PREFACE

Geography is a diverse academic discipline. It concerns place and region and employs methodologies from the social sciences, humanities, and earth sciences. Geographers deal with a wide range of subjects, from spatial patterns of human occupancy to the interaction between people and their environments. In doing so, they strive for a holistic view of Earth as the home of humankind.

Because the world is in constant flux, geography is an ever-changing discipline. Geographers necessarily consider a wide range of topics and view them from several perspectives. They continually seek new ways of looking at the inhabited Earth. Every revision of an introductory text such as Jordan’s Fundamentals of The Human Mosaic requires a careful balancing of classic research and attention to recent innovations in the dynamic field that is cultural geography.