Humanist Geography: An Individual’s Search for Meaning

For more than fifty years, Yi-Fu Tuan has carried the study of humanistic geography—what John K. Wright early in the twentieth century called geosophy, a blending of geography and philosophy—to new heights, offering with each new book a fresh and often unique intellectual introspection into the human condition. His latest book, Humanist Geography, is a testament of all that he has learned and encountered as a geographer. In returning to and reappraising his previous books, Tuan emphasizes how the study of humanist geography can offer a younger generation of students, scholars, and teachers a path toward self-discovery, personal fulfillment, and even enlightenment. He argues that in the study of place can be found the wonders of the human mind and imagination, especially as understood by the senses, even as we human beings deal with nature's stringencies and our own deep flaws.