Modern
Geography
The study of
geography went gone through many stages in the 19th and 20th
century. The four main ones were environmental determinism, regional
geography, the quantitative revolution, and critical geography.
Environmental Determinism Environmental
Determinism is the theory that the type of person you are is directly influenced
by the environment you live in. It is the belief that a person’s natural environment
affects their physical, mental and moral traits. The most common ideas are "heat
makes inhabitants of the tropics lazy" and "frequent changes in barometric pressure make inhabitants of
temperate latitudes more intellectually agile." Despite trying to keep the
study scientific many geographers have dubbed it as sweeping generalizations
with very little basis.
Regional Geography Regional geography is the
belief that pure geography is the study of areas, regions and places. It
includes information and description about the places and the right way of
having earth divided into regions. Some geographers believe that it is too
descriptive and not enough scientific evidence behind it.
Dividing Regions of the World
The Quantitative Revolution The Quantitative Revolution was
a revolution that began in the 1950’s. This was a period when many geographers
took geographical theories and scrutinized them in test usually using
statistical methods.
Critical Geography Critical Geography is similar
in some ways to Environmental
Determinism as it states how groups of people can be affected by the landscape
they live in. It studies how a person can feel a sense of relationship with a
region or area and how the natural environment can affect the social and
political regimes.
Although the
study of geography has changed and developed throughout the ages and different cultures, we will always enjoy learning and
discovering new and exciting things about the wonderful world that we live in. There will always be the great questions that geographers can battle with like ‘How can a levee be dry?’ and ‘What makes one
pine for the fjords?’.
American Pie by Don
McLean Monty
Python – dead parrot sketch