“Understanding the Cultural Landscape is a tour de force—a splendid example of the lively, clear, and attractive writing that scholarly prose should be, but so seldom is. Bret Wallach, one of America's most distinguished geographers, has revived a noble but long-neglected tradition of cultural geography, deeply rooted in history and an amazing range of geographic facts. For intellectually curious students of the human condition, this is a profoundly important book.”

—Peirce F. Lewis, Department of Geography (Emeritus), Pennsylvania State University


“This book is filled with interesting insights, illuminating the continuing importance of actual geography even in the homogenizing twilight of globalization.”

—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature


“Most texts in human geography are eye-glazers, room-emptiers. This one emphatically is not. Bret Wallach ranges back and forth across time, space, and scale to bring us this generation's definitive globalist human geography. Imaginatively conceived, sharply detailed, and wonderfully written, the book will work at almost any university level and for intelligent general readers too. All by himself, Wallach may succeed in bringing geography back into the intellectual mainstream. In a word, this book is fabulous.”

—Frank J. Popper, Urban Studies Program, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey


“An astonishing achievement! I doubt whether we shall ever see a more useful, thought-provoking account of what our humanized world is really like and how it came to be. Highly readable and informative, this is geography for thoughtful readers at its best.”

—Wilbur Zelinsky, Department of Geography (Emeritus), The Pennsylvania State University