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Across This Land: A Regional Geography of the United States and Canada by John C. Hudson, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 2002, xxi + 474 p., paper US$29.95 (ISBN0-8018-6567-0)
Those still teaching regional geography and those who remember taking a course on the USA and Canada will be interested in Across This Land. Some may be disappointed that its 60-odd maps and some 120 photographs do not live up to the promise, colour-wise, of its striking cover photograph (of 'Sneffels Mountain Range near Dallas Divide'). Some may be surprised that the usual string of introductory thematic chapters covering climate, vegetation, population, manufacturing and so forth is absent. And some may wish the author had said more in his preface about his view of regional geography and about the 'new geography'.
Few, however, will fault John Hudson's division of the United States and Canada into ten regions predominantly reflecting physical-geological realities; the names given to these ten regions appear in the four pages of contents dividing the chapters of the book into 10 parts.
A second glance at the contents reveals, however, that Hudson has no discussion of these ten broad regions. Instead, he proceeds directly to consideration of the smaller component regions within each of the ten; and these form the subject matter of the 27 chapters in Across This Land. Thus,...