Paul Robbins (1)

Audio from The Great Courses. This course looks at the interconnectedness of everything. Professor Robbins looks at geography from physical, human, environmental, cultural, epidemiological, economic, and political perspectives. It was very interesting, and I learned some things about bias in mapmaking, the shipping industry, human migration, and the politics of various war torn regions of the world. The second lecture was dedicated to refuting Jared Diamond's theory of geographic show more determinism. It would have been nice to be able to look at some maps while he lectured, but the few that were included in the supplemental material weren't accessible to me while I was listening—one of the disadvantages of audio. The delivery wasn't the best I've heard, but not the worst, either. show less

Usually I wouldn't review course literature, but hey, I read it cover to cover (metaphorically: I read it online), so it counts.

While Political Ecology is an interesting subject, I'm not sure this book captured my interest as much as it should have. The author had an annoying tendency to present an interesting case, and then go nowhere with it. No conclusion or anything, just simply "this is a thing that happened". V annoying.

Excellent except for accepting that the Peace of Westphalia established the modern state.