Lydia Mihelic Pulsipher - World Regional Geography: Global Patterns, Local Lives

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The world is out there waiting, and you should see it as soon as possible! In so doing you will help us share and preserve this small planet. The study of geography will be a preview to this monumental but enjoyable task; it will challenge you to actively watch the world around you, broadening your ideas about why places are as they are, and letting you rub elbows with people who often think and act very differently from you. We, the authors of this book, try to help you connect with unfamiliar people and places by putting them in a broad geographic context. But who, you might ask, are we to think we can undertake such a huge task?

Lydia Pulsipher (in collaboration with archaeologist Mac Goodwin) spent years studying the enslaved African experience in the Caribbean, learning how Africans and their descendants created a life for themselves despite enslavement. She has traveled widely in Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas. She has made a lifelong study of the global diffusion of food plants, and more recently has followed the effect on women of the transition from communism to capitalism in Central Europe. In addition, she serves as Honorary Consul for the Republic of Slovenia, a position that keeps her engaged with events in the European Union.

Alex Pulsipher is an independent scholar in Knoxville, Tennessee, interested in cultural and technological changes that support sustainable development in the era of climate change. He has traveled throughout South and Southeast Asia, Europe, Mexico, and Ecuador, and shares knowledge gathered from travel and the researching and writing of this book through local community involvement and his YouTube channel.

Ola Johansson is a professor of geography at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Born in Sweden but a long-time resident of the United States, his perspective on the world is multifaceted and intercultural. His outlook is not limited to the global North, but is informed by travels in South America, the Caribbean, North Africa, Southwest Asia, and East Asia. His current research explores the geographies of music, ranging from local scenes to the global exchange of musical styles and knowledge.