To contend with the political, economic, demographic, and environmental shifts reverberating throughout the world, the first edition of Contemporary World Regional Geography brings together four outstanding geographers. Our team begins with Michael Bradshaw. He is well known for his ability to weave together solid geography content with interesting stories, real-life case studies, and applications to student life experiences.

Joining forces with Michael Bradshaw are two new coauthors: Joe Dymond of Towson University and George White of Frostburg State University. In addition, Dydia DeLyser of Louisiana State University provided significant contributions in formulating new ideas and providing guidance for the book. Joe, George, and Dydia are all active instructors who use multimedia approaches to teach hundreds of undergraduates each semester.

Devotion to, and passion about, teaching unite our team. We thoroughly enjoy telling those interesting stories that help us to understand what is happening-the stories that, when told correctly, mesmerize even the most reluctant students, causing them to perk up and think "Wow, I never knew that&exclam; So that's why &ldots;&exclam;" We all love to watch students get excited learning about a subject they once viewed as too hard or too intimidating.

Meet the Author Team

Michael Bradshaw
Michael Bradshaw and his wife live in Canterbury, England and have two sons and two grandchildren. Michael taught for twenty-five years at the College of St Mark & St. John, Plymouth as Geography Department chair and Dean of the Humanities course. He has written texts for British high schools and colleges since the 1960s. In 1985, he was awarded a PhD from Leicester University for his study on the impacts of federal grant-aid in Appalachia. His book, The Appalachian Regional Commission: Twenty-Five Years of Government Policy, was published in 1992. Since 1991 he has written for U.S. students and has been responsible for two physical geography texts and the successful world regional geography text, The New Global Order, with a second edition update published in 2002. Michael believes that we should all be better equipped to live in the modern, increasingly global world. Understandings of geographic differences should make us more able to assess crucial issues and value other people who bring varied resources and who face pressures tht we find difficult to imagine.

In planning the next phase text for world regional geography courses, Dr. Bradshaw has extended the experience and expertise of the writing team by adding new coauthors. Contemporary World Regional Geography: Global Connections and Local Voices is the outcome of this new collaboration. He is lead author for the first two and the last chapters, and for regional chapters of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Pacific, South Asia, Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia, and Africa South of the Sahara.

George White
George W. White grew up in Oakland, California. He pursued graduate work in Eugene, Oregon, completing a PhD at the University of Oregon. Afterward he moved to Frostburg, Maryland, where he met his wife. George is currently an associate professor in the Department of Geography and coordinator of the International Studies program at Frostburg State University. Political geography and Europe are two of his primary interests. He recently authored a book entitled Nationalism and Territory: Constructing Group Identity in Southeastern Europe.

After meeting Michael Bradshaw, George was impressed by Michael's long and distinguished career of teaching, research, and publication. He accepted the opportunity to join Michael in his plans to write a new world regional geography text, taking lead authorship for the chapters on Europe and Russia and Neighboring Countries, as well as contributing to other areas of the text. George became a geographer because he believes that the field of geography is alive and dynamic, and attune to our ever changing world and its great diversity. The world regional approach represents the breadth of the field of geography, and world regional geography texts are the epitome of the geographer's art. George White chose to collaborate with Michael Bradshaw on this project because the text combines local practices and global processes, and explains interaction between the two as they shape each other.

Joe Dymond
Joseph P. Dymond earned a Master of Science degree from The Pennsylvania State University in 1994, and a Master of Natural Sciences degree from Louisiana State University in 1999. Joe taught world regional geography courses for the Louisiana State University Department of Geography and Anthropology from 1995 through 2000. During Joe's six years at LSU, he instructed thousands of students and was recognized in the Spring of 1997, Fall of 1999, and Fall of 2000 for superior instruction to freshman students by the Louisiana State University Freshman Honor Society, Alpha Lamba, Delta. Joe currently lives in suburban Washington, D.C. with his wife and daughter, and is adjunct faculty in the Department of Geography and Environmental Planning at Towson University. In this new text, Joe is the lead author for the chapters on Latin America and North America.

Joe chose to become involved with this new textbook because he wants to provide students with the geographic tools available to better understand the human and environmental patterns present in their world. Joe wants to help students understand why certain cultural and physical elements exist where they do, how they got there, how long they have been there, how they have changed over time, and what they might be like in the future. Understanding the relationships of human and physical geographic patterns and relationships creates a strong foundation for a comprehensive and fair perspective on the people and places comprising the regions of the world. The style of this text, including the point-counterpoint sections, attempts to tell the regional geographic story from many perspectives. Its structure permits the students to better analyze geographic characteristics around the world and to critically think about issues. It provides students the opportunity to think on their own and to piece together various data elements so they may establish their own informed opinions.

Dydia DeLyser
Dydia DeLyser is an assistant professor of geography at Louisiana State University, where she has taught world regional geography to thousands of students. She earned her PhD in 1998 from Syracuse University, specializing in cultural geography. Her interests lie in landscapes and the interpretation of the past in the American West, and also in flying airplanes.

Dydia became involved to help fashion a textbook that doesn't backpedal on hard topics, and one that introduces students to some of the difficult and complex controversies and challenging issues the world is facing. She feels it is important to build students' critical thinking skills-the skills students will need in order to work toward the kinds of constructive resolutions to these issues both now and in the future.

Dydia prefers that a book presents positive elements for every region. She believes that we should never simply give American students the impression that Americans are the best off, but instead reveal some of the world's magnificent complexity and diversity, showing there are wonderful things about every place.

She believes that it is also important to write a text that relates individual places and people with broader cultural/political/economic flows and forces: virtually every "corner" of the globe is now linked to much broader global systems, and yet, as virtually every individual can tell you, local places and local voices remain not only unique but also important in today's world. The study of world regional geography must combine an understanding of broad, large-scale forces with an equally deep understanding of what is local, small-scale, and unique-for it's the combination of those two that makes us who we are.