Landscapes of Fear

by Yi-Fu Tuan

Overview

To be human is to experience fear, but what is it exactly that makes us fearful? Landscapes of Fear—written immediately after his classic Space and Place—is renowned geographer Yi-Fu Tuan’s influential exploration of the spaces of fear and of how these landscapes shift during our lives and vary throughout history.

In a series of linked essays that journey broadly across place, time, and cultures, Tuan examines the diverse manifestations and causes of fear in individuals and societies: he describes the horror created by epidemic disease and supernatural visions of witches and ghosts; violence and fear in the country and the city; fears of drought, flood, famine, and disease; and the ways in which authorities devise landscapes of terror to instill fear and subservience in their own populations.

In this groundbreaking work—now with a new preface by the author—Yi-Fu Tuan reaches back into our prehistory to discover what is universal and what is particular in our inheritance of fear. Tuan emphasizes that human fear is a constant; it causes us to draw what he calls our “circles of safety” and at the same time acts as a foundational impetus behind curiosity, growth, and adventure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780816684595
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	04/20/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Yi-Fu Tuan is the J. K. Wright and Vilas Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments xi

1 Introduction 3

2 Fear in the Growing Child 11

3 The Child as Unformed Nature 25

4 "Fearless" Societies 35

5 Fear of Nature: Great Hunters and Pioneer Farmers 45

6 Natural Calamities and Famines 56

7 Fear in the Medieval World 73

8 Fear of Disease 87

9 Fear of Human Nature: Witches 105

10 Fear of Human Nature: Ghosts 113

11 Violence and Fear in the Countryside 130

12 Fear in the City 145

13 Public Humiliation and Execution 175

14 Exile and Confinement 187

15 The Open Circle 202

16 Fears: Past and Present 209

Notes 219

Index 245

Editorial Reviews

"An elegant encyclopedic treatise on anxiety and its various manifestations, down through the ages. Tuan is an interdisciplinary virtuoso, ranging effortlessly over history, psychology, and anthropology. An arresting and beautifully documented study." —Kirkus

From the Publisher