened.

In a climate of culture wars and tremendous economic uncertainty, America is often reduced to a simplistic schism between red states and blue states. In response to that oversimplification, journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political geographer James Gimpel to launch the Patchwork Nation project, using on-the-ground reporting and statistical analysis to get past generalizations and probe American communities in depth.

Ein Buch, das unser Weltbild ins Wanken bringt. Ob bei Google Maps oder Apple: Täglich verlassen wir uns auf Karten. Aber wir denken selten darüber nach, wie umfangreich sie Einfluss auf unser Leben nehmen. Zum Beispiel durch die Mercator-Projektion aus dem 16. Jahrhundert, die bis heute die Dominanz des Westens unterstreicht, indem sie die Länder des Nordens größer erscheinen lässt. Oder durch Gerrymandering, die Grenzziehung von Bezirken, die den Ausgang von Wahlen beeinflusst.

In this poetic personal narrative, Thomas P. Huber reflects on two seemingly unrelated places—the North Fork Valley in western Colorado and the Coulon River Valley in Provence, France—and finds a shared landscape and sense of place. What began as a simple comparison of two like places in distant locations turned into a more complex, interesting, and personal task. Much is similar: the light, the valleys, the climate, the agriculture. And much is less so: the history, the geology, the physical makeup of villages.

Authors Paul Warde, Libby Robin, and Sverker Sörlin trace the emergence of the concept of the environment following World War II, a period characterized by both hope for a new global order and fear of humans' capacity for almost limitless destruction. It was at this moment that a new idea and a new narrative about the planet-wide impact of people's behavior emerged, closely allied to anxieties for the future. With the rise of "the environment", the authors argue, came new expertise, making certain kinds of knowledge crucial to understanding the future of our planet.

Since the publication of her prize-winning memoir, Craft for a Dry Lake, writer and artist Kim Mahood has been returning to the Tanami desert country in far north-western Australia where, as a child, she lived with her family on a remote cattle station. The land is timeless, but much has changed: the station has been handed back to its traditional owners, the mining companies have arrived and Aboriginal art has flourished.

Kompendium wiedzy geograficznej dla maturzystów przedstawione w sposób przejrzysty i interesujący. Chociaż w geografii bardzo ważny jest rysunek, to nagrana część opisowa daje duże szanse zapoznania się z tematyką potrzebną do egzaminu maturalnego. Z zagadnieniami dotyczącymi obliczeń geograficznych oraz map należy jednak zapoznać się wcześniej, a audiobook traktować w tym przypadku jako powtórzenie.

Außergewöhnliche Begegnungen Down Under. Der kleine Drache Kokosnuss, das Stachelschwein Matilda und der Fressdrache Oskar geraten mit ihrem Boot in einen fürchterlichen Sturm, der sie meilenweit vom Kurs abbringt. Am nächsten Morgen haben sie zwar festen Boden unter den Füßen, aber keine Ahnung, wo sie sich befinden. Als sie einen Koala treffen, der auf einem Eukalyptus-Baum sitzt, ist klar: Sie sind in Australien! Und das ist erst der Beginn eines aufregenden Abenteuers.

By turns exciting, provocative, and sincere, Hitching for Hope: A Journey into the Heart and Soul of Ireland is the tale of a pilgrimage both deeply personal and explicitly political. McKiernan embarks without an itinerary, not knowing with whom he may speak, what he may hear, or where he may sleep each night. As he reflects on his past, faces his fears, and listens to the struggles, hopes, and dreams of Ireland’s people, he excavates a human resilience often obscured by the media.

Migration ist kein Phänomen der Neuzeit: Seit der Mensch den aufrechten Gang beherrschte, trieb es ihn aus seiner Heimat Afrika in die ganze Welt, auch nach Europa. Dank der neuen Methoden der Genetik kann diese lange unbekannte Geschichte unserer Wurzeln aufgedeckt werden. Johannes Krause und Thomas Trappe spannen den Bogen zurück bis in die Urgeschichte und erzählen, wie wir zu den Europäern wurden, die wir sind: Gibt es "Urvölker"? Wann verloren die frühen Europäer ihre dunkle Haut? Welche Rolle spielte die Balkanroute in den vergangenen 40 000 Jahren?

In the summer of 2012, a team of six climbers set out to attempt the first ascent of one of the great unclimbed lines of the Himalaya - the giant Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat, the world's ninth highest mountain. At 10 kilometers in length, the Mazeno is the longest route to the summit of an 8,000-meter peak. Ten expeditions had tried and failed to climb this enormous ridge.

They say that one is subjected to a sobering sample of what can only be described as an existential crisis when traversing the golden and seemingly infinite terrain of the Sahara Desert. If one climbed any of the countless sand dunes and twirled around in a place, particularly under the starlit sky, they would scarcely be able to tell east from west without a compass, for there would be nothing but dizzying carpets of indistinguishable sand hills unfurling into the distant horizon.

Peak Everything addresses many of the cultural, psychological and practical changes we will have to make as nature rapidly dictates our new limits. This latest book from Richard Heinberg, author of three of the most important books on Peak Oil, touches on the most important aspects of the human condition at this unique moment in time.

A combination of wry commentary and sober forecasting on subjects as diverse as farming and industrial design, this book tells how we might make the transition from The Age of Excess to the Era of Modesty with grace and satisfaction....

On a snowy morning in January 1910, the Alaska Steamship Company's Farallon struck Black Reef in Cook Inlet. The vessel carried no wireless radio to broadcast an SOS. Thirty-eight men scrambled into lifeboats, to be cast up on the rugged shore where they huddled under make-shift tents constructed from the Farallon's sails. Exposed to a bitter northern winter with meager equipment and clothing, a disturbing awareness sank in-rescuers may arrive too late.

Cities and the Creative Class gathers in one place for the first time the research leading up to Richard Florida's theory on how the growth of the creative economy shapes the development of cities and regions. In a new introduction, Florida updates this theory and responds to the critics of his 2002 best seller, The Rise of the Creative Class.