Prize-winning but Patchy

Book Reviews

Geography for Global Citizens
by B. Parker, K. Lanceley, D. Owens and R. Reeves
Macmillan Education Australia:  Melbourne, paperback, 1999, 350 pages, $34.95

This geography textbook was written for use by students in years 9 and 10.  It consists of twelve chapters organised into three sections.  The first general section (70 pages) comprises two chapters.  The first chapter explains what geography is and what geographers study, very briefly introduces maps and physical landscapes, discusses skills such as using an atlas, drawing maps and field sketches, and raises some global geographical issues such as threatened habitats, access to fresh water, land rights and urban growth and decline.

The next chapter entitled "Global environments and communities" considers landforms, plate tectonics, geomorphological processes, weather and climate, ecosystems and food webs, communities, and the skills of drawing and interpreting graphs and using the Internet.

The second section (169 pages) reviews five major environments:  tropical rainforests, deserts, mountains, coasts and polar lands.  The chapters are of equal length and generally review physical processes, climate, biogeography, environmental management and significant problems.  Sprinkled throughout the chapters are references to acquiring skills such as finding places and showing heights on a topographic map, drawing a cross-section and interpreting photographs.  The third section (105 pages) treats five themes in chapters of varying length.  The themes are urban growth and decline, access to fresh water, changing climate, the impact of tourism and global citizenship.

All the chapters have a common format.  On the first page, students are told what they will be able to do when the chapter has been carefully read.  The various parts of the chapter are separated by a test called "knowledge and understanding" and suggestions for activities, and the chapter generally concludes with case studies.  Various sections are labelled with icons referring to "Geographic issue", "Global citizens" and "Skills".  The book is profusely illustrated with diagrams, photographs, boxes, maps, highlighted quotations and cartoons.  It concludes with a five-page glossary and a very short index of two pages.

The book's strengths are the numerous case studies, some of the illustrations, the references to Websites and the raising of geographical issues such as access to water, deforestation and possible climate change.  The weaknesses are the other illustrations, the lack of detail in some of the core sections of physical geography, the flimsiness of instruction in some skills, the failure to provide balance on some issues , the absence of references to some major geographical issues and the lack of references for assertions and some figures.

I found the huge number of illustrations a distraction from the text and plainly several were not worth a thousand words.  The text might have been designed for readers with a very short attention span;  there are generally three or four different coloured items per page competing for attention.  The items labelled "Did you know?" are sometimes trite ("Did you know that other names used for mountains are alps, highlands and peaks".  page 143) and sometimes inaccurate ("The Arctic and Antarctic are in darkness for six months of the year".  page 210).  Figure 4.47 shows existing deserts and areas at risk of desertification.  Since it carries no source it was presumably drawn by the authors.  It fails to show the Namib Desert in south-west Africa, the Gibson Desert in western Australia and the Taklimika Shamo and Peski Muyunkum in central Asia, and, incorrectly, shows a desert in the northern Shandong plain adjoining the large gulf called Bo Hai [sea] where the delta of the Huang Ho [Yellow River] is located.  This map also shows a large area around Darwin at risk of desertification.

Some sections of the introductory chapters seemed too superficial for students in years 9 and 10.  For example, there is no statement that parallels represent the angular difference with the plane of the equator.  In the glossary, latitude is defined as "distance from the equator".  The international date line is given as an example of a meridian (page 14) when it is no such thing.  Erosion is defined as "... the wearing away of the land surface as rock particles are removed by wind, running water and ice" (page 44) without any recognition that much erosion occurs as a result of these transporting agents being armed with fragments of rock.  That becomes clear for wind and water later in the text (pages 116 and 150).  Chemical weathering is introduced at page 149 without any reference to the weathering and erosion of limestone.  The terms "limestone" and "karst scenery" do not appear in the glossary or the index.  A surprising omission seems to be the lack of any formal connection between maps 1.34 and 2.28 which show the global distributions of physical environments and climates respectively.

The treatment of some skills seems superficial.  The discussion of skills connected with maps (pages 5 and 16) makes no mention of isoline, dot or choropleth maps.  The skills section devoted to research (page 69) notes that you can learn how to acquire information and verify its accuracy but there is no explanation of the techniques you can use to verify the accuracy of information.  It would have been worthwhile to urge students to use a range of diverse and unconnected sources, listing for them the best gazetteers, atlases and encyclopaedias and warning, for example, against the uncritical acceptance of government statistics from dictatorships.  The reference to interpreting photographs is much too glib and air photos, which are a prime source of information, are treated in quarter of a page (page 188).  Then, having told the students that the colour red on an infrared air photo of Monterey Bay usually means living vegetation (page 189), there is no explanation of the red blotches in the sea.  The skills connected with conducting a survey of people's opinions or activities fails to explain the methods by which a representative and adequate sample can be identified or the need to avoid loaded questions.  As I write this, I have a vivid memory of how Sir Humphrey persuaded Bernard to give two opposite answers to the merits of conscription in less than five minutes.

In some instances, it was possible to detect a lack of balance which might have been entirely accidental but which might deceive some students.  For example, the examination of the marked adverse effects of logging in the Solomon Islands (pages 92-4) does not sheet home responsibility for the damage to corrupt governments in that country.  There is an astonishing question on page 139 which seems to raise an unnecessary, indeed ridiculous scare.  The students are asked:

• Who would have the "right of ownership" to the desert lands?
• Will the superpowers of the world try to take them over when they run out of land?
• What about the rights of traditional owners of the land?

It would be very interesting to read the answers which the authors might give to that series of questions.

The prospect of mining in Antarctica in the future is raised (page 221) after referring to the possible depletion of the world's mineral resources.  But there is no discussion of mineral price changes if depletion occurs nor of the relative costs of mining higher-grade deposits in Antarctica and lower-grade deposits in, say, North Africa or Central Australia.  Then it is noted that there is an agreement by the most powerful countries that no mining will take place in Antarctica for fifty years from the early 1990s (page 230).  The analysis of global warming raises the important question "will there be benefits for some and problems for others?" (page 291).  This is a question that most green activists avoid or dismiss because the answer might be inconvenient.  Alas, no answer to the question is provided but there are seven gloomy predictions about global warming (page 295).

Turning to issues that are not treated, the most obvious concerns the oceans.  It is odd that students are told that the oceans occupy 71 per cent of the earth's surface (page 58) but there is no major section on the oceans.  There is no reference to the remarkable enclosure of the oceans by extended claims to exclusive economic zones 370 km wide that have reduced the area of the high seas by one third since the 1960s.  The statement that the air we breathe, the oceans and the polar lands are known as global commons because they are not owned by any particular country (page 336) is well wide of the mark.  Countries own the air space above their lands and territorial waters and they own the seas within 370 km of their coasts.  The Arctic polar lands are owned by Russia, Norway, Denmark, Canada and the United States, who also collectively own about half the Arctic Ocean.  There are claims to most of Antarctica and claims could be made to seas within 370 km of the continent.  How is it possible to discuss coasts (Chapter 6) without reference to the closely related continental margin, where most of the world's fishing industry operates and where large quantities of oil, gas and some minerals are extracted?

It is disappointing that there is no reference to the sources which I imagine the authors consulted in preparing this book.  It is also unfortunate that there are some figures and maps where the sources have not been shown:  they include Figures 7.24, 7.46, 8.6, 8.27, 9.3,9.4 a and b, 9.6 and 9.7.

This book was the overall winner of The Australian's "Awards for Excellence in Academic Publishing".  In presenting the award, Senator Lynn Allison -- who represents the Australian Democrats -- described the book as "technologically with-it", noted that it was about woodchipping, logging, mining, dams, foreign aid, tourism and exploitation, and that "It is subversive but it is objective.  From a parliamentarian's perspective it is ... a serious book about politics" (The Australian, 9 June 1999, page 39).

The OED definition of subversive is "having a tendency to subvert or overthrow" and the relevant definition of subvert is "To undermine the character, loyalty or faith of a person".  It seems unlikely that this book will produce a generation of radicals struggling to protect the world's environments from perceived deterioration or misuse and to improve the lot of unfortunates at home and abroad.  It appears to be rather a comfortable statement about thoughtful planning before development occurs, sympathy for indigenous people, the poor and hungry, people deprived of human rights and women and personal responsibility for rubbish.

At levels 9 and 10, students should be exposed to the realities of political geography.  For example, in the final chapter there are bland statements about the aims of the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation (pages 342-3) without any comment on the United Nations' continuing abysmal failures in Africa that started with the independence of Zaire in June 1960 or any reference to the way in which the major economic powers can avoid the discipline of the World Trade Organisation if it is deemed in the national interest.  If the aim is to make students global citizens they should be given an indication of the total number and scale of problems facing the world that are included in the scope of political geography.  It might be expected that any list would not be confined to the matters recited by Senator Allison.  It might also include civil wars in Africa, Sri Lanka, parts of Indonesia, Afghanistan and the Balkans;  oppressive regimes in the Middle East and parts of Asia;  the plight of new countries cast adrift without proper preparation by the disintegration of the Soviet empire or Yugoslavia or by Portugal's irresponsible decolonisation of overseas territories in 1975;  the corrupt plundering of national treasuries which has impoverished some states;  the scourge of HIV-AIDS along the major transport routes from Uganda to Zimbabwe which has left many families consisting of only children or grandparents and children;  the dreadful activities in various continents which have spawned the new term "ethnic-cleansing".

I recommend that geography teachers should obtain an inspection copy of the atlas and consider carefully whether they are prepared to ask their students to purchase it for use throughout Years 9 and 10.  There is also a Teacher disk which I have not seen that costs about $72.95.  Enquiries can be made to following telephone numbers:  Victoria and Tasmania, 03 9825 1025;  New South Wales, 02 9719 8944;  South Australia and Northern Territory, 08 8362 2640;  Queensland, 07 3391 5391;  Western Australia, 08 9470 9930.