ABSTRACT

Geography, so magnificently interdisciplinary, seems an ideal vehicle for the joining of hands of science and humanism, including the taking of moral positions on environmental and spatial issues. This world, after all, is seriously out of balance with regards to production and consumption of food and raw materials, environments are deteriorating, resources and opportunities are unevenly available. The field experience that such geography almost inevitably entails has the special virtue of lifting us quite decisively from the quagmire of definitions of our subject and from methodology and it gets us back into the open air. It reaffirms the spirit of geographical adventure and the validity of personal observation and of intuitive knowledge. It may encourage the integration of large general themes, the weaving together of disparate strands into a tapestry of land and life in a regional context that is both satisfying and useful.