act in which spaces are treated as places. In sum,this chapter, too, is very strong.

Chapter 4, by Susan Schulten, focuses on‘Mapping American history’, and as such mayappear at first to be irrelevant to readers outsidethe United States. Skipping this chapter wouldbe a mistake, however. Schulten frames thechapter not as a history of maps of what is nowthe US, but as an exploration of the interplaybetween maps and the history of that country,with some surprising twists and turns. I wouldargue that the chapter could profitably serve asa model for a similar approach involving othercountries.

The topic of the chapter ‘Visualizing natureand society’, by Michael Friendly and GillesPalsky, is perhaps not obvious from the title, andis in fact a history of thematic mapping and datavisualization. This chapter may be a little diffi-cult for new students to get into, but it contains awealth of information, much of which I was notaware of even as a thematic mapper and teacherof thematic mapping.

The final two chapters (Chapter 6, ‘Mappingimaginary worlds’ by Ricardo Padrón, andChapter 7, ‘Consuming maps’ by Diane Dillon)were to me the least satisfying of the book. Thatbeing said, however, Dillon provides a quiteinteresting look at what we might call ‘maps andsociety’ in (mostly) the western world. Thischapter might make a good addition to otherkinds of geography classes as well as thosefocused on maps and cartography.

Taken as a whole, I see two main weaknessesin Maps. The first is really only a weakness forreaders outside of the United States: the book isvery American-centered even when trying to becross-cultural. The second is the very cursorytreatment of indigenous peoples’ maps andmapping, and is the more serious problem inmy opinion. Some of the chapters do includeexamples of maps made by indigenous peoples,along with some superficial description, but at nopoint is there a real examination of how suchexamples represent fundamentally different waysof thinking about land and place as compared tothe west. In a book that purports to be part of the‘new cartographic history’ this is an odd omis-sion. For this reason instructors using this bookas a text may wish to supplement it with materialthat examines indigenous maps more fully.Despite these two points, however, this book iswell worth an investment of time both for itsillustrations and for its text content, either forgeneral geographers wishing to expand their

knowledge of maps and map-related questions,and for teachers of cartographic history lookingfor a new textbook.

G. Rebecca DobbsUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

USA

Spaces of Security and Insecurity: Geographiesof the War on TerrorAlan Ingram and Klaus Dodds (eds), AshgatePublishing Ltd, Farnham, UK, 2009, ISBN 978 07546 7349 1 (hardback), Stg£60.00.

This new volume in the Critical Geopoliticsseries from Ashgate is a striking example of thepower of a critical approach to human geographyto shine a novel, crystalline light on topicsbeyond the traditional scope of geopolitical andsecurity research. This book is representative ofthe growing enmeshment of disciplinary inter-national relations and political geography withsocial theory and the wide arena of culturalstudies. Within its own terms, it contributes sig-nificantly to the steady colonization of ageinggeopolitical imaginations and not-so-old securityparadigms by theories and practices which, intheir formation and evolution, have sought anddefended their own disciplinary space among thesocial sciences. Examples abound in the eclecticcontributions found here, from the theoreticalinspiration of Foucauldian governmentality tothe application of discourse and ethnographicalanalysis; from feminist critique to postcolonialtheory and on to empirical materials whichinclude artwork, Middle Eastern satellite televi-sion and New Zealand’s ‘war on weeds’. Theeditors claim in their introductory chapter that acentral aim of the book is to illuminate morefully than previously the practices which con-struct ‘security’, thereby re-examining theirexclusionary implications with particular empha-sis on the root causes of human violence andvulnerability. In this endeavour, they and thebook’s contributors are to be applauded, not onlyfor their forthright stand against the consciouslypartisan use and misuse of security (and thusinsecurity) discourse, but for their epistemologi-cal and theoretical resolve in undertaking such aproject.

But what does this move amount to in its reali-sation? Much of it revolves around fields ofaction – interrogated and embodied spaces, ifyou will – and unsurprisingly around the agen-

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cies by which opposition to the global ‘war onterror’, and its construction, are imagined, legiti-mised and directed in an imperfectly understood,and sometimes wilfully misunderstood, post-Cold War and post-9/11 geopolitical world. Theprevailing anagram for this new global war(WOT) can be regarded as only subconsciouslyironic in its capacity (with an added questionmark) to articulate the consternation of many ofits observers in reconciling the need to confrontand defeat the very real dangers of internationalterrorism with the measures currently in placeto do just that. Their discomfort emanates, thediverse chapters of this volume imply, from asense of disempowerment which stems from therealisation that much of what should be consid-ered in imagining, legitimating and applyingresponses to claimed insecurities is missing inaction.

The result is a distinctive assemblage of cross-disciplinary theoretical and methodologicalapproaches, offered as complements to, ratherthan replacements for, more readily recognisablemainstream geopolitical scholarship. Both linesof advance are afforded legitimacy in these pagesthrough either explicit or implied acknowledge-ment that older and newer ways of grapplingwith perceptions of approaching Armageddonmust co-exist successfully if coherent responsesare to be expected in plural societies, as well asfrom political leaderships. Along the way, theselargely fine-grained and carefully argued contri-butions allow the ready alignment of the specificwith the contextual.

In one sense, what is most heartening about thevaried analyses offered here is that they are, in themain, the work of early career researchers whohave taken up the opportunity to deliver a strongmessage about the mutability of academicendeavours, of the need for free and open inter-action within social scientific debate as the com-fortably entrenched is confronted by the fresh andthe innovative. The message is, of course, thatthere is room for the latter, in company with theformer. One illustrative example is SuthaharanNadarajah’s Foucauldian analysis of the ways inwhich the domestic discourse of terrorism inliberal democracies condition and shape theconduct of political activity in support of distantconflicts. In his ‘Disciplining the diaspora:Tamil self-determination and the politics ofproscription’, the international proscription of theLiberation Tigers of Tamil Elam as a terroristorganisation, and the alleged criminalisation ofthe political liberation project of the Tamil

diaspora which accompanied it, is the focus ofNadarajah’s analysis demonstrating the spread-ing trans-national agency of domestic politicaldiscourse. The Canadian experience provides oneinstance of this phenomenon in action.

A more idiosyncratic contribution is KeziaBarker’s thoughtful analysis of the problematicdiscursive processes involved in the merging ofbio-security with anthropo-security paradigms ina country with a strongly defensive bio-securityregime. In ‘Garden terrorists and the war onweeds: interrogating New Zealand’s biosecurityregime’, Barker discusses the conceptual andpractical difficulties inherent in using subjec-tively defined ‘security’ and ‘terror’ in assessingNew Zealand’s national responses to securing itsnatural environment against exotic and unwel-come biota. The use of expressions connotingparallel invasions by the Other must, she asserts,in this case be treated with caution in a world inwhich discourses on war, terror and securityeventually become normalized.

These are merely two examples from a widerange of disparate but nonetheless thematicallylinked analyses in which historicity, the construc-tion of ‘security’, the role of borderlands, thebusiness of security, and the all-pervasive natureof the War on Terror each find expression. Thiscollection of case studies deserves close attentionfrom those interested in advancing understandingof how the critical imagination can contributenew perspectives in countering the rise of globalterror.

Christopher HubbardCurtin University of Technology

Australia

Environmental Decision-Making: ExploringComplexity and PracticeRonnie Harding, Carolyn M. Hendriks andMehreen Farquqi, The Federation Press,Leichhardt, Australia, 2009, 400 pp, ISBN978 1 8628 7748 1 (paperback), A$55.00.

The three authors Harding, Hendriks and Faruqibetween them bring a wealth of expertise to thistext encompassing academic and practical expe-rience that spans political, social, economic andhands-on management elements. Dr RonnieHarding after retiring from her role as foundingdirector of the Institute of Environmental Studiesat the University of New South Wales is nowSenior Visiting Fellow with the Institute. Dr

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© 2010 The AuthorsGeographical Research © 2010 Institute of Australian Geographers