Geography is concerned to provide accurate, orderly, and rational description of the variable character of the earth surface. As defined, geography occupies a puzzling position in the traditional organization of knowledge. It is neither a purely natural science nor a purely social science.
Nature of Geography contains important and well recognized papers on the Nature and Contents of Geography, Theory of Geography, Paradigm, Philosophy and Geographic Thought, Geography as a Scientific Enterprise, the Crises of Identity of Geography, Recent Changes in Geography, Careers in Geography, Thinking Geographically, Writing Geographically, Geography Education and Research, Systematic Geography, Applied Geography, Field Work, Literacy Graphic, Numeric and Professional Geographers and public affairs.
Since Geography as a university discipline has been steadily attracting more students after the second World War both in the developed and the developing countries, the knowledge and clear understanding of its basic and new concepts in vogue has become of paramount importance. The papers included in this volume are not only written by scholars of international repute, they have been illustrated and presented in a convincing and cogent style. The volume is thus of great value for those who are interested in the in-depth study of the changing definition, philosophy and methodology of Geography as well as for those who want to explore further in the man and environment relationship. With great pleasure, the book is commended to students and teachers of Geography.

The history of Geography in its simplest form is the chronology of events. The main organizing device is narrative of change over time and the archetype of such history in the field of geography is that of exploration and discoveries. The story of explorations told advances the knowledge and helps in understanding the concepts and conceptual background of the disciplines, geography has a long history, which needs to be stood in a systematic and sequential order.
This book is an embodiment of papers on Geography and its History, Greeks and Romans contribution to geography. The Ancient Indian Geographical Concepts, Arabs contribution to Geography. After covering the topics of Ancient and Medieval Periods, the papers included in the volume give an exposition of the foundation of the modern geographical thought. Giving the historical background of the geographical concepts the founders of modern geography, the Darwin’s impact on geography and basic philosophies of determinism and positivism have been given. The controversy of dualism and dichotomies in the discipline has also been covered in one of the valuable papers. A few articles deal with Geography in the various countries and universities of the North-West European countries. The main problems of history of geography and historical geography have also been taken care of.
Having a wide canvas, this book provides a solid foundation on which the knowledge of geography has been constructed. The volume containing most of the papers compiled by the editor and written in a lucid style is commended to the students and teachers who adopt geography as a career.

Each scientific discipline has a philosophy and methodology. The philosophies are essential because they create a set of subjectively imposed constraints within which the individual does research. Closely associated with philosophy is the methodology. A methodology is the logic of an explanation with ensuring that our arguments are rigorous, that our inferences are reasonable and that our method is internally coherent.
The present book has been designed to explain the methodological problems of geography. The first paper gives an account of the ‘Changing Techniques in Geography’ followed by ‘Methodological Foundations of Change’ and the ‘Scientific Methods in Geography’. The modern philosophy like Positivism, Empiricism and Quantitative Revolution in the discipline has been cogently given in the subsequent chapters. The last few papers give an insight in the ‘Space and Spatial Analysis’ the ‘Status of Geography and the Role of Field Work’. The latest techniques like application of remote sensing in geography have also been incorporated.
The great merit of the book is that is brings together in one volume the entire gamut of geographical methodology. It underscores the point that geographical methodology is no longer descriptive in character and with the sophisticated methodological tools and techniques it is strongly emerging into a mature modern scientific discipline. This book will be immense help to those interested in the methodology of geography and will also encourage them to search further and learn more about the methodological problems of the discipline.

Model is an idealized and structured representation of the real. Model building has a long history in many sciences, but the incorporation of its formal protocols into geography is of comparatively recent origin (the 1950s) and depends on so-called Analogue Theory, which regards models as selective approximation which, by the elimination of incidental details, allow some fundamental, relevant or increasing aspects of the real world to appear in some generalized form. There is a close link between model building and ‘Quantitative Revolution’ in geography. A legion of literature has been produced on models in geography in the form of books and research papers during the last four decades.
The present book containing about two dozen papers in unique in the sense that the papers included give a clear idea of the concept of ‘model’ its elements, merits, demerits and examine the important models propounded by the leading geographers and geo-scientists. This book begins with a paper on Hypothesis and Models followed by Theory and Met theory, Regions, Models and their Classes. Papers fourth to seventh give the characteristics and elements of a geographical models, while remaining papers present a systematic account of the various types of model and their utility in the discipline of geography.
Models in Geography contain the papers written by the eminent geographers of the post Second World Period. This book provides a clear understanding of this vital aspect of the discipline and therefore may be said as not only useful for the advance courses of geography but indispensable for geographers and researchers of Regional Science.