Postmodernity is characterised by a thoroughgoing alteration in the ways in which space is both experienced and conceived. During the post-war period, social and spatial relations were substantially transformed by the far-reaching effects of economic globalisation, neo-imperial conflicts, new transport and communications technologies, mass migrations, political devolution, and impending environmental crisis. Concurrently, space and geography have become existential and cultural dominants for postmodern societies, to an extent displacing time and history. Given such a spatio-temporal conjuncture, this chapter explores the significance of space for British postmodern fiction and describes some of its characteristic geographies, focusing upon three distinctive kinds of spaces: cities; non-places; and regions. Among the texts discussed are novels by J.G. Ballard, Julian Barnes, Christine Brooke-Rose, Angela Carter, Maureen Duffy, Alasdair Gray, Hanif Kureishi, Salman Rushdie, Iain Sinclair, Zadie Smith, Graham Swift, Adam Thorpe, and Jeanette Winterson.

This chapter argues that much of the complexity and rigour of Geography revolves around the sophisticated conceptualisation that is involved in thinking geographically, something that begins to develop in preschool. It is not so much what the geographer studies but the way they look at the human or physical phenomena they are exploring that makes the study of Geography what it is. This leads some to say that everything can be studied geographically or everything is geography! Going back to the discussion on the ‘grammar’ of a subject, we can again highlight that what many people perceive as geography is purely the vocabulary of the subject and what makes geography is the grammar of the subject; that is, it is the implicit conceptual thinking involved when exploring and trying to make sense of the world in which we live.

In this first full chapter readers will find a general survey of those aspects of Balkan geopolitical, cultural, and linguistic history that are most relevant for the present study, including the Balkans in relation to the Ottoman Empire. We locate the Balkans geographically, describing its physical characteristics and discussing the controversy over where its northern limits are to be located. Various other extralinguistic factors are discussed that are relevant for the linguistic situation. Most importantly, the languages of the Balkans are introduced as to their genealogical affiliation, their historical attestation, their documentation, their pertinent representation in scholarly literature, their dialectology, their social setting, and related matters, including associated writing systems. For the sake of completeness, all languages found in the Balkans, from ancient to early modern, are given some attention, creating a comprehensive account of the geographically determined languages of the Balkans; ultimately, though, the focus is narrowed to the Balkan languages, i.e. those languages in the region that significantly (or in any attested fashion) display the morphosyntactic and other convergence phenomena that are central to the concept of a contact area, i.e. to a sprachbund.

The chapter introduces Agnew’s three-fold definition of place – as location, locale, and sense of place – to structure its reflections. Over the last thirty years, a digital revolution has transformed what it is possible to map since Martin Gilbert first produced his Atlas of the Holocaust. The rich array of printed and digital maps now available serve both historiographical and memorial purposes. In terms of location, the terrain depicted has shifted eastwards in the wake of the end of the Cold War, and often homed in on meso- and micro-regions, representing spaces long neglected in older surveys. Moving on to locale, the chapter introduces recent work on the Nazi understanding of “Raum” and on the place of the Holocaust in the colonial imagination. Other studies have explored the spatial patterns of arrests and deportations, the multiple border changes of ghettos, or the creation and destruction of new kinds of spaces for concentrating and murdering human beings. Finally, historians of victim experience have used a variety of means to convey victims’ sense of place and space both at the time and as conveyed through testimony.

This chapter enlightens the papal martial power through three different questions. It first focuses on the military geography of the Pontifical States (Central Italy, Comtat Venaissin, Avignon). Strongholds were key in the affirmation of pontifical political authority. Their locations and features testify to the great care taken in their construction and management. The chapter then investigates the structure of the troops involved in both offensive and defensive enterprises. Cardinals acting as legates or vicars as well as papal officers were expected to exert strong control over companies led by potentially troublesome condottieri and local warlords. At sea, the popes relied mostly on private and foreign contractors. Finally, this chapter describes the socio-cultural composition of armies, intended as micro-societies defined by rules they adopted or developed themselves. Since they served the papacy just like lay principalities, they kept up with commonly shared knightly aspirations and military practices found across Europe.

This chapter offers a reflection on the historical study of modern Europe’s entanglements with the wider world. It explores the ways in which European history can be integrated into global history, considering Europe as not only an engine but also a product of global transformations. Providing a broad historiographical overview, it discusses the impact of the “global turn” on different fields of modern European history, including political, economic, social, intellectual, and environmental history. It argues that global history represents not only a challenge but also a huge opportunity for Europeanists to open up modern European history. This will ultimately help us reshape our understanding of the boundaries of Europe – and the field of European history itself. In other words, it will allow us to deprovincialize Europe. More generally, the chapter also engages with broader questions about continents (and other spatial units) as ontological categories in historical studies.

This chapter centres around a structural equivalency between certain outside entities (e.g., anthropologists, tourists, and some organisations) and shamanic spirits (e.g., master-owners and spirit allies) in Surama Village. This equivalency is explored in connexion with the relational modes (particularly kinship and shamanism) and means (particularly hospitality) through which Makushi people form and manage strategic engagements with human and non-human others. This chapter articulates themes from previous chapters to clarify how Makushi shamanism reveals the status of contemporary visitors (particularly tourists) as akin to spirit allies and the Iwokrama International Centre as a magnified master-owner. Makushi shamanic relations with spirits, past missionaries, tourists, and organisations resonate and overlap. Makushi people seek esoteric knowledge and material goods from such outside entities. The chapter also discusses the spatial centralisation of alterity in Surama Village. The author’s status as a visitor and potential ally is highlighted to reflexively position the author within these relations.

This chapter briefly surveys the history of research into human settlement in the Caucasus region and outlines the book’s theses. In doing so, it acknowledges the long-standing interest in the unique languages and topography of the Caucasus region. It also surveys Caucasus research before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. It further charts the impact of anthropological genetics on our understanding of human evolutionary history; and introduces the unanswered questions about Caucasus population history.

This chapter demonstrates the crucial role of geographic proximity in shaping agrarian and herding relations in the history of late Ottoman Kurdistan, including regional political economy, socioeconomic structures, and intercommunal relations. It argues that the region is marked by three distinct ecological zones, which differ from each other in terms of elevation, climate, vegetation, and both human and animal habitation. The chapter then shows the encroachment of the Ottoman state through the arrival of Tanzimat reforms and the multifaceted consequences this had in the region. Next, it illustrates a demographic portrait of the region, depicting how human beings brought different ecosystems into conversation with one another. It argues that pastoralism sustained the conversation between geographic zones into the nineteenth century, creating linkages and slippages between mountains, pastures, and plains, and defining the interaction between the three zones until these links began to weaken in the face of a series of environmental crises. The chapter concludes with a glimpse into five villages from different parts of the region.

This chapter analyzes the regional and sectoral differences in how cities and municipalities engage in climate change networks. Over the past 20 years, an increasing number of cities, regions, companies, investors, and other non-state and subnational actors have voluntarily committed to reducing their GHG emissions. Such actions could help reduce the implementation gap. Along with the increase in commitments and the growing number of venues through which non-state actors can cooperate in order to govern climate change, it is necessary to track and evaluate such efforts. This chapter assesses the voluntary commitments made by Swedish municipalities, regions and multistakeholder partnerships to decarbonize by reducing GHG emissions. It finds large differences in which cities and municipalities that engage in networks. Large and urban municipalities in the south and along the eastern coast are well represented, whereas more rural municipalities along the Norwegian border are less represented in the data. The findings are discussed in terms of climate justice, highlighting the importance of having everyone onboard to create acceptance and reduce inequality in the transformation toward decarbonization.

This chapter examines Lucian’s manipulation of images of geographical authority in his True Histories, with particular reference to his representation of human and other bodies immersed in their environments. It look first at the tension between detached geographical observation and images of bodily immersion or entanglement with particular landscapes both in imperial Greek literature more broadly, and also in Lucian’s work, where that theme has a particular prominence. That point is illustrated first through discussion of Lucian’s On the Syrian Goddess, which returns repeatedly to images that challenge the idea of a clear dividing line between bodies and their environments, and also between observer and participant status. The second half of the chapter then traces the contrast between detached observation and corporeal immersion through the True Histories, especially in the scenes in the stomach of the whale, from 1.30–2.20, arguing that Lucian in this text undercuts notions of detached geographical authority in ways that are closely related to his comical undermining of various other kinds of intellectual and social pretension in his other works.

This chapter examines the published work and careers of American conservationist William Vogt and Brazilian physician-geographer Josué de Castro during the early Cold War. It emphasizes the different affective strategies that the two men employed to persuade readers of their competing positions regarding the relationship between human population, arable land, food supply, and global security. As a briefly prominent intellectual from the global South, De Castro challenged the emerging, US-led consensus that population control was essential for economic development. Based on his own experiences among marginalized Brazilians, De Castro viewed Vogt’s concern with “carrying capacity” limits as an imperialist imposition on the autonomy of less empowered people. He feared that prioritizing population reduction as the solution to resource scarcity would undermine movements for social and economic transformation, such as agrarian reform in rural Latin America. With little personal experience of the world’s poor, Vogt projected a pessimistic vision of the future on continents overrun by desperate, starving hordes. De Castro’s contrasting vision, on the other hand, stemmed from frequent encounters with the chronically hungry and a more sympathetic understanding of their plight.