Global Change and Challenge

We are now confronted with the challenge of change. This challenge is the result of a revolution of our world economy and society and the growing impact of human activity on the environment. Global Change and Challenge examines some of the crucial challenges facing society in the 1990s and how geography can contribute to their understanding and management. Using the theme of how societies adapt to change, the contributors - at the time of writing all members of the Geography department of the London School of Economics - deal with some of the issues confronting modern geography in three broad groups. The early chapters examine the impact of human activity on the environment in a global context - looking in particular at the management of resources and of the natural environment. The book then examines from a variety of perspectives how global economic change offers both new levels - local, regional and global. The shifting patterns of social and economic change are examined with respect to the industrialized, newly industrialized, and Third World countries at both national and regional levels. The final chapter assesses how new technology can influence the geographer's perspective and aid in the search for management solutions. By employing the general theme of adaptation to change, the contributors seek to present a range of views on the geography of change' in a single and accessible form for school and university students. The aim is as much to encourage students to understand where we are and where we have come from, as where we may be going. Robert Bennett is Professor of Geography at the LSE, having previously held positions at Cambridge University and UCL. He is the author of many books, of which the most relevant to this volume are The Geography of Public Finance (Methuen, 1980) and Decentralization, Local Governments and Markets (Editor, Clarendon Press 1990). Robert Estall is Emeritus Professor of Geography at the LSE, form where he graduated in 1955. He has had three extended stays in the United States at Visiting Professor or Research Fellow, but his academic career has centred on the LSE. His major publications include Industrial Activity and Economic Geography (Hutchinson, 1980), New England: A Study in Industrial Adjustment (Bell, 1966) and A Modern Geography of the United States (Pelican, 1976).