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Earth Shapers: How We Mapped and Mastered the World, from the Panama Canal to the Baltic Way de Maxim Samson

Earth Shapers: How We Mapped and Mastered the World, from the Panama Canal to the Baltic Way

Autor Maxim Samson
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 8 oct 2025

Subliniem în Earth Shapers o perspectivă inedită asupra geografiei culturale, în care peisajul nu este un dat imuabil, ci un produs al voinței umane. Analiza începe cu capitolul dedicat „Ordinii” și drumului incaș Qhapaq Ñan, stabilind premisa că omenirea și-a scris istoria direct pe suprafața planetei. Maxim Samson demonstrează cum elemente geografice pe care le considerăm naturale, de la crestele muntoase din Chicago până la cursurile râurilor, au fost în realitate modelate sau cooptate pentru a servi nevoilor sociale, politice și economice.

Structura cărții este riguros organizată pe opt piloni tematici care ghidează cititorul prin progresia ambițiilor umane: de la „Extracția” resurselor prin căile ferate coloniale din Mozambic, până la „Restaurarea” ecologică vizată de Marele Zid Verde din Africa. Găsim în acest volum o documentare detaliată a modului în care conexiunile pe care le creăm — fie că este vorba de Canalul Panama sau de rezistența simbolică a Lanțului Baltic — alterează iremediabil cursul istoriei. Această abordare completează temele explorate de autor în Invisible Lines, unde analiza se concentra pe granițele invizibile; aici, Samson trece la formele concrete, fizice, prin care „fasonăm” Pământul.

Ca alternativă la All Mapped Out de Mike Duggan pentru cursurile de geografie umană, Earth Shapers aduce avantajul unei perspective globale mai vaste, care nu se rezumă la cartografie, ci la intervenția fizică asupra reliefului. În timp ce Origins de Lewis Dartnell examinează modul în care geologia a influențat evoluția umană, lucrarea lui Samson inversează lentila, arătând cum oamenii au devenit, la rândul lor, o forță geologică. Stilul este precis, academic dar accesibil, oferind o sinteză între ecologie, sociologie și politică.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780226844749
ISBN-10: 0226844749
Pagini: 352
Ilustrații: 9 halftones
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 30 mm
Greutate: 0.63 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press

De ce să citești această carte

Recomandăm Earth Shapers studenților la geografie, sociologie și istorie, dar și cititorilor pasionați de modul în care infrastructura modelează civilizația. Veți câștiga o înțelegere profundă a modului în care marile proiecte inginerești și politice au transformat mediul natural în peisaj cultural. Este o lectură esențială pentru a înțelege că geografia contemporană este, în mare măsură, o construcție umană deliberată.

Despre autor

Maxim Samson este un geograf cultural preocupat de modul în care spațiul și granițele influențează identitatea și comportamentul uman. Succesul lucrării sale anterioare, Invisible Lines, l-a consacrat ca o voce importantă în literatura de specialitate, fiind lăudat pentru capacitatea de a combina rigoarea academică cu o imaginație bogată. În prezent, colaborările sale cu University of Chicago Press subliniază interesul său pentru o geografie critică, ce pune sub semnul întrebării barierele tradiționale dintre natură și cultură.

Descriere scurtă

The globetrotting story of how humans have harnessed the geographical landscape and written ourselves onto our surroundings.

Mountains, meridians, rivers, and borders—these are some of the features that divide the world on our maps and in our minds. But geography is far less set in stone than we might believe, and, as Maxim Samson’s Earth Shapers contends, in our relatively short time on this planet, humans have become experts at fundamentally reshaping our surroundings.

From the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca’s “great road,” and Mozambique’s colonial railways to a Saudi Arabian smart city, and from Korea’s sacred Baekdu-daegan mountain range and the Great Green Wall in Africa to the streets of Chicago, Samson explores how we mold the world around us. And how, as we etch our needs onto the natural landscape, we alter the course of history. These fascinating stories of connectivity show that in our desire to make geographical connections, humans have broken through boundaries of all kinds, conquered treacherous terrain, and carved up landscapes. We crave linkages, and though we do not always pay attention to the in-between, these pathways—these ways of “earth shaping,” in Samson’s words—are key to understanding our relationship with the planet we call home.

An immense work of cultural geography touching on ecology, sociology, history, and politics, Earth Shapers argues that, far from being constrained by geography, we are instead its creators.

Notă biografică

Maxim Samson is a geographer and the author of Invisible Lines: Boundaries and Belts That Define the World. An award-winning educator and researcher, he has taught and presented keynote lectures at universities in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Indonesia. In addition to working as an adjunct professor at DePaul University in Chicago, he is the immediate past chair of the American Association of Geographers’ Religions and Belief Systems research specialty group and serves as associate editor of the Journal of Jewish Education. In his free time, he enjoys long-distance running and exploring the culture and language of his favorite country, Indonesia.

Cuprins

Introduction
1. Order: The Qhapaq Ñan
2. Extraction: Mozambique’s railways
3. Convenience: The Panama Canal
4. Reimagination: THE LINE
5. Resistance: The Baltic Way
6. Restoration: The Great Green Wall
7. Co-option: Chicago’s ridges and waterways
8. Vitality: The Baekdu-daegan
Epilogue

Notes
Acknowledgements
Index

Recenzii

"To Samson, a geographer, desire paths are small acts of disobedience, 'a sign of defiance against inflexible design.' More crucially, they are tiny examples of our natural drive to shape and reshape the earth and link the places that matter to us. 'Human history has been written in geographical connection,' Samson writes. In Earth Shapers, he examines how and why we form such linkages. Although the subject sounds abstract, the examples are comfortably concrete, from ancient trade routes to nineteenth-century canals and railroads to modern highway systems. . . . [A] thought-provoking exploration."

"Researcher and self-described 'geography nerd,' Samson, takes a fresh look at humanity’s imprint on the planet in Earth Shapers. . . . He has written something of a riposte to the idea that geography is destiny by charting the myriad ways in which humans have reshaped their surroundings to become more interconnected."

"Samson’s book . . . examines the way humans have shaped the earth through connections over millenniums and focuses on Chicago and seven other examples. In some but not all cases, this earth-shaping has been physical inasmuch as it involved an actual shaping of the earth. But, in all of the eight, it’s had to do with a way of seeing and using the land—and for a particular purpose."

"It is in part the unexpected diversity of Samson’s wide-ranging examples—the connections between the connections, if that isn’t too meta—that makes Earth Shapers such an engaging read. This is the kind of book that fits in well with other books that gather geographical trivia and oddities, or islands (i.e., the sorts of books that Alastair Bonnett writes), though this one is decidedly more focused and substantive."

"Geography is far less set in stone than we might believe and, over time, we have become experts at reshaping our surroundings. From the Qhapaq Ñan, South America’s ‘Great Road,’ and the Panama Canal to Mozambique’s railways and Korea’s sacred Baekdu-daegan mountain range, Samson explores how we mould the world around us. And how, as we etch our needs onto the natural landscape, we alter the course of history."

"A captivating and compelling account of how civilizations have made use of natural landscapes for their long-term benefit. From the astounding Incan road system to the building of Chicago and the Panama Canal, humans have a long history of shaping the Earth to build connections between ourselves. Samson demonstrates how we are not always prisoners of geography, but increasingly its masters."

“Earth Shapers tells stories that have been ignored because they do not fit the old narrative; [this is] a book that reshapes our story of global human geography.”

"Humans are inveterate environmental meddlers. No guide to their excesses is more eloquent, more learned, more surprising, more amusing, or more convincing than Samson. His lively language and minatory message are as entertaining as they are unsettling."

“This bold and rich collection ranges widely across five continents and an array of fascinating case studies, casting light on various meanings of geographical connectivity. Reading this book it’s impossible not to learn something new.”

“Modern geography is the geography of our personal, political, and sociological souls. We urgently need to know what we are. Samson holds up a mirror, showing us ourselves reflected in what we’ve done. Fascinating, original, and prescient.”

"Accessible and erudite, Earth Shapers makes for a refreshing perspective on the relationship between human and physical geography. Ranging confidently from Chicago to Mozambique to Korea just as it travels across the history of technology, cities, nationalism, colonialism, and liberation . . . it is an original look at the geography of connection in an age where so much attention is given to the geography of division, to walls, and borders."

"Well researched and wide-ranging, this book joins the dots, showing the power of connections between places."

“An illuminating glimpse of the chain reactions of human and physical geography.”

“A chance to see the world anew through the eyes of a wonderfully curious new writer.”

“A triumph, a volume of great good sense and imagination which brims with fascinations. . . . Endlessly interesting.”

“A fascinating, detailed exploration of the hidden boundaries that carve up the world. . . . It is a pleasure to accompany Samson to the Malaria Belt, inside eruvim (markers of a single domestic space within which fewer Sabbath regulations apply), or along the border of Portugal to discover why vultures prefer not to cross it.”

“A fascinating exploration of the lesser-known and more subtle borders across the earth and the surprising ways in which they shape our lives.”

“Samson’s clear and concise writing, his engaging style and the wide range of topics he covers make Invisible Lines an absorbing study of the boundaries we set to divide and demarcate the physical and cultural worlds and how this affects us in our day-to-day lives.”

“A compelling exploration.”

“Intricately detailed explanation of how each invisible line came to be, as well as what it can tell us about the world and our place within it. . . . A fascinating read.”

“Fascinating. . . . A truly original adventure into new ways of exploring a sense of place.”

“Old worlds enhanced, new worlds exposed and challenged. . . . A wise and thought-provoking series of raids across borders we thought we knew and others made visible to us, by Samson’s forensic eye.”