Maps of meaning

'This is a revealing and intellectually challenging way head for a branch of human geography that has fallen behind other branches in recent decades. The book and the series that it launches deserve more than the usual attention given to new texts for undergraduates. Many of their teachers should find the series interesting, stimulating and even provocative.' - Geography As a geographical introduction to cultural studies, this innovative book marks a significant departure from traditional approaches to cultural geography. Instead of emphasising the evolution of cultural landscapes and the interpretation of past environments, it draws on the literature of contemporary social and cultural theory, focusing on urban as well as rural environments, and on popular culture as well as on vernacular architecture, folk styles and the culture of the elite. `Maps of Meaning' refers to the way we make sense of the world, rendering our geographical experience intelligible, attaching value to the environment and investing the material world with symbolic significance. The book introduces notions of space and place, exploring culture's geographies as well as the geography of culture. It outlines the field of cultural politics, employing concepts of ideology, hegemony and resistance to show how dominant ideologies are contested through unequal relations of power. Culture emerges as a domain in which economic and political contradictions are negotiated and resolved. After a critical review of the work of Carl Sauer and the `Berkeley School' of cultural geography, the book considers the work of such cultural theorists as Raymond Williams, Clifford Geertz and Stuart Hall. It develops a materialist approach to the geographical study of culture, exemplified by studies of class and popular culture, gender and sexuality, race and racism, language and ideology. The book concludes by proposing a new agenda for cultural geography, including a discussion of current debates about post-modernism.