Milton Santos - Böcker

Originally published in 1979. In this forcefully argued book, Milton Santos shows that contemporary explanations of urbanization and spatial organization in underdeveloped countries are inadequate. This failure is attributable to their origins in theories elaborated to explain the development of advanced Western societies. Santos' work provides the basis for the new theory which is so badly needed. He describes the urban economy in these countries in terms of two circuits of activity – an upper circuit consisting of those enterprises and structures which are based on modern technology and are oriented towards the advanced capitalist world, and a lower circuit comprised of more traditional processes and forms of exchange. The dialectical interaction of these two circuits is seen to generate the patterns of growth, forms of State intervention and, above all, the spatial organization characteristic of Third World economies. This was a revision and translation of L’Espace Partagé (1975).

Originally published in 1979. In this forcefully argued book, Milton Santos shows that contemporary explanations of urbanization and spatial organization in underdeveloped countries are inadequate. This failure is attributable to their origins in theories elaborated to explain the development of advanced Western societies. Santos' work provides the basis for the new theory which is so badly needed. He describes the urban economy in these countries in terms of two circuits of activity – an upper circuit consisting of those enterprises and structures which are based on modern technology and are oriented towards the advanced capitalist world, and a lower circuit comprised of more traditional processes and forms of exchange. The dialectical interaction of these two circuits is seen to generate the patterns of growth, forms of State intervention and, above all, the spatial organization characteristic of Third World economies. This was a revision and translation of L’Espace Partagé (1975).

In The Nature of Space, pioneering Afro-Brazilian geographer Milton Santos attends to globalization writ large and how local and global orders intersect in the construction of space. Santos offers a theory of human space based on relationships between time and ontology. He argues that when geographers consider the inseparability of time and space, they can then transcend fragmented realities and partial truths without trying to theorize their way around them. Based on these premises, Santos examines the role of space, which he defines as indissoluble systems of objects and systems of actions in social processes, while providing a geographic contribution to the production of a critical social theory.

In The Nature of Space, pioneering Afro-Brazilian geographer Milton Santos attends to globalization writ large and how local and global orders intersect in the construction of space. Santos offers a theory of human space based on relationships between time and ontology. He argues that when geographers consider the inseparability of time and space, they can then transcend fragmented realities and partial truths without trying to theorize their way around them. Based on these premises, Santos examines the role of space, which he defines as indissoluble systems of objects and systems of actions in social processes, while providing a geographic contribution to the production of a critical social theory.

For the first time in English, a key work of critical geographyOriginally published in 1978 in Portuguese, For a New Geography is a milestone in the history of critical geography, and it marked the emergence of its author, Milton Santos (1926–2001), as a major interpreter of geographical thought, a prominent Afro-Brazilian public intellectual, and one of the foremost global theorists of space.Published in the midst of a crisis in geographical thought, For a New Geography functioned as a bridge between geography’s past and its future. In advancing his vision of a geography of action and liberation, Santos begins by turning to the roots of modern geography and its colonial legacies. Moving from a critique of the shortcomings of geography from the field’s foundations as a modern science to the outline of a new field of critical geography, he sets forth both an ontology of space and a methodology for geography. In so doing, he introduces novel theoretical categories to the analysis of space. It is, in short, both a critique of the Northern, Anglo-centric discipline from within and a systematic critique of its flaws and assumptions from outside.Critical geography has developed in the past four decades into a heterogenous and creative field of enquiry. Though accruing a set of theoretical touchstones in the process, it has become detached from a longer and broader history of geographical thought. For a New Geography reconciles these divergent histories. Arriving in English at a time of renewed interest in alternative geographical traditions and the history of radical geography, it takes its place in the canonical works of critical geography.

For the first time in English, a key work of critical geographyOriginally published in 1978 in Portuguese, For a New Geography is a milestone in the history of critical geography, and it marked the emergence of its author, Milton Santos (1926–2001), as a major interpreter of geographical thought, a prominent Afro-Brazilian public intellectual, and one of the foremost global theorists of space.Published in the midst of a crisis in geographical thought, For a New Geography functioned as a bridge between geography’s past and its future. In advancing his vision of a geography of action and liberation, Santos begins by turning to the roots of modern geography and its colonial legacies. Moving from a critique of the shortcomings of geography from the field’s foundations as a modern science to the outline of a new field of critical geography, he sets forth both an ontology of space and a methodology for geography. In so doing, he introduces novel theoretical categories to the analysis of space. It is, in short, both a critique of the Northern, Anglo-centric discipline from within and a systematic critique of its flaws and assumptions from outside.Critical geography has developed in the past four decades into a heterogenous and creative field of enquiry. Though accruing a set of theoretical touchstones in the process, it has become detached from a longer and broader history of geographical thought. For a New Geography reconciles these divergent histories. Arriving in English at a time of renewed interest in alternative geographical traditions and the history of radical geography, it takes its place in the canonical works of critical geography.

This book presents an alternative theory of globalization that derives not from the dominant perspective of the West, from which this process emerged, but from the critical vantage point of the Third World, which has borne the heaviest burdens of globalization. It offers a critical and uniquely first-hand perspective that is lacking not only from the apologists of Western hegemony, but from most scholars writing against this hegemony from within the globalizing world. Renowned throughout Latin America and parts of Europe, the author, Brazilian geographer Milton Santos, has long been for the most part inaccessible to the English-speaking world. Only one of his books, The Shared Space: The Two Circuits of the Urban Economy in Underdeveloped Countries, published in 1975, has been translated into English; nevertheless, the works of Santos's most important phase, from the 1980s until his death in 2001, have remained unavailable to English readers. With the translation of Towardan Other Globalization, one of the last works published in Santos’s lifetime, this situation has finally been rectified. In this book, Santos argues that we must consider globalization in three different senses: globalization as a fable (the world as globalizing agents make us believe), as perversity (the world as it is presently, in the throes of globalization), and as possibility (the world as it could be). What emerges from the analysis of these three senses is an alternative theory of globalization rooted in the perspective of the so-called Global South. Santos concludes his text with a message that is optimistic, but in no way naïve. What he offers instead is a revolutionary optimism and, indeed, an other globalization.

This book presents an alternative theory of globalization that derives not from the dominant perspective of the West, from which this process emerged, but from the critical vantage point of the Third World, which has borne the heaviest burdens of globalization.