The goal is to record most books written or edited by the Geography faculty. We will start by entering the most recent publications first and work our way back to older books. There is a WMU Authors section in Waldo Library, where most of these books can be found.
With a few exceptions, we do not have the rights to put the full text of the book online, so there will be a link to a place where you can purchase the book.
If you are a faculty member and have a book you would like to include in the WMU book list, please contact wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu
-
Ethnic Tourism: Impacts, Challenges and Opportunities
Li Yang
The book explores emerging themes, concepts, and issues in ethnic tourism, through examination of theoretical underpinnings and empirical research in various ethnic destinations worldwide. It encapsulates cultural, environmental, and economic dimensions of ethnic tourism, which is a force of change in many ethnic communities and suggests means through which local benefits can be enhanced and costs reduced. This book presents a range of case studies from diverse well-known ethnic destinations which reveal the various outcomes and changes engendered by ethnic tourism, such as the commodification of ethnic culture, the exploitation of minority peoples by outsiders, and the impact of wider forces of modernization and national integration policies. It summarizes what has been done so far and suggests initiatives to increase the contribution of tourism to the economic development and quality of life of ethnic communities. It brings together a diversity of perspectives that are not currently readily available in one location. The book will appeal to students, and scholars interested in social sciences, tourism studies, geography, anthropology, sociology and economics, as well as in applied disciplines such as planning. It addresses academic and professional audiences that are interested in tourism and its consequences, as well as those who are interested in ethnic, including indigenous peoples, and their circumstances.
-
Africa's Geography: Dynamics of Place, Cultures, and Economies
Benjamin Ofori-Amoah
Africa's Geography presents a comprehensive exploration of the world’s second largest and most culturally diverse continent. Author Benjamin Ofori-Amoah challenges common misconceptions and misrepresentations of Africa from a geographical perspective, harnessing the power of modern geographic mapping technology to explore this unique continent. This text provides thorough coverage of the historical, cultural, economic, and political forces that continue to shape Africa, applying geographic context to relevant past and contemporary issues. Coverage of economic development, climate and biogeography, transportation and communication, manufacturing and commerce, and mining and agriculture provides foundational knowledge of this vast and complex continent.
Ideally suited for multiple areas of classroom study, this text offers an effective and flexible pedagogical framework. Coverage of the entirety of Africa enables students to develop a cohesive portrait of the continent as a whole and identify the dynamism of its nations, cultures, and economies. Engaging and accessible narrative strengthens comprehension, while examples of historical and contemporary events increase student interest. Innovative and unique, Africa’s Geography is an essential resource for cross-disciplinary investigation of this fascinating part of the world.
-
Kalamazoo River
Lisa M. DeChano-Cook and Mary L. Brooks
The Kalamazoo River stretches 178 miles, from Hillsdale County to Lake Michigan. The river winds its way through southwest Michigan, providing opportunities for recreation, including kayaking and fishing. Settlements along the river have a rich history that began with Native Americans and European settlers. In the early 1900s, several dams were built along the river for hydroelectric power, leading to many mills (lumber, flour, grist, and paper) dotting its banks. This ushered in an industrial era along the river. For many years, the river and its surrounding land were the primary places for business waste disposal, which jeopardized aquatic communities. In the 1960s, people demanded better water quality, and environmental laws were passed in the 1970s. Derelict hydroelectric dams along the Kalamazoo River are now being removed to restore the river's natural flow and its aquatic life. Come along as the Kalamazoo River's past is revealed.
-
Integrating Scale in Remote Sensing and GIS
Dale A. Quattrochi, Elizabeth Wentz, Nina Siu-Ngan Lam, and Charles W. (Jay) W. Emerson
Integrating Scale in Remote Sensing and GIS serves as the most comprehensive documentation of the scientific and methodological advances that have taken place in integrating scale and remote sensing data. This work addresses the invariants of scale, the ability to change scale, measures of the impact of scale, scale as a parameter in process models, and the implementation of multiscale approaches as methods and techniques for integrating multiple kinds of remote sensing data collected at varying spatial, temporal, and radiometric scales. Researchers, instructors, and students alike will benefit from a guide that has been pragmatically divided into four thematic groups: scale issues and multiple scaling; physical scale as applied to natural resources; urban scale; and human health/social scale. Teeming with insights that elucidate the significance of scale as a foundation for geographic analysis, this book is a vital resource to those seriously involved in the field of GIScience.
-
China's Geography: Globalization and the Dynamics of Political, Economic, and Social Change
Gregory Veeck, Clifton W. Pannell, Youqin Huang, and Shuming Bao
Despite China's obvious and growing importance on the world stage, it remains often and easily misunderstood. Perhaps this is due in part to the pace of the nation’s remarkable rise and the many economic, political, and environmental problems that have accompanied its growth. Indeed, there are many Chinas, as this comprehensive survey of contemporary China vividly illustrates. Now in a thoroughly revised and updated third edition that offers the only all-embracing geography of the reform era, this book traces the changes occurring in this powerful and ancient nation across both time and space. Beginning with China's diverse landscapes and environments, and continuing through its formative history and tumultuous recent past, the authors present contemporary China as a product of both internal and external forces of past and present. They consider past and present successes and difficulties, including environmental challenges, while placing China in its international context as a massive, still-developing nation that must meet the needs of its 1.4 billion citizens while becoming a major regional and global player. Through clear prose and140 insightful maps, tables, and photos, China's Geography illustrates and explains the great differences in economy, politics, and society found throughout China's many regions. Full-color versions of all the maps, figures, and photographs in the book are available on the China's Geography website athttp://chinadatacenter.org/chinageography, along with a number of additional maps and data sets that can be used for class exercises or as the basis for student research papers and presentations. The site also offers links to the authors’ favorite YouTube videos, sources of statistical data on China, and an on-line mapping website.
-
Planning for Ethnic Tourism
Li Yang and Geoffrey Wall
There is growing concern in many places about how to balance the use of ethnicity as a tourist attraction with the protection of minority cultures and the promotion of ethnic pride. Despite the fact that a substantial literature is devoted to the impacts of ethnic tourism, little research has been done on how to plan ethnic tourism attractions or to manage community impacts of tourism. This book addresses the need for more research on planning for ethnic tourism by exploring the status and enhancement of planning strategies for ethnic tourism development.
-
21st Century Geography : a Reference Handbook
Joseph P. Stoltman
Via approximately 80 entries, the SAGE 21st Century Reference Series volumes on geography highlights the most important topics, issues, questions and debates any student obtaining a degree in this field need to have mastered for effectiveness in the 21st century. The purpose is to provide undergraduate majors with an authoritative reference source that will serve their research needs with more detailed information than encyclopedia entries but not so much jargon, detail, or density as a journal article or a research handbook chapter.
Key features:
- Curricular-driven to provide students with initial footholds on topics of interest in writing essays and dissertations, in consulting to determine directions to take in pursuing a senior thesis, graduate degree and so on
- Comprehensive to offer full coverage of major subthemes and subfields within the discipline of geography, including regional geography, physical geography, global change, human and cultural geography, economic geography and locational analysis, political geography, geospatial technology, cartography, spatial thinking, research methodology, geographical education and more.
- Uniform in chapter structure to make it easy for students to locate key information, with a more-or-less common chapter format of Introduction, Theory, Methods, Applications, Comparison, Future Directions, Summary, Bibliography and Suggestions for Further Reading, and Cross References.
- Available in print and electronic formats to provide students with convenient, easy access.
-
China's Geography: Globalization and the Dynamics of Political, Economic, and Social Change
Gregory Veeck, Christopher Smith, Clifton Pannell, and Youqin Huang
Despite China's obvious and growing importance on the world stage, it is often and easily misunderstood. Indeed, there are many Chinas, as this comprehensive survey of contemporary China vividly illustrates. Now in a thoroughly revised and updated edition that offers the only sustained geography of the reform era, this book traces the changes occurring in this powerful and ancient nation across both time and space. Beginning with China's diverse landscapes and environments, and continuing through its formative history and tumultuous recent past, the authors present contemporary China as a product of both internal and external forces of past and present. They trace current and future successes and challenges while placing China in its international context as a massive, still-developing nation that must meet the needs of its 1.3 billion citizens while becoming a major regional and global player. Through clear prose and new, dynamic maps and photos, China's Geography illustrates and explains the great differences in economy and culture found throughout China's many regions.
3rd. edition.
-
Beyond the Metropolis: Urban Geography as if Small Cities Mattered
Benjamin Ofori-Amoah
Beyond the Metropolis is an attempt to mend the lacuna that exists between large and small city studies in urban geography, especially in North America. It covers a wide range of topics organized around some of the most common themes that urban geographers have addressed in their study of large cities. In addition to a general introduction and conclusion, the book is divided into three parts. Part I focuses on the evolution and growth of small cities. It outlines in very broad terms the status of small city studies within urban studies, in general, and urban geography, in particular, to underscore the relatively little attention that has been given to small cities. Part II deals with the internal structure of small cities. Part III examines issues related to planning and managing change in small cities. The chapters examine established conventions in urban geography and related disciplines from the perspectives of small cities for the purpose of understanding small cities. Students and researchers as well as city administrators will find the book useful.
-
China's Geography: Globalization and the Dynamics of Political, Economic, and Social Change
Gregory Veeck, Clifton W. Pannell, Christopher J. Smith, and Youquin Huang
Despite China's growing importance on the world stage, it is often and easily misunderstood. Indeed, there are many Chinas, as this sustained survey of contemporary China vividly illustrates. Offering the first comprehensive geography of the reform era, the authors trace the changes occurring in this ancient nation across both time and space. Beginning with China's diverse landscapes and environments, and continuing through its formative history and tumultuous recent past, this text places China in its international context as a massive developing nation that must meet the needs of its 1.3 billion citizens while becoming a major regional and global player. Through clear prose and abundant maps and photos, the book highlights the diverse landscapes, economies, and cultures that represent China today.
-
Dying and dead seas : climatic versus anthropic causes
Philip P. Micklin, Jacques C.J. Nihoul, and Peter O. Zavialov
There are incentive indications that the growth of human population, the increasing use and abuse of natural resources combined with climate changes (probably due to anthropic pollution, to some extent) exert a considerable stress on closed (or semi-enclosed) seas and lakes. In many regions of the world, marine and lacustrine hydrosystems are (or have been) the object of severe or fatal alterations, from changes in regional hydrological regimes and/or modifications of the quantity or the quality of water resources associated with (natural or man-made) land reclamation, deterioration of geochemical balances (increased salinity, oxygen's depletion .. . ), mutations of ecosystems (eutrophication, dramatic decrease in biological diversity ... ) to geological disturbances and to the socio-economic perturbations which have been - or may be in the near future - the consequences of them. Seas and lakes are dying all over the world and some may be regarded as already dead and there is an urgent need to try to understand how this is happening and identify the causes of the observed mutations, weighing the relative effects of climatic evolution and anthropic interferences. This book is the outcome of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, held in Liege in May 2003. The Workshop was organized at th the University of Liege as a follow on meeting to the 35 International Liege Colloquium on Ocean Dynamics, dedicated in 2003 to Dying and Dead Seas. The book contains the synthesis of the lectures given by 16 main speakers during the ARW.
-
International perspectives on natural disasters : occurrence, mitigation, and consequences.
Joseph P. Stoltman
Reports of natural disasters fill the media with regularity. Places in the world are affected by natural disaster events every day. Such events include earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, wildfires - the list could go on for considerable length. In the 1990s there was a concentrated focus on natural disaster information and mitigation during the International Decade for Natural Disasters Reduction (IDNDR). The information was technical and provided the basis for major initiatives in building structures designed for seismic safety, slope stability, severe storm warning systems, and global monitoring and reporting. Mitigation, or planning in the event that natural hazards prevalent in a region would suddenly become natural disasters, was a major goal of the decade-long program. During the IDNDR, this book was conceptualized, and planning for its completion began. The editors saw the need for a book that would reach a broad range of readers who were not actively or directly engaged in natural disasters relief or mitigation planning, but who were in decision-making positions that provided an open window for addressing natural disaster issues. Those people were largely elected public officials, teachers, non-governmental organization staff, and staff of faith-based organizations. Those people, for the most part, come to know very well the human and physical characteristics of the place in which they are based. With that local outreach in mind, the editors intended the book to encourage readers to: 1.