Place

I finished The Power of Place while drinking a glass of German Riesling and sitting outside on Seattle’s sunniest spring afternoon of 2011.  I could smell my neighbor’s lilacs and watch the baby ferns’ tops trying to uncurl.  The place was spectacular.  It was chilly, though, so I’m back inside remembering the places I’ve read this fascinating treatise on geography.  Stuffy airplane, eating pretzels.  Living room chair with my feet up.  In bed prying my eyes open.  On the floor while stretching after my bike ride.  Local bar waiting for my dinner.

Harm de Blij did a fantastic job taking in the angles on place.  De Blij denies that the world is flat.  Depending upon what hemisphere, what continent, what country, what city, what family, what gender, de Blij can outline some of the terrain you’ll encounter.  It isn’t flat.  De Blij does think that globalization could smooth some of the rough edges, though.  That’s an interesting point of view.

There are a lot of prejudices that de Blij brings to his work.  The one I found most problematic was that of religion.  De Blij does not value religion at all; he essentially views them all as wholly similar and detrimental.  The second most troubling aspect is his position on natural disasters.  His book was written after the world shocking 2004 tsunami in Thailand and areas bordering the Indian Ocean but long before the earthquake in Haiti and this year’s earthquake, tsunami, nuclear disaster in Japan.  He faults human behavior.  I have a more challenged view.  Thirdly, de Blij is a political activist, who has no qualms in giving his reader points of action, which, were they aligned with my worldview, I would appreciate so much more.

What I can agree with is that being born and raised in de Blij’s “core” has given me more than I have in fact been able to absorb.  I cannot take in all the information to which I have access.  What I realize is that I also cannot enter the “periphery” without my expectations and reality reflecting more of the “core” than it does the “periphery.”  It is with certain awe that I examine the statement so often, weekly, monthly, by Jesus telling me that “to whom much is given much is expected.”  I understand that much of my geography.

Beyond the easy parts of geography, “I look out my window and see ____” (mountains, water, plains, desert, skyscrapers, huts, etc) de Blij looks at things that are more challenging (industrial plants, warzones).  In Seattle we’ve had our fourth or fifth sunny day of the year.  Other places haven’t had so many days of rain in 2011.  But, as far as how many cases of malaria, typhoid, dengue flu, I’d say there is good fortune in Seattle.  We grow more moss than we do mosquitoes.  We import more mangos than we receive asylum seekers from the countries who grow the mangos.  We largely practice religion similarly, speak the same language, have ancestral ties to our neighbors and enough food even so.

With all the hills I bike every day between my home and downtown, Seattle has a pretty flat landscape according to de Blij.  Should an earthquake come and wipe this slate clean, as de Blij expects to happen, may my neighbors show me the grace of God, and may my hands work diligently and with skill as I examine The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny, and Globalization’s Rough Landscape.