Making Political Geography

by John Agnew, Luca Muscara

Dating from its inception in the late nineteenth century, political geography as a field has been heavily influenced by global events of the time. Thus, rather than trying to impose a single “fashionable” theory, leading geographers John Agnew and Luca Muscarà consider the underlying role of changing geopolitical context as their framework for understanding the evolution of the discipline. The authors trace the development of key thinkers and theories during three distinct periods—1875–1945, the Cold War, and the post–Cold War—emphasizing the ongoing struggle between theoretical “monism” and “pluralism,” or one path to knowledge versus many.

The world has undergone dramatic shifts since the book’s first publication in 2002, and this thoroughly revised and updated second edition focuses especially on reinterpretations of the post–Cold War period. Agnew and Muscarà explore the renewed questioning of international borders, the emergence of the Middle East and displacement of Europe as the center of global geopolitics, the rise of China and other new powers, the reappearance of environmental issues, and the development of critical geopolitics. With its deeply knowledgeable and balanced history and overview of the field, this concise work will be a valuable and flexible text for all courses in political geography.

Genres: Geography, Politics

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Agnew is currently Distinguished Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). From 1975 until 1995 he was a professor at Syracuse University in New York. Dr. Agnew teaches courses on political geography, the history of geography, European cities, and the Mediterranean World. From 1998 to 2002 he chaired the Department of Geography at UCLA.

He has written widely on questions of territory, place, and political power. He has also worked on issues of "science" in geography and how knowledge is created and circulates in and across places. He is best known for his work completely reinventing "geopolitics" as a field of study and for his theoretical and empirical efforts at showing how national politics is best understood in terms of the geographical dynamics of "places" and how they are made out of both local and long-distance determinants. Much of his empirical research involves Italy, Greece, and the United States.

Reviews

[Alberto Vespaziani]

well-written and highly informative, this book (much more than a textbook) provides a comprehensive account of the development of political geography. It reconstructs the historical and intellectual origins of the field, provides a clear account of the current state of the art and suggests future developments of research. The interdisciplinary approach, the historical perspective and the postmodern sensitivity make this book a must-read for anyone interested in social and political sciences.