THE%20GEOGRAPHY%20OF%20EXPLORATION%20AND%20DISCOVERY

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THE GEOGRAPHY OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY
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EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY

• Critical part of the human condition

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CONNECTIONS

• How are people and places connected?
• Why these connections?
• When did they develop?
• What trade networks,
• or accessibility links,
• are there between
• places?

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• Expansion from core area
• (Out of Africa)

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• Rise of cultural hearths
• (sedentary settlements)
• Nile, Fertile Crescent,
• Americas, Indus Valley,
• Ganges, etc.

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MOTIVATIONS FOR EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY

• HUMAN DESIRE TO SEE
• 
  WHATS OVER THE HILL
• NEED FOR MORE RESOURCES
• TRIBAL / IMPERIALISTIC / EMPIRE AMBITIONS
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  (TERRITORY)

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Political geography of territory and
resources TERRITORY RESOURCES RESOURCES
POWER POWER MORE TERRITORY
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Venetian and Genoan Trade Networks
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GOING GLOBAL

• GREAT CHINESE FLEETS -
• early 15TH CENT.
• (Indian and Pacific Ocean voyages)

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GOING GLOBAL

• EUROPEAN VOYAGES -
  
• 1450s
  onwards
• (Caravelle, astrolabe, gunpowder, etc.)
• GREAT CHINESE FLEETS -
• 15TH CENTURY
• (Indian and Pacific Ocean voyages)

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EUROPEANEXPLORATION
15TH 18TH centuries Sub-Saharan
Africa/Asia Slowly incorporated into the Atlantic
trade system
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AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

• Belief in power of science to help humans
  understand their place in the world -
• The Age of Reason
• ? Scientific expeditions across the planet

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KONDRATIEFF CYCLES
EXPLORATION-DISCOVERY AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT

• FIRST CYCLE 1760s to 1820s
• Technology Steam, Mining, Factories
• The Industrial Revolution
• Cycle is a /- 30-year rise on innovation
• and a /- 30-year decline until next
  innovation

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PACIFIC EXPLORATION

• Britains James Cook
• (1728-1779)

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KONDRATIEFF CYCLES

• SECOND CYCLE 1820s to 1880s
• (Empire Building)
• Technology Railroad, Steamships, Telegraph

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PLANNED RAILROAD ROUTES - FRENCH WEST AFRICA
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AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY EXPLORATIONS

• Founded in 1851 in New York
• The AGS mission exploration and discovery
• Research focus Arctic and Antarctic
• Notables Grinnell, Muir, Pres. Wilson,
• Isaiah Bowman, FDR ..

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KONDRATIEFF CYCLES

• THIRD CYCLE 1880s to 1945
• Technology Automobiles, airplanes,
• telephones, weaponry.
• The Age of the great European
• out-migrations.. (1830s to 1930s)

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AGE OF EMPIRES

• 1886 CONFERENCE OF BERLIN
• Opening up Africa scramble for
• resources and territory

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FRENCH INDO-CHINA1850s 1950s
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KONDRATIEFF CYCLES

• FOURTH CYCLE 1945 to early 1990s
• Technology Space, communications, the
  quantitative revolution
• The Atomic Age.
• The Cold War .

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KONDRATIEFF CYCLES

• FIFTH CYCLE early 1990s to 2050s ??
• Technology digital, biotech, nanotechnology,
  GPS/GIS (spatial mapping), massive infrastructure
  (renewal?)

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KONDRATIEFF CYCLES

• FIFTH CYCLE early 1990s to 2050s ??
• The Age of Globalization
• The Age of Cultural Conflicts ????
• The Age of Climate Change !!!!!
• (Human Impacts)

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21st CENTURY EXPLORATION

• What are the new exploration and discovery
  challenges for the 21st century?

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21st CENTURY EXPLORATION

• Oceans ?
• Space ?
• The Human Genome project ?
• Human Environment Relationships ?

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THANK YOU!