The Geography of War and Peace: From Death Camps to Diplomats / Edition 1

by Colin Flint

Overview

Our world of increasing and varied conflicts is confusing and threatening to citizens of all countries, as they try to understand its causes and consequences. However, how and why war occurs, and peace is sustained, cannot be understood without realizing that those who make war and peace must negotiate a complex world political map of sovereign spaces, borders, networks of communication, access to nested geographic scales, and patterns of resource distribution. This book takes advantage of a diversity of geographic perspectives as it analyzes the political processes of war and their spatial expression.

Contributors to the volume examine particular manifestations of war in light of nationalism, religion, gender identities, state ideology, border formation, genocide, spatial rhetoric, terrorism, and a variety of resource conflicts. The final section on the geography of peace covers peace movements, diplomacy, the expansion of NATO, and the geography of post-war reconstruction. Case studies of numerous conflicts include Israel and Palestine, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzogovina, West Africa, and the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195162097
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/14/2004
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	9.22(w) x 6.34(h) x 1.05(d)

About the Author

Colin Flint, Associate Professor of Geography at Pennsylvania State University, is a political geographer whose research interests include terrorism, geopolitics, war and peace, and the Arab world. He is editor of Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Hate and Intolerance in the United States of America (2003) and co-author, with Peter J. Taylor, of Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation-State, and Locality (4th edition, 2000).

Editorial Reviews

"Flint describes the 'one single purpose' of this book as to debunk geopolitical theorist Nicholas Spykman's view that 'geography is the most important factor in foreign policy because it is the most permanent'— a purpose easily achieved. The many and varied essays that demonstrate how to approach the concept of 'space' cover such topics as nationalism, religion, gender, peace movements, natural resources, water, and drug trafficking. The best pieces, which tend to be more focused and historical, provide real insight."—Foreign Affairs

"It is almost twenty years since the publication of a previous volume on the geography of peace and war. This time the crucial words are reversed, indicating that greater pessimism, perhaps than before, but many of the issues are also different, suggesting that the human capacity to wage war continues to defy easy solution. What these essays illustrate, though, is how looking at the dynamics of violent conflict geographically can help us better understand it, even if resolution remains as yet more hope than realization."—John Agnew, Professor of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, and author of Geopolitics and Making Political Geography

"War is an inherently geographical concept: it is fought across territories, by territorially-bounded states, and its outcomes influence the remapping of that system of states. Wars create geographies and geographies create wars. The contributors to this exciting new collection provide important insights to that relationship, in essays that are theoretically stimulating and empirically informative."—Ron Johnston, Professor, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol

"The excellent collection of essays could hardly be more timely. It has all the hallmarks of becoming the standard reference on the subject, a benchmark volume for geographers guiding their students towards understanding our contemporary dangerous world."—Peter Taylor, Professor of Geography, Loughborough University

"This volume explores the permanent wars and fledgling peace process of the new millennium from traditional, spatial-analytic, and critical perspectives. The collection reaffirms, across a range of engaging essays, how resource foundations, territorial practices, and spatial discourses are active ingredients in the making of war and peace in the twentieth century."—Gerard Toal, Professor, Government and International Affairs, Virginia Tech University

From the Publisher

Geopolitics — the view that geography creates its own enduring strategic logic that states ignore at their peril — seems antiquated in these postcolonial days. The military importance of distance has been challenged by advances in the means of transport and communication and by the range of modern weapons. Nor does geopolitics fit well with modern academic fashion. Flint describes the "one single purpose" of this book as to debunk geopolitical theorist Nicholas Spykman's view that "geography is the most important factor in foreign policy because it is the most permanent" — a purpose easily achieved. The many and varied essays that demonstrate how to approach the concept of "space" cover such topics as nationalism, religion, gender, peace movements, natural resources, water, and drug trafficking. The best pieces, which tend to be more focused and historical, provide real insight. The more general tend to be less satisfactory, especially after one has gotten used to the idea that "war/peace and geography are mutually constituted and socially constructed." Although from different points on the ideological spectrum, there is much here that is reminiscent of the old geopolitician's habit of allowing political prejudice to masquerade as scholarly analysis.

Foreign Affairs