A World of Difference: Society, Nature, Development - Softcover

Porter, Philip W.; Sheppard, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1572303247 ISBN 13: 9781572303249

Publisher: The Guilford Press, 1998

Synopsis

Drawing upon a full range of geographic knowledge, this engaging volume assesses the nature and causes of global inequality and critically examines contemporary approaches to economic development. Readers are encouraged to rethink their presuppositions about how development works as they gain a deeper understanding of the interacting dynamics of cultural practices and norms; biophysical factors such as climate, population, and natural resources; and economic and political processes--all of which have led to the present-day disparities between the first and third worlds. Enhanced by a wealth of original empirical data, diagrams, and maps, the book provides the broad-based tools students need to understand what local life is like in the less developed world, why conditions are the way they are, and how marginalized groups can be empowered to participate as equals in the analysis and work of development.

About this title

About the Author

Philip W. Porter, PhD, is Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. His research, concentrated mainly in east Africa, has combined themes in cultural ecology, physical geography, political economy, and social theory.

Eric S. Sheppard, PhD, is Professor of Geography at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include economic and social theory, the geographical underpinnings of political and economic processes, and development dynamics from the urban to the global scale.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
I. The World as Social Differentiation
2. The Inevitability of Differences
3. Culture, Kinship, and Gender
4. Institutional/Structural Inequalities
5. Views from the Core: Propagating Development
6. Views from the Periphery: Encountering Development
II. The World as Differentiated Resource
7. Population Growth and the Demographic Transition
8. The Atmospheric Energy Cycle and the Hydrologic Cycle
9. The Carbon Cycle
10. Soils, Vegetation, Pests, Water, and Agriculture
11. The Earth's Crust as a Resource
12. Disease and Health
13. The Management of Tropical and Subtropical Ecosystems: The Pokot of West Central Kenya--An Indigenous Knowledge System
III. The World as Differentiated System
14. The Historical Geography of Colonialism and the Slave Trade
15. Colonialism as Spatial and Labor Control System
16. The End of Colonialism and the Promise of Free Trade
17. Trading Primary Commodities
18. Peripheral Industrialization: Paths and Strategies
19. Urbanization, Migration, and Spatial Polarization within the Periphery
20. Transnational Production
21. Foreign Branch Plants and Economic Growth
22. Money and Global Financial Markets
23. Borrowing Money: Aid, Debt, and Structural Adjustment
24. Tourism and Development
25. Toward a Different World

Edition details

• Publisher: The Guilford Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1572303247
• ISBN 13: 9781572303249
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 602