ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
Volume 13
THE GEOGRAPHY OF WESTERN EUROPE
THE GEOGRAPHY OF WESTERN EUROPE
A Socio-Economic Survey
PAUL L. KNOX
First published in 1984 by Croom Helm Ltd
This edition first published in 2016
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1984 P.L. Knox
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ISBN: 978-1-138-95340-6 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-315-65887-2 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-95534-9 (Volume 13) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-66640-2 (Volume 13) (ebk)
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The Geography of Western Europe
A SOCIO-ECONOMIC SURVEY
PAUL L. KNOX
1984 P.L.Knox
Croom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row,
Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT
Croom Helm Australia Pty Ltd, First Floor, 139 King Street,
Sydney, NSW 2001, Australia
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Knox, Paul L.
The geography of Western Europe. (Croom Helm series in geography and environment) 1. Anthropo-geography Europe 2. Europe Social conditions
I. Title
940.558 GF540
ISBN 0-7099-1523-3
ISBN 0-7099-1524-1 Pbk
First published in the USA 1984 by
Barnes & Noble Books,
81 Adams Drive,
Totowa, New Jersey, 07512
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Knox, Paul L.
The geography of western Europe.
Includes index.
1. Europe Social conditions 20th century. 2. Europe Economic conditions 20th century. 3. Anthropogeography Europe. I. Title.
HN375.5.K55 1984 306.094 84-12330
ISBN 0-389-20512-5
Typeset by Columns of Reading
Printed and bound in Great Britain
CONTENTS
I should like to thank my colleagues Jimmy Caird, Nick Ford and Huw Jones and my wife Lynne for their comments on draft sections of the book. The data from the Eurobarometer series were made available by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (USA). These data were originally collected by Jaques-Rene Rabier, Special Adviser to the Commission of the European Communities, and by Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan. Neither the original collectors of the data nor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here.
I am also grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:
Cambridge University Press for Figure 5.5, based on Figure 6, p. 428 of Regional Studies, vol. 16, 1982; the Commission of the European Communities for Figure 5.9, based on an illustration in The Community and Its Regions, 1980; the Council of Europe for Table 2.2, based on Table 6.1, p. 145 in Demographic and Social Change in Europe, 1975-2000, by M. Kirk, Council of Europe, 1981; Elsevier Scientific Publishing for Table 7.2, based on Table 1, p. 7 of the European Journal of Political Research, vol. 11, 1983; Professor P. Hall for Figure 6.1 and Table 6.1, based on Figure 4.16, p. 156 and Table 4.9, p. 155 in Growth Centres in the European Urban System, Heinemann Educational Books, 1980; the International Labour Office for Table 2.3, based on Table 2, p. 5 in Return Migration from West European to Mediterranean Countries, by H. Entzinger, ILO, 1978; Professor L.H. Klaasen for Table 6.2, based on Table 9.7, p. 132 in Dynamics of Urban Development, Gower, 1981; Dr H. Leitner for Figure 6.6, slightly modified from Figure 2, pp. 98-9 in Mitteilungen der Osterreichischen Geographische Gesellschaft, vol. 123, 1981; Martinus Nijhoff Publishing for Figure 5.7, slightly modified from Figure 8, p. 109 of Spatial Inequalities and Regional Development, edited by H. Folmer and J. Oosterhaven, 1979; Dr M. Pacione for Figure 6.4, slightly modified from Figure 6.3, p. 232 in Urban Problems and Planning in the Developed World, Croom Helm, 1981; Pergamon Press for Figure 6.3, based on Figure 6, p. 61 of Geoforum, vol. 4, 1970; the Population Council for Figure 2.5, slightly modified from Figure 9, p. 41 of Population and Development Review, vol. 7, 1981.
P.L. Knox Dundee
The geography of Europe has traditionally been delineated in terms of its physical geography, its ethnography and culture and its economic specialisations, while Europe itself has long been justified as a meaningful region because of the predominance of Caucasian stock, Indo-European languages and Christianity, the intensive organisation of its agriculture, the extensive development of its urban system, its high degree of industrialisation and its correspondingly high levels of material well-being (Gottmann 1969; Mead 1982). Within this context geographical analysis has typically been organised around the physical and/or economic landscapes of the major sub-regions of individual countries or groups of countries. This is the Europe of the Alps, the coalfields, the Rhine Rift Valley, the Spanish Tableland and the North Italian Plain, described in detail by geographers from every European country (Marchant 1970). But such an approach has become increasingly inadequate. For one thing, the conceptual and theoretical development of geography has come to emphasise systematic approaches at the expense of regional synthesis. Hence the emergence of systematic analyses of the geography of Europe such as those by Jordan (1973) and Mellor and Smith (1979). At the same time, the postwar division of Europe into two distinctive geopolitical units has overwritten the cultural and physiographic unity of the continent, making it increasingly difficult to justify as a single coherent region, at least in terms of human geography. Hence the emergence of systematic analyses dealing separately with Western Europe (Diem 1979; Ilbery 1981). The actual geography of Western Europe, meanwhile, has undergone significant changes as a result of demographic trends, changes in patterns of urbanisation, the reorganisation of political and administrative frameworks, the creation, enlargement and reorganisation of the European Community, the expansion of welfare states and, above all, structural economic change. Hence this book.
