Marion I. Newbigin
Published: 2015-08-06
Total Pages: 194
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Excerpt from Man and His Conquest of Nature To all those who have followed in detail the recent progress of geography, it will be obvious that this little book is enormously indebted to those investigators who of late years have devoted themselves to studies in human geography and the allied subjects. As it has been especially the French geographers who have done this, my indebtedness to them - and notably to Professors Brunhes, de Martonne, Vidal de la Blache, Demangeon, to name only a few - for the raw material upon which the book is based is very great. Detailed investigations upon the relations between groups of men and their surroundings, such as several of the above have made, are as yet somewhat uncommon in this country, and in consequence this point of view is inadequately represented here, and has scarcely filtered through to the ordinary school-book. But if geography is to be made really interesting - and it will never be adequately taught until it is made interesting - it must become clear that its essential problem is to discover why man thrives more at certain parts of the globe than at others. Put even more bluntly, the great question which geography asks is, Why is it easier for men to make their living at some places than at others? I have tried to show that the subject is less crudely utilitarian in practice than this statement may make it appear, from the fact that everywhere man demands more than the mere satisfaction of his animal needs, so that places where he has prospered are places which have satisfied more than these. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.