Geographers in Their Ivory Tower: Academic Geography and Popular Geography in Paris 1931

Abstract: French academic geography achieved remarkable success during the 1920s making Paris an appropriate location for the XIIIth International Geographical Congress to meet in 1931. These scholarly activities were counterpoised by expressions of an exotic 'popular geography' at the great Exposition Coloniale staged in the French capital at the same time. At the Congress, French academics displayed their research achievements in denudation chronology, rural settlement studies and cartography, extending their work from the Hexagon to parts of the Empire. Patronage by leading professors in Paris and Grenoble clearly played a vital role in shaping the discipline. The location and content of excursions for visiting scholars also highlighted French achievements and suggested what remained to be done. Scrutiny of activities at the XIIIth IGC reveals a profession whose official pronouncements appear isolated from the momentous economic and political changes triggered by global depression at that time.     

The limits to optimism: Australia and the rise of China

The Australian government optimistically expects that China's rise can be easily managed. They predict US–China relations will be cooperative, and reject concerns that Australia may face hard choices between them. This optimism seems to be based on the view that as China grows it will become increasingly integrated into a US-led global system. That overestimates America's power, and underestimates China's ambitions. The best we can hope for instead is that China and the US will cooperate in a concert of power, but the US will be very reluctant to make the necessary concessions to China for that to happen. So there is a real risk of even worse outcomes: Chinese primacy, sustained US–China hostility, or war. Australia therefore needs to try to persuade America to work with China in building a new ‘Concert of Asia’.     

Algeria's Veiled Drama

Books reviewed in this article:
Luis Martinez, La guerre civile en Algérie
William B. Quandt, Between ballots and bullets: Algeria's transition from authoritarianism
Michael Willis, The Islamist challenge in Algeria: a political history