The SAGE Handbook of Geographical Knowledge

The SAGE Handbook of Geographical Knowledge John Agnew and David N. Livingstone, eds. 2011. London: Sage Press. xvi and 656 pp. Ills., bibliog., index. $124 hardback. (ISBN 1412910811)

Having had the opportunity to teach our department's graduate seminar on the development of geographical thought several times, I am pleased to now have a copy of this book. The new Sage Handbook of Geographical Knowledge, part of a long line of academic inventories published by Sage Press, edited by two of the discipline's preeminent thinkers on the practice of geography, John Agnew and David Livingstone, provides an overview of the field using a new conceptual classification that has been refreshing to read, discuss, and think about.

In 46 chapters plus Introduction, this volume provides a comprehensive look at the discipline and practice of geography as it has evolved and the ways in which the knowledge of geography is itself produced. The first two of the book's three sections provide overviews of the historical development of the discipline by looking first at geography's intellectual history in Part 1 and then through examinations of the venues or spaces and places in which geographical work is done and knowledge produced in Part 2. Broadly contextualized and introspective, Part 1 considers the politics and historical production of geographical knowledge. This includes addressing the geographical aspects of this production of geographical knowledge, ''intended to demonstrate something of how thinking geographically...