In any edited volume most credit is due to the individual authors. The present case is no exception and we as editors have done little apart from serving as coordinators for a group of friends and colleagues. For once, the responsi bilities are shared. We feel that the collection gives a fair representation of the activities at the frontier of human geography in North America. Whether these premonitions will be further substantiated is of course to be seen. In the meantime, we take refuge in Vico''s saying that "doctrines must take their beginning from that of the matter of which they treat". And yet we also know that new treatments never lead to fmal ends, but rather to new doctrines and to new beginnings. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge those publishers and authors who have given permission to reprint copyrighted materials: Association of American Geographers for Leslie J. King''s ''Alternatives to a Positive Economic Geography'', Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 66,1976; Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd. for Yi-Fu Tuan''s ''Space and Place: Human istic Perspective'', in Christopher Board et al. (eds. ), Progress in Geography, Vol. 6, 1974; Economic Geography for David Harvey''s ''Population, Resources, and the Ideology of Science'' ,Economic Geography, Vol. SO, 1974; Institute of British Geographers for David Ley''s ''Social Geography and the Taken-for-Granted World'', Transactions of the Institute of British Geogra phers, Vol. 2, 1977; and North-Holland Publishing Company for Allen J.
