Geography, Resources and Environment. Vol. 1. Selected Writings of Gilbert F. White byRobert W. Kates; Ian Burton; Geography, Resources and Environment. Vol. 2. Themes fromthe Work of Gilbert F. White by Robert W. Kates; Ian Burton; Gilbert F. WhiteReview by: Edmund Penning-RowsellTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1987), pp.252-254Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/622538 .

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252 Book Reviews

magazine after the election of Salvador Allende that a Marxist had taken over on America's doorstep in Chile.

The most interesting chapter is the final one on War and Peace in which the evolution of the military strategy of the Super Powers is outlined with particu- lar reference to the doctrines of pre-emptive and retaliatory nuclear attacks. Here, as in earlier chapters, there is a sensible appraisal of the significance of the size, location, and quality of conventional forces, especially in Eastern Europe where the Soviet forces serve to support Communist governments as well as to confront NATO. The tenor of this chapter is that the Soviet Union does not have the aggressive

ambitions of the Evil Empire with which it is credited in President Reagan's demonology. Instead, it is argued that the pattern of deployment can be more satisfactorily explained in defensive terms. The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is seen as sympto- matic of an empire in retreat, rather than a step towards control of the Gulf oil fields in the centre of what President Carter's advisers had portrayed as an 'arc of crisis' in the rimland of Eurasia.

In summary, the book contains an interesting selec- tion of examples of current geopolitical imagery and will be suitable for undergraduate courses in Political Geography, but it leaves room for a more rigorous and substantive treatment of the field.

A. J. Budd, Department of Geography, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH

Geography, Resources and Environment. Vol. 1. Selected Writings of Gilbert F. White. Robert W. Kates and Ian Burton, eds

Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986, 471 pp., ?55.25 hardback (ISBN 0-226-425 74-6); ?21.25 paperback (ISBN 0-226-425 75-4)

Geography, Resources and Environment. Vol. 2. Themes from the Work of Gilbert F. White. Robert W. Kates and Ian Burton, eds

Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986, 3 76 pp., ?38.25 hardback (ISBN 0-226-425 76-2); ?15.95 paperback (ISBN 0-226-425 77-0)

To have collected together in these volumes an unchanging research paradigm covering half a century cannot but reinforce our belief in the value of continuity of research effort in terms of the volume of output and the impact of the results. Too often geographers, as researchers, are unwilling to build on the previous work of others, preferring instead to re- invent the wheel in the search of some individual glory rather than seek the advancement of the disci- pline as a whole. Too much research is undirected individual scholarship rather than a concerted team effort.

The objective of these two volumes is two-fold. The first volume presents, with the author's anno- tations, the best of Gilbert White's research writings between 1935 and 1980, to give access to modem scholars to the work of one of the giants of our disci- pline. Each chapter is complemented by the editors' assessment of the historical context of the paper

concerned, and an afterthought as to the impact of that writing upon later policy. To read the papers produced more than half a century ago and to appreciate their current modernity is a humbling experience. It should be a compulsory diet for those who believe either that modem geography is unique in its contribution to policy analysis or that the writings of the past have no relevance to the modem world.

What is both interesting and significant in this span of White's writing is the shift in thinking from a single natural hazard-flooding in the USA-towards a view about natural hazards management generally and a care for the global environment. Recently, in line with his Quaker pacifism, most of White's ener- gies have been devoted to seeking some progress in nuclear disarmament. This last phase is not covered in this book but what is pre-eminently important in both these writings and his later work is the breadth of

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Book Reviews 253

calm concern White shows for both the environment in which we live and the influence that individuals working together can have on the direction of the world. Let us hope that White may have as much influence on the nuclear hazards that we face as he undoubtedly has had on the flood mitigation policy in the USA.

In Volume II we have, secondly, an assessment of the state of the art of most of the research fields to which White has contributed in his years as public servant, academic and philosopher of the environ- mental movement. These chapters, by other eminent authors, take the reader on past the era of White's own writings, although each of the thirteen contri- butions is set firmly within the tradition of this human-land environmental study developed by White since 1935. The papers chronicle both the effect of White on current policy and on the develop- ment of the research traditions that he has pioneered and led. These chapters therefore cover the topics of water supply and drought management, flood hazard adjustment, decision-making in hazardous environ- ments, integrated river basin management, energy policy, and global environmental prospects. This second volume concludes with the editors' assessment of the future of the global environment, stressing as have others, perhaps gloomily, the limits to growth and the need to plan the future of the world's environ- ment. The necessity to face such problems arises, in their view of White's thinking, not from a materialist sense of what could be achieved for the greater good of some, but from a concern for the basic material needs of 'every-human'.

It is instructive to examine both the methodology and the methods that White used in his research and encouraged his disciples to develop. This is best demonstrated in his work on natural hazards, because that was the area of his writing and has lasted longer within the totality of his contribution to our literature and academic heritage. We have throughout White's research and writings a behavioural thrust that perhaps derives from a firm Quaker belief that 'there is that of God in every man'. There is an emphasis on the individual's perception of environmental hazards, leading to optimal responses if information is available and decisions can be made free from the constraints of ignorance and vested interests. There is, therefore, also an emphatic distrust of single-discipline approaches to hazard and en- vironmental analysis and management, such that most of White's disciples were not geographers but came from other social sciences and from the

engineering professions. The adherence to multi- disciplinary research and writings adopted by White both in Chicago and in Boulder is thus never mere tokenism.

White's approach is implicity deductive. There is no crude empiricist data gathering with subsequent theory building from synthesis only of field observations. White's own empirical work is sparse but that which he influenced-from Kates, Burton, Shaefer, Roder and a host of others-is firmly located within the 'human-land' mold of theorizing human adjustment as being constrained by lack of infor- mation and lack of adequate perception of policy choices. The editors of these volumes aptly describe the approach as 'empirical stewardship', thus neatly emphasizing that the contribution White makes is not mere abstract theorizing but also has a clear policy view as to what should be done.

Two fundamental critiques have emerged of the school of thought pioneered and succoured by White. First, there are those who doubt the wisdom of examining extreme geophysical events as a starting point for the analysis of the relations between society and our environment. Concentrating on extreme events detracts from comprehending the human ecology of everyday existence, which is the central task of the 'human-land' tradition in geography. The counter argument is that only by analyzing social behaviour in extreme conditions can we increase our awareness of the full range of human responses, rather than the narrow range employed in our more normal existences.

The second critique is more fundamental. This holds that White's behavioural approach, emphasiz- ing the choice and decision models and the focus on individual perception and choice, implies that humans are the masters of their fate and ignores the profound structural constraints on behaviour and response. The social and economical forces affecting individuals and societies are so strong, this view holds, that to rely on changing perceptions and widening the range of policy choice on offer ignores the reality of decisions constrained by large-scale economic forces. White's approach is seen as essentially founded within the liberal tradition, but ignores the national and inter- national macro-economic forces which transcend mere individuals and their choices.

Researchers will continue to argue the merits of these different positions, representing as they do the attack on the foci of White's approach to geographical analysis. However, whatever the judgement of history arising from these critiques of White's contri-

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254 Book Reviews

bution to research and policy, nothing can detract from his fervent concern for a wiser use of natural resources and the importance of the individual's own role within the process of policy changes. Nothing can also detract from the influence White has had on a generation of researchers, some of whom are represented in the writings in the second volume.

Together these two volumes consolidate that record of achievement, add thirteen new papers from inter- nationally-renowned scholars, and show other disci- plines the major contribution that geography and geographers can provide to making the world a safer and more egalitarian place in which to live. They are not to be missed.

Edmund Penning-Rowsell, School of Geography and Planning, Middlesex Polytechnic, Enfield, Middlesex EN3 4SF

Technological Change, Industrial Restructuring and Regional Development. Ash Amin and J. Goddard, eds

London: Allen and Unwin, 1986, 291 pp., ?25.00 hardback (ISBN 0-04-338131-6)

It is now widely acknowledged that throughout advanced capitalist nations the historical patterns of regional industrial development are undergoing a major transformation. Although the specifics of this transformation vary from one country to another, the dominant trends are similar. Large-scale switches of capital and employment (out of established and traditional industrial sectors, labour processes and product lines, and into new branches and forms of production, leading to consequential shifts in occu- pational, skill and social structures) are reconstituting both the spatial configuration and the nature of the 'regional problem'. These changes have prompted not only a rash of graphically descriptive neologisms- 'sunrise versus sunset' industry, 'sunbelt versus rustbelt' regions, and 'silicon versus smokestack' landscapes are among the more symbolic-but also a refocusing of regional analysis and policy doctrine on the role of industrial re-organization and technological innovation in shaping the spatial structure of uneven development. It is with this theme that the present inter-disciplinary collection of essays is concerned.

Originating in an ESRC-funded workshop on the impact of technical change in the context of industrial and economic restructuring and regional growth in the United Kingdom, the stated aim of the book is to 'further our understanding of how new technologies can and do influence regional development'. A sub- sidiary purpose is to add a note of caution to the chorus of optimistic policy expectations concerning the contribution of new technology and of small firms

to the regeneration of depressed regions. It has to be said at the outset, however, that there is some ambiguity in the book as to what is actually meant by the phrase 'industrial restructuring' that occurs in the title and at various points in the text. Of all the new terms that have gate-crashed the geographical litera- ture over the past few years, that of 'restructuring' is possibly the most confusing: it has acquired so many different meanings and connotations that it has almost been reduced to a weasel-word. Some editorial clarifi- cation of 'industrial restructuring' as an empirical, theoretical and policy concept would therefore have been useful, particularly since the book's objective is to examine the role and importance of technical change within the contemporary restructuring pro- cess. Instead the reader is presented with three largely unconnected groups of essays dealing, respectively, with the internationalization of production (Chapters 2-4), the national and regional dimensions of technological change (Chapters 5-9), and the sociology and economics of small firms (Chapters 10-12).

For those on the political left, the increasing over- seas relocation (internationalization) of production by major British multinationals is viewed as a basic cause of the country's de-industrialization. In Chapter 2, Cowling argues that this is indeed the case: that during the recent recession UK multinationals have rationalized plant at home while transferring capacity abroad in the search for cheaper and more pliable labour. But as Amin and Smith show in Chapter 3, this

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