Nature and Identity in Cross-Cultural Perspective

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Nature, Home and Horizon

   1. Front Matter

      Pages N1-N1

      PDF

   2. Reflections on the History of Western Attitudes to Nature

      • Clarence J. Glacken

      Pages 1-17

   3. Ideas of Nature in East Asian Lands

      • Hajime Nakamura

      Pages 19-49

   4. Japan’s Traditional View of Nature and Interpretation of Landscape

      • M. Senda

      Pages 51-61

   5. Indian Attitudes Towards Nature

      • R. C. Pandeya

      Pages 63-68

   6. Nature and Cosmic Integrity: A Search in Hindu Geographical Thought

      • Rana P. B. Singh

      Pages 69-86

   7. World Views of Arab Geographers

      • Hassan Hanafi

      Pages 87-94

   8. Perspectives on the Contributions of Arabs and Muslims to Geography

      • EL-Sayed EL-Bushra, Muhammad M. Muhammadain

      Pages 95-113

3. Official Versus Folk Visions

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 115-115

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   2. Cosmos and Hearth in China

      • Yi-Fu Tuan

      Pages 117-136

   3. Interplay of State and Local Concern in the Management of Natural Resources: Hydraulics and Forestry in Spain (1855–1936)

      • Josefina Gómez Mendoza, Nicolás Ortega Cantero

      Pages 137-149

   4. The Real Country and the Legal Country: Spanish Ideals and Mayan Realities in Colonial Guatemala

      • W. George Lovell

      Pages 151-161

   5. Popular and Official Appraisals of Natural Resources: Some Evidence from Australia

      • R. L. Heathcote

      Pages 163-174

   6. God, Thine Earth is Burning: Nature Attitudes and the Latvian Drive for Independence

      • Edmunds Valdemars Bunkse

      Pages 175-187

   7. Arctic Worlds and the Geography of Imagination

      • Nancy C. Doubleday

      Pages 189-198

4. Narrative Imagination in the Landscape

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 199-199

      PDF

   2. A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative

      • William Cronon

      Pages 201-234

   3. Invented Tradition and Academic Convention in Geographical Thought about New England

      • Martyn J. Bowden

      Pages 235-250

   4. Writing “God’s Fine Wilderness”: John Muir in the Mountains of California

      • Luke Wallin

      Pages 251-269

Nature and Identity in Cross-Cultural Perspective presents 20 essays which explore diverse cultural interpretations of the earth's surface. Contrasted with each other and with the potentially cosmopolitan culture of science, these detailed studies of ways in which different cultures conceptualise nature appear in the context of global environmental change.
Understanding across cultural lines has never been more important. This book shows how individual cultures see their own histories as offering protection for nature, while often viewing others as lacking such ethical restraints. Through such writing a discourse of understanding and common action becomes possible. The authors come from the places they discuss, and offer passionate as well as scholarly visions of nature within their cultural homes.
Audience: This volume is of interest to academics and professionals working in the fields of cultural geography, environmental history, environmental studies, history of environmental ideas, environmental education, landscape and literature, nature and culture. It can be used for courses in the above-mentioned areas and seminars in comparative literature. It can also be used as a complimentary text to provide cultural context to literary readings, and for seminars on cultural aspects of the environment.

• China
• education
• environment
• environmental change
• forestry
• geography
• history
• hydraulics
• identity
• research

• Department of Geography, University College Dublin, Belfield, Ireland

  Anne Buttimer

• The Center for Policy Analysis, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, N. Dartmouth, USA

  Luke Wallin

Policies and ethics