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A Brief Guide to the World

By: Nicholas Crane

Narrated by: Nicholas Crane

One word binds us all: geography. We are all geographers, human beings who care about the places we think of as 'home' - our habitat. And yet we have lost touch with the connection between our actions and the state of the planet that we all share. We need a new myth, a new narrative that restores the connections between humanity and the Earth.

We are being confronted by a daily barrage of geographical stories on climate change, geopolitics, population growth, migration, dwindling resources, polluted oceans and natural hazards. These are planetary concerns affecting all people and all places. They are geographical challenges which can be addressed through geography.

In this distillation of a lifetime's work, Nicholas Crane makes the compelling case that never has geography been so important. On this finite orb, with its battered habitat, sustained in dark space by a thin, life-giving atmosphere, we have reached a point in our collective geographical journey where knowledge is the best guarantor of the future.

Written and read by Nicholas Crane
(p) Orion Publishing Group 2018©2018 Nicholas Crane

Critic reviews

[A]n erudite, dark-lit little book by a veteran explorer-broadcaster, distilling a lifetime of thought and travel. It is a hymn to geography, which 'keeps us human' (Ruth Padel)

Destined to become a classic ... a meticulously researched distillation of the geography and history of our planet (Nigel Winser)