Romantic Geography

Yi-Fu Tuan (1930–2022) was the J. K. Wright and Vilas Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of twenty-two books, including Morality and Imagination, The Good Life, Human Goodness, and his autobiography, Who Am I?

• Contents Acknowledgments Overture 1 Polarized Values 2 Earth and Its Natural Environments Interlude: Wholesome but Ordinary 3 The City 4 The Human Being Coda Notes Illustration Credits Index

"Tuan locates romantic geography in the heroic quests that won a deep understanding of place, the more remote and challenging the better. His vision of humanity's persistent hunger to reject familiar comfort for the new and strange is highly persuasive."—William Howarth, author of Walking with Thoreau "Yi-Fu Tuan's examples are bracing, from Captain Nemo to the Adelie penguins. Few people can match his knowledge and ability to write reasonably and resoundingly about important themes and to link those themes to individual meaning, binding people to place."—Paul F. Starrs, author of Black Rock “Called ‘one of the greatest living geographers,’ Tuan waxes rhapsodic about the Earth and humans’ relationship to it in this lovely little tome. He offers readers insight into famed explorers such as Ernest Shackleton and David Livingstone, reminding us that there was a time when geographers were akin to rock stars. Tuan finds poetry in geography, and readers will learn much about history and sustainability from his words.”—77 Square