A New Work on Theoretical Geography (a review of David Harvey,Explanation in Geography)

A discussion of Harvey's book, with particular reference to the landscape concept, classification principles, modeling, the map as an information channel, the systems paradigm and the organization of geography as a science. In the reviewer's view, Harvey's book represents a useful introduction to the strategy of geography because it seeks to formulate a sort of metatheory of geography as a whole, instead of dealing with particular geographical disciplines. Sochava regards geography not as a simple collection of particular disciplines that sometimes exchange information and join in the solution of interdisciplinary problems. He views geography rather as a vast area of human knowledge that seeks to integrate within itself those elements from various disciplines that relate to the basic function of geography, leaving all that is nongeographical to such sciences as geology, biology and economics.