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President's Plenary Session: Bringing Geography to the Public Through Books

President's Plenary Session: Bringing Geography to the Public Through Books Session held Friday, October 21, at Phoenix, Arizona California State University, Northridge James allen When I Was a graduate student in the 1960s, I was struck by the absence of geographers writing books for the public. I found so many aspects of the world fascinating, and I thought geographers' research was interesting. But professional geographers seemed to be writing only for their fellow geographers, and their analyses and interpretations of regions, places, economies, and landscapes were buried in academic geography journals. I do remember an exception--a book that I read with admiration, a book that demonstrated how a geographer could create an idea, study it closely, and present it in a way that captivated Americans. That was the book Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States (1961), by Jean Gottmann, a French geographer who had been a visiting professor in the United States. Of course, that book was the one that popularized the term "megalopolis" that remains so useful today, the term for the massive metropolitan areas that result when the suburbs of cities expand and coalesce. Since the 1960s, growing numbers of geographers have written books aimed at both scholarly and public audiences. Two of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers University of Hawai'I Press

President's Plenary Session: Bringing Geography to the Public Through Books

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University of Hawai'I Press
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Copyright © 2006 University of Hawai'i Press.
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1551-3211
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Abstract

Session held Friday, October 21, at Phoenix, Arizona California State University, Northridge James allen When I Was a graduate student in the 1960s, I was struck by the absence of geographers writing books for the public. I found so many aspects of the world fascinating, and I thought geographers' research was interesting. But professional geographers seemed to be writing only for their fellow geographers, and their analyses and interpretations of regions, places, economies, and landscapes were buried in academic geography journals. I do remember an exception--a book that I read with admiration, a book that demonstrated how a geographer could create an idea, study it closely, and present it in a way that captivated Americans. That was the book Megalopolis: The Urbanized Northeastern Seaboard of the United States (1961), by Jean Gottmann, a French geographer who had been a visiting professor in the United States. Of course, that book was the one that popularized the term "megalopolis" that remains so useful today, the term for the massive metropolitan areas that result when the suburbs of cities expand and coalesce. Since the 1960s, growing numbers of geographers have written books aimed at both scholarly and public audiences. Two of

Journal

Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers – University of Hawai'I Press

Published: Jul 5, 2006

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