The geography behind history [antikvár]

THE GEOGRAPHY BEHIND HISTORY Chapter I GEOGRAPHY AS AN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT " And these are things that come not to the view Of slippered dons who read a codex through." Flecker, Invitation. EVÉN to-day, if only by its more dramatic interventions, a relentless nature makes us painfully aware of the uneasy terms on which humán groups occupy and utilize the surface of the earth. The common boast that man has become master of his world has a hollow ring when we recall the recurrent floods and famines which afflict the peasants of northern China, the devastating floods of the Mississippi in 1937, the more recent destruction by ice of View Falls Bridge across the Niagara River, the assertion that in Central Africa " the desert is on the move," the widespread soil erosion in parts of Africa and in the Middle West of the United States, andfinally,thecontimialthreat ofdronght which hangs over the great grain lands of the world- alike in the United States, Canada, and South Russia. These and similar happenings or forebodings serve to emphasize the fact that, even for peoples which have reached high levels of material culture, the physical environment remains a veritable Pandora's box, ever ready to burst open and to scatter its noxious contents.