community blogging

Introducing the Geocurrents Community Blog

Article-Grid, Site News / By Martin W. Lewis

A new heading appears on this website today: the Geocurrents Community Blog. This separate “blog in a blog” showcases student work, with all of its entries produced by the students currently enrolled in my seminar on the history and geography of current global events at Stanford University. In years past, I simply asked students to write research papers on topics of their own choosing. Many would put considerable effort into such projects, and it always seemed a waste that no one else had access to their work. So this year, as an experiment, I asked them to write two blog posts rather than one conventional paper, again on topics of their own selection. Their initial efforts are now available for public view – and public comment. I hope Geocurrents readers will take a few minutes to read the student postings, and to provide commentary if it is warranted. Through informed criticism and clarification we can all learn a bit more about the world.

About GeoCurrents

GeoCurrents is dedicated to exploring the geographical and historical patterns that underlie the world’s current events and that structure global and regional relationships. Maps are used in all posts not merely to show where events occur, but also to illustrate the processes involved.

GeoCurrents tries to avoid taking sides on contentious issues, seeking rather to foster an enriching exchange of information and ideas. As its scope is both fully global and deeply historical, the author is usually operating outside of his own fields of expertise. As a result, mistakes and simplifications can be expected. Corrections and elaborations are more than welcome in the comments section. Comments with insulting or abusive language, however, will be deleted.

Readers interested in opinion-based essays by Martin W. Lewis will be able to find them on his personal webpage.

About The Author

Martin W. Lewis is senior lecturer emeritus at Stanford University, where he taught world history and world geography from 2002 to 2022. He earned a PhD in geography from the University of California at Berkeley in 1988, and previously taught at George Washington University and Duke University. A list of his published works will soon be made available on his personal website.

GeoCurrents’ Conceptual Concerns

GeoCurrents is concerned about almost anything that has a geographical expression and hence can be explored and elucidated through maps. Topics of interest range from the deadly serious to the quirky and whimsical.

Many GeoCurrents posts take on issues of political geography, ranging from wars and ethnic conflicts to electoral returns. Behind these writings is a conviction that the basic world political map is unduly simplistic, making the world seem much more orderly than it really is. A book-length elaboration of this thesis – entitled Seduced by the Map – will be available on the author’s personal webpage by the end of 2023, if not earlier. The introduction and initial chapters on this book can be found on this website. A summary of the main arguments in Seduced by the Map can be found here.

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