American Geographical Society

Erde und Weltwirtschaft: Ein Handbuch der allgemeinen Wirtschaftsgeographie by RudolfLütgens; Erich OtrembaReview by: Eric FischerGeographical Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Jul., 1954), pp. 448-450Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/212074 .

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448 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

contacts with the lands across the North Sea. It was a thriving medieval royal burgh and has had a remarkable procession of industries, culminating in fishing and granite working, though it has important survivals of older stable industries such as textiles and paper- making. This variety of occupations stood the city in good stead during the days of the depression, but the author warns of the need for watchfulness and enterprise against un- favorable conditions. Aberdeen also has the distinction of having been the seat of two rival universities, founded in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, tlhat were not amal- gamated for more than 260 years; and it has a Grammar School dating from the thirteenth century and a college from 1750. It boasts the first medical school in Britain. It established the first industrial school, in i 84I, for the training of delinquent boys. It shared briefly but brilliantly in the clipper trade with the East, and many Aberdonians emigrated to trading stations in those far lands.

The role of the city as a regional capital runs through the story and is at least as im- portant in its activities as that of the specialized industries, which seek markets through- out the country and overseas. The admirable survey of housing tells us that most of the houses are built of granite but that behind the strong, clean fasades living conditions pre- vail that are far from satisfactory for a considerable part of the population.

If one plaint may be made, it is the difficulty of following the detailed topography. The book would have been improved by the addition of a key map to streets, places, and districts; for the reproduction of the new i *25,000 sheet of the city, excellent though it is, does not meet this need, nor do the small diagrams. This is a minor blemish, however. From this work the American reader may derive materials for the study of urbanism and economic geography, for the study of Scotland, and for the understanding of one of the historic cities of Western Europe. Finally, the book is very cheap by current British stand- ards. Geographical libraries should undoubtedly include the whole of this Scottish series on their British Isles shelves.-ROBERT E. DICKINSON

ERDE UND WELTWIRTSCHAFT: Ein Handbuch der allgemeinen Wirtschaftsgeo- graphie. Edited by RUDOLF LUTGENS. Vol. I, Die geographischen Grundlagen und

Probleme des Wirtschaftslebens. By RUDOLF LUTGENS. 270 pp.; maps, diagrs., bibliogr., index (of persons). Vol. 2, Die Produktionsraume der Weltwirtschaft. By RUDOLF LiUTGENS. 255 pp.; maps, diagrs., bibliogr., index. Vol. 3, Allgemeine Agrar- und Industriegeographie. By ERICH OTREMBA. 342 pp.; maps, diagrs., ills., bibliogr., index. Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart, 1950-I953. Vol. i, DM 24.-; Vol. 2, DM 28.-; Vol. 3, DM 36.-. 92 x 64 inches.

This work is planned both as a five-volume handbook and as a series of individual text-

books. It is lavishly illustrated, especially with small-scale, well-executed text maps, and has extensive bibliographies; excellent aerial photographs illustrate different types of economic landscapes. Unfortunately, the index of the first volume lists only names of persons.

The first two volumes, by Rudolf Liitgens, are in some respects a broadened version of his "Allgemeine Wirtschaftsgeographie" (1928). He defines economic geography as

the science of the mutual influence of the natural regions and the economic activity of man. Descriptions of the distribution of products, their extraction, preparation, and

transportation to the consumer, are not enough. Neither is it sufficient to describe typical

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GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 449

economic landscapes, such as the United States Corn Belt or the Ruhr region: every part of the earth's surface has been transformed from a natural economic landscape, in which only primitive economic activities were carried on, into a man-made economic land- scape; for example, the pampas from an Indian hunting ground into the wheat-producing plains of today. Such landscapes have to be described as entities. The author repudiates both the environmental approach and the doctrine that man can transform the earth according to his needs. He stresses geographic, especially climatic, limitations without overrating their importance. Although he regards autarky as an impossibility even for large economic units, he is optimistic regarding the capability of the earth's surface to support double the present population, at which level the population may be reasonably expected to stabilize. The usual concentration of attention on one or a few selected features, such as soil erosion or exhaustion of minerals, rather than on potentialities of the world as a whole, leads to distorted judgment, and therefore a planned economy is advocated as international cooperation of all nations. This may necessitate state-directed planning in some countries. Management of the slightly, and heretofore haphazardly, exploited oceans would be a primary objective. Among the many topics discussed may be mentioned the attempt to divide the globe into five main continental and three oceanic economic regions. Because human influence as well as climatic factors are used, this regional breakdown deviates considerably from others, though the author acknowledges his indebtedness to Koppen and Passarge.

The third volume is most interesting. Otremba defends the joint treatment of agri- culture and industry in one volume on the ground that there are hardly any pure agri- cultural landscapes left, mixed landscapes, though mixed to a different degree, being the rule. Pure industrial landscapes also are rare and occupy at best small territories. These two pure economic landscape types stand at opposite ends of a series of io economic formations, which are described in detail as the climax of the volume. To agricultural geography is allotted about twice the space given to industrial geography, partly because more work has been done in that field, but also because agricultural economy is predominantly dependent on physical spatial factors, whereas the location of industries is largely deter- mined by economic laws. Industry, like the city, as "the most human feature" in the land- scape, is tied to space only conditionally. The author refuses to spend much time and thought on the question why certain industries are in a certain location but strives to in- vestigate the structure of economic landscapes, their historical development, and their function within an organized world economy. He is greatly interested in the way in which economic activity transforms space. Even in agricultural geography he stresses human influences strongly; for example, the historical factor in settlement and house types, which accounts for the prevailing village forms, though dispersed farmsteads in the midst of their fields are the most economic form. A continuously changing influence is that of market conditions, which force farmers to shift to other kinds of production. These shifts are to be explained by market conditions rather than by psychological factors, such as the influence of a frontier mentality. Farmers close to city markets have to adjust their methods most frequently. Agriculture is not only an economic activity, however; it is a way of life, and, therefore, irrational factors influence the peasant more strongly than the farmer who has adjusted his thinking to capitalistic rationality. The author tries to trace the regional distribution of attitudes toward different types of work. He refuses to see them as

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450 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

national characteristics but regards them, rather, as features that grow rationally out of economic and social conditions.

The announced fourth and fifth volumes of this handbook ("Allgemeine Handels- und Verkehrsgeographie" and "Der wirtschaftende Mensch als Gestalter der Erde," by Erwin Fels), especially the latter, which promises to discuss "economic man as transformer of the earth," should round off appropriately this interesting and valuable work.-ERIC FISCHER

DEMOGRAPHIC SURVEY OF THE BRITISH COLONIAL EMPIRE. Volume 3,

West Indian and American Territories. By R. R. KUCZYNSKI. xiii and 497 pp.; bibliogr., index. Published under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto, I953. $I3.00.

934 x 614 inches.

The third volume of Kuczynski's "Demographic Survey of the British Colonial Empire"

follows the pattern of his two earlier volumes, on the British territories in Africa. It is primarily a reference work, containing extensive quotations from the census and birth

and death registration laws, acts, and ordinances for each territory, together with I74

statistical tables. When Kuczynski died in I947, his manuscript for this volume on the

West Indian and American territories was complete only to I938. His daughter and re- search assistant, Dr. Brigitte Long, has compiled the necessary data to bring the volume

up to I948 and, in a few instances, later. An introductory chapter summarizes the demographic position of the British colonies

in America as a whole for the period down to I946. In that year the 2,899,020 inhabitants

of the West Indian and American territories included more than 2,300,000 descendants of

Negro slaves from Africa, more than 4I0,000 Asians (East Indians and Chinese), fewer

than 75,000 whites, and 30,898 aborigines. Some of the British West Indies are among

the most densely settled areas in the world; Barbados, for example, has II59 to a square mile. Moreover, the population of the British islands increased by 37.7 per cent in the

25 years before I946. The grave problems posed by this overpopulation are outside the

scope of the Kuczynski volume. Kuczynski's remaining chapters analyze, territory by territory, the history of census

taking; the total population and its composition by race, birthplace and nationality, sex,

age, and conjugal condition; the system of birth and death registration; and birth and death

statistics-for the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Guiana, British Honduras, Ja-

maica (with sections on the Turks and Caicos Islands, and on the Cayman Islands), the

Leeward Islands (the Colony, Antigua, St. Kitts-Nevis, Montserrat, the Virgin Islands), Trinidad and Tobago, the Windward Islands (Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent), the Falkland Islands and Dependencies, and St. Helena (St. Helena, Ascension, and Tristan

da Cunha). The census of I946 was the first in 25 years for about three-fifths of the total popula-

tion of the British colonies in America. The decennial census of I93I had been omitted

in many colonies for financial reasons, and the I94I census had been abandoned because

of World War II. This was a handicap, because, as the West India Royal Commission of

I938-I939 commented, ". . . the omission of a census, as in several colonies in I93I, iS a

false economy and deprives Government of knowledge essential for the satisfactory

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