Fundamentals of the Human Mosaic and Jordan’s Five Classic Themes of Cultural Geography

W. H. Freeman & Company, the publisher of the text since its eighth edition, is proud to offer this alternative version of this classic text. Jordan’s Fundamentals of The Human Mosaic is a concise introduction to the study of cultural geography for those instructors who wish to adopt a streamlined text. At just 11 chapters and 366 pages, Jordan’s Fundamentals of The Human Mosaic is approximately 25% shorter than the full-length text.

This version of the text uses the “classic” Jordan-Bychkov thematic framework, with its emphasis on cultural (rather than human) geography. These five themes are:

The five themes are introduced and explained in the first chapter and serve as the framework for the 10 topical chapters that follow. Each theme is applied to a variety of geographical topics: demography, language, race and ethnicity, politics, religion, agriculture, industry, and the city. A small icon accompanies each theme as a visual reminder to students when these themes recur throughout the book.

These five themes of cultural geography allow several key topics to be addressed throughout the textbook, rather than isolated in just one chapter. For example, the important trend of globalization is treated under the cultural diffusion theme. The many aspects of migration are explored within the cultural diffusion theme as well.

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Instructors have long told us that the five themes are a highly successful framework for instruction. The culture region theme appeals to students’ natural curiosity about the differences among places. The dynamic aspect of culture—particularly relevant in this age of globalization and rapid change—is conveyed through the theme of cultural diffusion. Students acquire an appreciation for how cultural traits spread (or do not spread) from place to place. Cultural ecology, also highly relevant to our age, addresses the complicated relationship between culture and physical environments. Cultural interaction permits students to view culture as an interrelated whole, in which one facet acts on and is acted on by other facets. Many of the classic models developed by geographers are covered in the cultural interaction theme. Last, the theme of cultural landscape heightens students’ awareness of the visible character of places and regions.