This stimulating challenge to conventional geography should be an essential ingredient to your next upgrade of your metageographical basics, world history as one for a change. The book is a nice debriefing of the several myths that distort that history. One of the main culprits is the East-West divide, whose illusory divide as to culture obsesses too many, butis one of the chief offenders, along with the notion of a 'western civilization' whose boundaries, content and latent ethnocentricism deserve a reminder that the East was always built into the West and vice versa. The Greek myth of Europa was always misleading, no? and isn't the realm of the Israelites the East, then?
One of the liabilities of Toynbean style analysis into 'civilizations' has been the failure to see the inherent unity of one 'Civilization' emerging in a series of partially diffentiated versions, rendering the many distinctions misleading, and quite tribalistic. A good example is the case of Japan which modernized sooner than much of Europe, it is a question of 'information', not of continents.
Fascinating take on 'metageography' and a good rolfing of some archaic concepts we take for granted.

...and never the twain shall meet." Kipling was wrong about that. This fascinating book shows how culture and world-view influenced not just Kipling and others of the past, but continues to do so with us today. Our maps, both mental and otherwise, are largely shaped by our own realities. Indeed the authors argue we are all unwitting believers in THE MYTH OF CONTINENTS. The metageography that this book critiques is defined as "the set of spatial structures through which people order their knowledge of the world." Such structures are arbitrary, but it's not just continents. It extends to world regions, culture areas, zones, and even civilizations. Also any depiction in atlases, on globes, in texts, and on political maps. It's all extremely subjective.

One of the strengths of this book is how it shows these artificial views emerging, changing, and adjusting to the dynamism and power of cultures. The concept of the continent of Europe is directly connected to the power of that region. Why else, the authors ask, should India be a sub-continent and China only a part of Asia? "In physical, cultural and historical diversity, China and India are comparable to the entire European landmass, not to a single European country."

The book traces the origins of the continental system from Herodotus through Ptolemy, the Romans, Medieval Europe to the Age of Discovery and beyond. The whole idea of what defined a continent (large landmass seperated by water) was always very fungible. The authors say that as late as 1599 "any reasonable large body of land or even island group might be deemed a continent". They give the example of a geographer referring to the West Indies as a "large and fruitful continent". The West Indies themselves are a perfect example of perception dictating form. We know that the "Indies" part came about because Columbus thought he had arrived in the East. The metageographies of West and East then are concepts that, like continents, are open to criticism. So too are the New and Old worlds, the First and Third Worlds (was there ever a Second World?) The same vagueness surrounds the North and the South, the Occident and Orient, Far East, Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific Rim.

In offering their own system for organizing human space the authors replace continents with "world regions". Arnold Toynbee and more recently Samuel Huntinton's system of using civilizations as the organizing principle gets a nod from the authors. In the classification they use, Europe is now "Western Eurasia", "African-America" includes not just the West Indies but the entire Caribbean and North-Eastern Brazil. North America remains and Ibero-America emerges.

Obviously geographers will thoroughly enjoy this book but it has a much broader appeal. Wherever we are in the world we use some of the terms above to describe our place. If nothing else this book will make us all a little more aware of how we define ourselves and others.

I'm surprised to be the first to review this book. It was recommended to me a couple of years ago by a professor and I've only now gotten around to reading it: it's definitely one of the best books I've read recently.

As the title suggests, the book explores the myth of continents. The authors show the origin of the idea of the continent in ancient Greece and show its continued use throughout the centuries even as the addition of the Americas and Australia to the world map caused more and more incongruities with the original Greek and medieval world system.

The authors also look at the concepts of 'East' and 'West' and the similarly overused (but underdefined) 'Orient' and 'Occident', arguing against Edward Said for the continuation of a world divided into geographical regions, albeit ones that does not draw upon geographical determinism or cartographic ethnocentrism. Unlike Samuel Huntington they stress their world regions (i.e. African-America and Central Asia) as not always coherent territories with distinct borders. Agreeing with Herodotus and Toynbee about the need to examine the continental system, they thoroughly discuss the philosophical and political views of continents in recent centuries, looking at Rousseau, Herder, Hegel, Montesquieu, H.G. Wells, J. Burckhardt, Wallerstein and others.

This book is so good at deconstructing the built-up assumptions of the aforementioned terms that I hesistate to list any faults, although I should at least mention that I would have liked a few more maps and a separate section on how and why the authors chose each world region and its borders (i.e. why not a separate region for Madagascar).

In any case, this is a convincing and powerful book.

To write a review of this book is actually to exercise the very constructivist principles which the Enlightenment bestowed on the humanities. Most of what passes for criticism these days is so de-constructivist that one wonders exactly what qualitative judgement is being passed, and exactly on what subject. These are writings by academics, and so what? They remind me of the early-Christian monks in Ireland, transcribing the surviving wisdom of the ancients and periodically fleeing from barbarian hordes farther and farther West. Well, this is as far West as we can go, folks. It's time to turn and face the barbarians. Unless you're one of those bored citizens who're looking forward to them, like the ones in Cavafy's "Waiting for the Barbarians."

As a history major, and someone who is fed up with post-modernist nonesense at the university, this book was a must-read for me.

I only have two concerns with this otherwise solid title.

1) The text is too academic -- how about a short, readable book for the masses? I propose a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) format that would enable students and others to confront unargued post-modern dogma.

2) I would have loved an examination of the historical roots of post-modernism and other forms of irrationalism. For those who are interested, Wendy Kaminer's book 'Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials' is a good examination of American irrationalism.

Finally, if anyone else reading this review is a student (or teacher) at a university who is concerned with the stifling of free inquiry in education, please e-mail me and initiate a discussion. Thank you.

To the critics of this book's style rather than content: This is a collection of conference proceedings. This means that the articles are basically transcribed lectures. The slightly awkward style of writing stems from the origins of the articles as speech, not text.

As for the content: superb.

Martin W. Lewis sets out in his book "Green Delusions" to give an overall critique to the radical environmental movement, but his critique totally misses the target. The book was published in 1992 and feels out dated and irrelevant. So much have changed in the world and so has the environmental movement. "Green Delusions" seems far left behind in its arguements and view upon the world. Critique is always necessary when dealing with any question, especially environmental issues, but "Green Delusions" is with no doubt NOT the book to buy, if you're looking for good critique.

Extremely well researched and informative book detailing the case against radical environmentalism and its belief that our only future is to revert to small communities, abandon any form of capitalism and revert to tribal-like simplicity on a global scale. These ideas are prevalent throughout the ecological movement and throughout "green" political parties. The author argues that these ideas, apart from failing to appeal at all to "the mainstream", if enacted would actually lead to global environmental catastrophy. A very down-to-earth but extremely wide ranging book giving a positive vision to those searching for a practical vision to cope with both local and global environmental problems. Written by a respected geographer, it ranges from tribal agriculture to critique of Reagan freemarket economics in its efforts to show that the way forward is by working practically with and bringing changes within, the existing capitalistic system rather than the utopian ideals of returns to pre-modern era, rural communities. A real vision for the future by someone who used to argue those very utopian visions and now is absolute in our need for realistic "now" solutions. An absolute must especially for those involved in environmental politics or academia.