Human Geography

This volume has three objectives. First, it provides a cross-section of interdisciplinary writings that provide examples of using spatial and temporal variables to understand the socio-cultural, political, economic and regional dynamics. The range of interdisciplinary articles and practitioner experience represented in this volume travels far beyond the traditional definition of human geography that dominates the larger profession of geography in mainstream academic writings. We have designed this volume to let all disciplines express their viewpoints and methodological approaches. Second, the volume highlights new challenges faced by national security analysts, operators and decision makers within an increasingly "location aware" global society. It is not just that human society can only be properly understood in terms of its evolving geospatial and temporal dynamics. The explosion in widely available low-cost commercial imagery, the ubiquity of GPS-enabled devices and applications, the widespread adoption of capabilities like Google Earth, the increasing georeferencing of media and social media content, and other such phenomena are fundamentally reshaping how humans behave and interact. This includes reshaping how location-aware societies perceive and respond to the actions of our national security enterprise and to the actions, inactions and policies of individual nations and international organizations. The third objective of the volume is to provide a reference for students of national security affairs. After nearly a decade of sustained focus among national security practitioners on the requirement to understand patterns of life, there remains a critical lack of core texts written by and for students of national security policy making. This volume combines perspectives from academics, senior government leaders and practitioners from both government and industry to provide a new resource for educating students of national and global security affairs.