241Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2009, 50, No. 3, pp. 241–251. DOI: 10.2747/1539-7216.50.3.241Copyright © 2009 by Bellwether Publishing, Ltd. All rights reserved.New Horizons for Regional GeographyAlexander B. Murphy and John O’Loughlin1Abstract: Two prominent U.S. geographers outline the framework and mandate of an emerg-ing new regional geography as a tool for understanding rapid and profound changes in thecontemporary world. In so doing, they differentiate this new approach to the geographic studyof regions from both (a) the traditional practice of regional geography prevailing in the disci-pline from the mid-19th century and (b) accounts of geography’s role in contemporary affairsoffered by non-specialists in the mass media (e.g., Kaplan’s “revenge of geography”). Theauthors provide recommendations for, and note the benefits of, a strengthening of regionalresearch and training in geography, while mapping out an expanded role for Eurasian Geog-raphy and Economics in disseminating new regional research whose scope extends beyonddisciplinary boundaries to embrace current public and political debate. Journal of EconomicLiterature, Classification Numbers: O100, O180, P000, R110. 60 references. Key words:regional geography, Heartland, Mackinder, geopolitics, Eurasia, China, Russia, Europe,“revenge of geography,” geographical determinism, environmental determinism, historicaldeterminism.s we mark the twentieth anniversary of the unraveling of the post-World War II geopo-litical order, post-1989 proclamations about the end of both history (Fukuyama, 1992)and geography (O’Brien, 1992) look increasingly misguided. Those proclamations werebased on the assumption that the demise of the Soviet system and the emergence of a global-ized, technologically interconnected globe heralded the triumph of a social order based ondemocracy and economic liberalism that would rapidly diffuse throughout a world character-ized by diminishing interregional differences. This is hardly the world of 2009. Instead, thecontemporary international scene is dominated by major fault lines along political, cultural,and economic divides, with high-stakes struggles being waged among and between tradi-tional states, between state and extra-state interests, and between different social and ethnicgroups. Even though the participants in these struggles are necessarily confronting manydevelopments with a global reach (an extraordinarily high level of global economic interpen-etration, the expanding reach of information technologies, etc.), their activities and goalsreflect great differences from place to place and region to region in politics, ideology, andsocio-economic circumstance. As geographers have insisted (e.g., the essays in Cox, 1997),global developments take on a different, highly variable character in local settings.Against the backdrop, it is imperative that geographers, economists, and other social sci-entists deepen their understanding and appreciation of the forces at play in different worldregions. This has long been the task of “regional geography,” as that term came to be used in1Respectively, Professor of Geography and Rippey Chair in Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Geogra-phy, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 94703 ([email protected]) and Professor, Institute of Behavioral Sci-ence, University of Colorado at Boulder, Campus Box 487, Boulder, CO 80309-0387 ([email protected]).AEditorial.fm Page 241 Thursday, May 14, 2009 12:58 PM242 EURASIAN GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMICSthe North American context. But the regional geography that is needed today is differentfrom mid-20th-century regional geography, and it is not the regional geography that onefinds in popular accounts of the role of geography in contemporary affairs (e.g., Kaplan,2009). Instead it is a regional geography that is concerned with explanation, not just descrip-tion; that treats regions as constantly shifting products of social and economic relations, notsimply as units that need to be understood; and that does not look at regions in isolation, butinstead sees them in relation to developments unfolding both above and below the scale ofthe region (see generally Thrift, 1994; Passi, 2002; Murphy, 2006a).MOVING BEYOND CONVENTIONAL AND POPULAR CONCEPTIONS OF REGIONAL GEOGRAPHYWithin the discipline of geography, until the last two decades of the 20th century, muchregional geography had an encyclopedic cast, with an emphasis on cataloging major physi-cal, economic, demographic, and social characteristics of different parts of the world(Gilbert, 1988; Pudup, 1988; Murphy, 1991; Thrift, 1994; Holmén, 2005). Studies conductedin this vein could provide useful background information, but they too often failed to providemuch analysis of how geographic arrangements shaped political and social developments,nor did they offer concepts and ideas that could advance more general understandings of howgeography reflects and shapes the changing character of the planet. Not surprisingly, then,many geographers turned their attention away from regional geography and instead focusedon systematic studies concerned with the role of individual geographic phenomena in humanaffairs. This shift left somewhat of a void, however, with relatively few analytically sophisti-cated geographic studies being produced that addressed the role of geographic context in theevolution of regions.Popular commentators on world affairs have at times stepped into this void, but typicallywith little awareness of the ideas and concepts coming out of the discipline of geography.The latest example is Robert Kaplan (2009), who, in response to the recent upsurge in intra-state violence and the appearance of numerous groups capable of implementing violent cam-paigns simultaneously in many countries, has re-engineered Fukuyama’s aphorism about the“end of history,” and instead proposed that the present era is one characterized by “therevenge of geography.” Presenting his thesis as a return to realism in international relations(IR), Kaplan asserts that “of all the unsavory truths in which realism is rooted, the bluntest,most uncomfortable, and most deterministic of all is geography. Indeed, what is at work inthe recent return of realism is the revenge of geography in the most old-fashioned sense” (p.98). Kaplan is returning to a theme that he introduced in the 1990s when local conflicts andattendant social dislocations in the former Soviet Union
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