This work compiles essays produced by Dr. Huntington concerning the usefulness of geography and climatology for understanding history and for projecting probable environmental outcomes. The work is broken into three parts. The first section of the work deals with more theoretical essays that demonstrate Dr. Huntington’s method. The latter two sections collect studies that address themselves to geographic and climatic issues within key regions, the Mediterranean Basin and Central Asia. In these studies one can see Professor Huntington’s at applied to specific case studies. All of these sections are introduced by a masterful introduction to the life and career of this influential scholar by Dr. Barry Vann. Dr. Vann’s introduction illuminates Dr. Huntington’s place within the history of geographic studies and climatology and provides great insight into his theories and their potential application. This work is of great value to students of geography and climatology as well as those interested in the history of the Mediterranean, the Near East and Central Asia.

Ellsworth Huntington (1876-1947) was a professor of geography and economics at Yale University. He completed his Bachelor’s degree at Beloit College in Wisconsin, his Master’s degree at Harvard and his doctoral work at Yale. His research in geography, economics and climatic determinism is renowned.

Dr. Barry Vann holds two doctorates, including a PhD dually awarded by the Faculties of Geography and Earth Science and Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Glasgow. Professor Vann is becoming known as an authority on population change, religion and secular society. Since 1998, he has published three books that connect real and imagined religious communities created by British policies on Northern Ireland to subsequent Protestant migrations to colonial North America where Irish Protestants helped form the theologically inspired and politically powerful region known as the Bible Belt. His latest work tackles the demographic, political and social changes occurring in the secular west as migration from Islamic countries increases. He has also authored a number of articles for refereed journals on topics ranging from transatlantic studies to historical sociology.