Wallerstein and Kondratiev Waves

One of the theories of Superpowers in A level Geography touches upon Wallerstein's World Systems Theory; a theory rooted in the belief that capitalism will be replaced by a socialist economy, thus combined with the decline of the current hegemonic superpower, the US.

His theory rejected the notion of the 'Third World' claiming that there is only one world connected by complex networks & relationships (in essence, globalisation). In this one world, there is a lasting division of labour between the core, semi-periphery and periphery. In addition, Wallerstein's ideas fit into the economic concept of 'Super cycles', a theory developed by Nikolai Kondratiev.

Kondratiev argued that since the Industrial Evolutionary the capitalist economy has experienced 5 distinctive waves:

• The Industrial Revolution 1771
• The Age of Steam and Railways 1829
• The Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering 1875
• The Age of Oil, the Automobile and Mass Production 1908
• The Age of Information and Telecommunications 1971

Wallerstein argues that since the wars in Iraq we are due for another super cycle and another shift in superpower status!

Further reading:

http://www.iwallerstein.com/

http://www.kondratieffwavecycle.com/kondratieff-wave/

http://www.thelongwaveanalyst.ca/

Top Energy Security site - The oildrum

A fantastic link for anybody studying Energy Security: http://www.theoildrum.com/

Geography: The silent human science

Along the corridors of our school the walls are festooned with images and words relating to the different subjects taught at the school. As i was walking along RE's corridor i was caught by the display of 'RE in the news'. The images and words all directly related to the subject and many news headlines had the subject word in their headline - how fitting i smirked - for it reminded me of my year 7 prep of 'What is Geography?' in which pupils have to research and produce a collage of news headlines linked to geography. Of course if you have not worked it out already the difference between the 2 displays was that the word 'geography', unlike 'RE', was not used by the media in their headlines.

The anecdote above for me encapsulates the problem the subject has at school and the discipline has at university and beyond. Quite simply, geography is everywhere but not talked about publicly - it is not common parlance among the media - thus it is the silent human science!

This was further emphasised by no other than Professor A.C. Grayling - Master of the New College of the Humanities (http://www.nchum.org/). He came to the school to talk about the importance of the Humanities as well as his new 'private' university, NCHUM. As i sat in the lecture and heard Grayling in a rather pompous and ebullient mood ramble on about disciplines like Literature, Philosophy, History and even Sociology it became clear that Geography was not going to feature; despite being labelled a 'Humanities subject' in virtually all state schools and being a social science that offers a holistic overview of the big picture! Surely if there was ever a 'Human Science' Geography would be right up there contending for the top place. It is geographers who ask the big questions (philosophy) and propose solutions (albeit in varying guises as oceanographers, environmental scientists, geologists etc); it is geographers who tell stories of the landscape and of past conflicts within nature and between nature and humans (History); it is geographers who have the unique ability to carry out primary research through fieldwork, interpret and analyse data, look at things through a spatial medium and link  'objective' Science to the more 'subjective' disciplines.

In short Geography matters (even Google support us; see link below) - it is in my opinion the silent human science. Our work covers a wide range of scales and we look at a variety of time periods in order to understand the landscape. I hope that in time the discipline evolve into being recognised more as the holistic discipline which is unique it it's ability to provide an overview in helping answers the global problems that society faces today.

It is said that Einstein took up Physics because he found geography too difficult!

Further reading/links:

http://www.fpri.org/orbis/4702/mcdougall.geographymatters.html