Human Geography

Human Geography combines economic and cultural geography to explore the relationships between humans and their natural environment, and to track the broad social patterns that shape human societies. Geographical knowledge, both physical and social, has a long history. In the History of geography, geographers have often recorded and described features of the Earth that might now be considered the remit of human, rather than physical, geographers. For example Hecataeus of Miletus, a geographer and historian in ancient Greece, described inhabitants of the ancient world as well as physical features. It was not until the 18th and 19th Centuries, however, that geography was recognised as a formal academic discipline. The Royal Geographical Society was founded in England in 1830, although the United Kingdom did not get its first full Chair of geography until 1917. The first real geographical intellect to emerge in United Kingdom geography was Halford John Mackinder, appointed reader at Oxford University in 1887. The National Geographic Society was founded in the USA in 1888 and began publication of the National Geographic magazine which became and continues to be a great populariser of geographic information. The society has long supported geographic research and education. Reflections on a Global Screen The rapid globalization of the media is a trend that some countries fear will homogenize culture, forcing out programs that reflect their own values to make room for Hollywood's. But globalization is a two-way street; Hong Kong stations can transmit their local broadcasts to Chinese populations in Europe and the U.S. just as CNN can offer worldwide coverage from Atlanta. The World of the Dragon What is happening in the East today, especially in China and Japan, disrupts simple notions of East vs. West and challenges Western accounts of globalization. This concluding program draws attention to developments in the East that have potential consequences for the West and examines the role that "overseas Chinese" play in the transnational network of the Chinese business world. Berlin: Changing Centre of a Changing Europe Berlin's emergence as Germany's new political capital symbolizes the end of communism and a transformation occurring throughout the country and continent. Many of the issues that Germany now confronts such as the shift of considerable resources to rebuild Eastern Germany and the rise of neo-Nazi sentiments are seen in microcosm in Berlin.