Why Geography Matters by Harm J. de Bilj

My oldest son shares my interest in politics, history and geography. With that last spring he signed up for an AP Human Geography course for this his Senior Year. The down side, at least for him, was an assignment for the summer to read this book.

Continuing my habit to read the books my children are assigned I picked this book up and read it as well.

The author, looking at his Amazon page seems to be quite an expert on the subject and he certainly is a strong advocate for the importance of Geography. As the book was written in 2007 he certainly feels that our government could have prevented much of the troubles of the Iraq War, especially the presumption that " we would be welcomed as liberators", if they had known more about the history and people of the religion.

It seems without doubt however that his political slant is a bit evident in the book. I do not have an issue with that, I do think, however, that having a slant, however slight, even if it is impossible not to, negates the effectiveness of this book as a textbook. That said I also think that one did not to be a human geography expert to know that we would not be welcomed as liberators.

The book was interesting. Sections on the growth of Europe under the European union, more people live in that union than in the United States, to be from England to Russia's Western doorstep. Also of note the question of further expansion into countries such as Turkey.

China is a major subject. I did not think this was addressed as well. Certainly anyone keeping up with the world knows that China and our relationship with China is perhaps the most important in the world. Still, at least for me, there was no information here and nothing that was revelatory.

The highlight of the book, the strongest section, was on global warming. Perhaps my fifth grade project on the planets set me up to have this interest but I am always fascinated by lessons which examine the physical size of the Earth and the solar system. Throw in measures of time and I am usually on the hook. What the author does in this section however is point out that while Global Warming is real one might want to be very careful about assuming it is man made and that even if it is man caused or man accelerated perhaps our interest in it is clouding a more important discussion.

What might be more important than global warming. Global Cooling. what he points out is climate wise we are still in, get this, an Ice Age. For the last million years we have been an Ice Age. Ice Ages, however, are not all cold. There are periods called Glacial and Interglacial. In the Interglacial periods the temperature warms for about ten thousand years. It was during an earlier interglacial that the ancestors of man moved out of Africa. It was also during an interglacial that the population of man shrunk by over ninety percent as a result of the end of an interglacial period. We know this shrinking of the population, or bottleneck as it is called, happened several times from our DNA. I earlier wrote of a book I read on that subject.

Interestingly the author points out that the ascent of man has occurred completely in this Interglacial which might well be nearing its end. How do we know. After every episode of global warming the earth in this million year epoch has retreated to a glacial period. In a sense global warming is dangerous, but more so because at the end end of that period ice and cold awaits us. It will not affect you and me, this cold period, but it is an example of how self indulgent to our importance we are that humans do not realize the infinitesimal time we have been important on the Earth.

This section alone makes the book stand out. I found it to be fascinating. I do believe in Global Warming, I think this book shows however that like most subjects, there is alot more to it than just the platitudes and lip service that is spoken.