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The article presents abstracts of geographical research papers. In the research paper "A Geographical Study of Nova Scotia," researcher R.H. Whitebeek discusses the geographic conditions of Nova Scotia. Lying nearer Europe and possessing many excellent harbors and peopled by immigrants from the best European stocks, the province of Nova Scotia in Canada has now, after 300 years, fewer people than the city of Boston, Massachusetts. Its total manufacturing output is less than that of single companies in New England, and the province has shared but slightly in Canada's economic growth.

The article presents the views of geographer R. Cole Harris in response to the criticism of his paper "The Simplification of Europe Overseas," published in the December 1977 issue of the journal "Annals of the Association of American Geographers." He says that his critics may find his analysis premature, and may think that he has ignored some power relationships, particularly those affecting labor. But, his paper is a foray, not nearly a final word. Also, he is convinced that his foray is supported by the current literature and that it is timely.

The geographer's contribution to the study of religious phenomena is of special importance under circumstances in which scholars representing various disciplines tend to make generalizations based on a few, possibly nonrepresentative examples. The understanding of contemporary Western European pilgrimage is currently clouded by lack of generally available data on continental shrines and a tendency toward overreliance on Irish cases without adequate consideration of the highly atypical nature of the Irish pilgrimage tradition. This paper, grounded in data on 5,130 currently active Roman Catholic shrines in Western Europe, provides a cultural-historical explanation for the uniqueness of Irish pilgrimage and analyzes the major structural differences between Irish pilgrimage traditions and those found elsewhere in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the views of geographer Robert D. Mitchell in response to the paper "The Simplification of Europe Overseas," published in the December 1977 issue of the journal "Annals of the Association of American Geographers." He argues that the presence or absence of labor exploitive institutions, especially slavery and indentured servitude, produced fundamentally different colonial societies and patterns of social relations. Power and authority within the family were often based on legal control over land and indirectly over labor.

The article presents the views of geographer Adrian Pollock in response to the paper "The Simplification of Europe Overseas," published in the December 1977 issue of the journal "Annals of the Association of American Geographers." He appreciates that the article author presented an insightful account of the effects of new land on the immigrant societies of French Canada, Dutch South Africa, and English New England. However, he thinks that for New England the analysis is premature. This is so because, as yet, there is lack of proper knowledge of the early colonists' background and experience adequate enough to enable one to judge whether colonial conditions or inherent attitudes, practices, and institutions were the most important in determining the nature of colonial society.

Copyright of Annals of the Association of American Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of the Association of American Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of the Association of American Geographers is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A critical genealogy of the emerging subfield of postcolonial geography illustrates how human geography has become historically shortsighted. Postcolonial geography interrogates the significance of imperialism and colonialism for disciplinary and material geographies, though its reference points, like those of most other geographical subfields, have been almost exclusively modern (c.1500–present). The marginalization of premodern imperialism rests upon the argument, or more often the assumption, that the imperialisms of the modern period have been fundamentally different from those of the premodern. We criticize this position by focusing on colonialism—as a specific aspect of imperialism—with reference to social, cultural, and political geographical theory and to wide-ranging empirical material. Regarding the social relations and the politics and scales of colonialism in the premodern and modern periods, there are no a priori grounds for distinguishing between modern and premodern forms of imperialism. We advocate a more historically and geographically inclusive postcolonial geography that will best equip geographers and others to understand and, potentially, to intervene against contemporary forms of imperialism, including those that have survived from the past and also those that have emerged in the context of present-day forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ballymun in Dublin, one of the most famous of Europe's grandiose housing estates, has had an especially dramatic history since it was first built in 1965. At the heart of the unfolding drama has been a series of conflicts between the spatial imaginations of the state officials and planners who designed, built, and managed the initial estate and who are currently undertaking its wholesale regeneration, and the place-making activities of the local residents who have inhabited, endured, and occasionally sought to reclaim this space. Concerned to prise open some fresh ways of thinking about the hyperextension of“abstract space” into everyday life, this article presents a reconstruction of the history of space and place in Ballymun. In their exploration of the onslaught of abstract space, critical human geographers have drawn upon a wide range of social theorists including Benjamin, De Certeau, Debord, Deluze, Foucault, Giddens, Habermas, Heidegger, Jameson, Weber, and, of course, Henri Lefebvre. Strangely absent from this list, however, has been the work of Jean-Paul Sartre. And yet, contained within Sartre'sCritique de la raison dialectique(Critique of Dialectical Reason) resides a tremendously powerful account of the ever-growing occupation, dispossession, and reterritorialization of everyday life by the abstract grids and geometries imprinted on the Earth's surface by capitalism and the capitalist state. It will be the central task of this article to read the history of Ballymun through the lens of Sartre'sCritique of Dialectical Reason, and, in so doing, to rework theCritiqueso that it speaks to the concerns of contemporary critical human geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on millennial celebrations in the European cities of Rome, Italy and London, England. Universalization of complex meanings, memories and desires through concrete interventions such as buildings, spectacles and performances; Symbolic mapping of the millennium based on networks and not on territories.

Some methods and form elements of log architecture may have diffused from Alpine and Alemannic distincts in southern Central Europe to colonial Midland America. Fundamental differences were found between these Old and New World regions in 1) log carpentry techniques, 2) house types, and 3) roof structure. By contrast, potential Alpine prototypes were found for the Pennsylvania barn, including such form elements as forebay, bank, and double-crib plan, and for various American subtypes of the double-crib log barn. These findings contradict the generally accepted belief that the Pennsylvania barn and certain double-crib subtypes evolved in America. Further evidence suggests that southeastern Pennsylvania's importance as a colonial culture hearth area of log architecture may have been overstated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of northwestern European societies overseas had more to do with the nature of access to land in colonial settings than with the particular backgrounds of emigrating Europeans. The crucial European inheritance -a strong sense of the nuclear family supported by a desire for the private control of land-was common to most northwestern Europeans. When these assumptions were introduced to areas where land was cheap and markets were poor, as in early Canada, South Africa, and New England, remarkably homogeneous and egalitarian rural societies of subsistent farmers emerged quickly. Regional differences in the settlers' collective background were lost in a process of simplification and generalization. Similar farms and farmhouses spread across the landscape, the reflection but also substantially the cause of the simple societies that inhabited them. When access to land was restricted, society quickly restratified. Even in the nineteenth century most newly settled rural areas went through this cycle in some form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relocation of the medieval East Slav state center from the middle Dnieper to the Volga-Oka region was a lateral shift within the potentially most useful agricultural land, rather than a retreat from fertile steppes into the forest. The physical geography of the Volga-Oka interfluve region around Moscow is less inviting, but similar in many respects to the middle Dnieper region around Kiev, and medieval agriculture was highly developed in both regions. The Volga-Don region developed later, but was not merely a land of hunters and herders when political power was transferred. The early Slavic settlers probably had learned about the environment from their Finnic neighbors, and a solid agricultural economy was based upon the use of light plows, for which the light soils were no great disadvantage. The economic strength of the Volga-Oka region was second only to that of Kiev, and it immediately assumed power when the latter fell. The various reasons for the particular success of the little Moscow principality within the region are reinforced by a better understanding of regional trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review describes the institutional organization of geographical studies of population and settlements in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia, and lists the major research centers, the most active scholars, and the more important periodicals and serial publications. In the second part, discussion of theoretical research results is followed by description of studies dealing with statistical sources, cartography, population monographs, distribution and density of population, structure and changes of population, commuting, settlement network, and urban and rural settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The settlement of Natal in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by colonists from other parts of South Africa and from Europe resulted in a conflict of ideas. The country was seen as excellent pastoral land by the Cape Trekkers, who entered from the interior of South Africa, and as good arable land by the British, who entered by sea from Europe. The difference in assessment persisted throughout the colonial period, despite several unsuccessful attempts at agricultural settlement but growing awareness of the limitations of the environment enabled a partial compromise between the two schools of thought late in the period. The unsatisfactory land laws had a profound effect upon development in the nineteenth century, arid some aspects are sill! visible in the landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of regional interconnections in the development of resources since the war in three parts of the world: Europe, the Soviet Union and North America. It notes the advantages of regional interconnections and the factors which have encouraged their development in the post war period. It examines proposals for future development and discusses some of the difficulties which will have to be overcome before these proposals can become a reality. The article concludes with some remarks about the implications of the developments of regional inerties.

The purpose of this article is to examine the physical nature of and the geographical role performed by the core-area in the formation of a particular group of states namely those of Europe. The geographical pattern of the states of Europe had, in general taken shape before the age of modern nationalism, and it is difficult to discover among the forces which brought the states into being during the middle ages. The authors define what they mean by core-area. A core area must have considerable advantages in order to perform its role. It must have within itself the elements of viability. The article talks about how various European countries expanded their boundaries.

Reports on the complex problem of European postwar migrations. Changes in the population structure; Political and economic influence to the physical transition of an individual or group from one society to another; Differences between the demand and supply of international manpower.

Focuses on the role of nuclear power in the future energy balance in Europe. Impact of the increased standard of living on the increase of energy demands; Contribution of the increasing use of coal, hydro power and petroleum to the economic growth and political power of western Europe; Importance of international cooperation in the use of all natueral resources and exchange of electric power to satisfy energy requirements in the future.

The article presents reviews and abstracts of boundary problems in Europe. The study focuses briefly on the present status of disputed areas in Europe, listing the most important disputes and including a briefly annotated bibliography. It has been realized there are many other disputed areas in Europe but for reasons of space or absence of unbiased studies they have been left out. Since April 1949, when the border changes were brought into effect, voices of dissatisfaction have been heard from both sides of the Dutch-German border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New Zealand is young in length of European settlement. Although the sites of one or two towns are more than 100 years old, all urban development has taken place in less than a century. Because of the apparent uniformity among New Zealand towns an analysis of the functions which they perform becomes of particular importance as a means of differentiating dearly among them. As a result this aspect of urban geography probably takes on an even greater significance in New Zealand than in most other countries. It is therefore of interest to distinguish the kinds of New Zealand towns on the basis of their functions and to classify the urban areas of this small country.

Presents a study of the growth of political geographic thought in Germany. Analysis of the German intellectual history; Nazi defeat; Trends of political geographic thought emanating from other nations in Middle Europe.