A Book about the Origins and an Article about the Prospects of Constructive Geography in the Soviet Union

Academician Gerasimov reviews a collection of articles by A. I. Voyeykov (1842–1916), who laid the basis for what Gerasimov calls constructive geography, concerned with man's transformation of nature. The author takes issue with G. F. Khil'mi, a geophysicist, who regards the problem of transformation of nature as lying within the province of geophysics. Gerasimov insists that geographers should play the principal role in this field, using past accumulations of empirical data and new methods borrowed from mathematics, physics and chemistry.