The Nature of Space

The Nature of Space

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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. Milton Santos (1926–2001) was Professor of Geography at the University of São Paulo and the author of many books, including The Shared Space: The Two Circuits of the Urban Economy in Underdeveloped Countries.
Brenda Baletti teaches in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University.
Susanna Hecht is Professor of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles and Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Introduction to the English-Language Edition: Milton Santos: Rebel of the Backlands, Insurgent Academic, Prescient Scholar / Susanna Hecht  vii
Introduction  1
Part I. An Ontology of Space: Founding Ideas
1. Techniques, Time, and Geographic Space  13
2. Space: Systems of Objects, Systems of Action  34
3. Geographic Space, a Hybrid  53
Part II. The Production of Content-Forms
4. Space and the Notion of Totality  69
5. From the Diversification of Nature to the Territorial Division of Labor  81
6. Time (Events) and Space  91
Part III. For a Geography of the Present
7. The Current Technical System  111
8. Unicities: The Production of Planetary Intelligence  124
9. Objects and Actions Today: Norms and Territory  142
10. From the Natural Milieu to the Technical-Scientific-Informational Milieu  157
11. For a Geography of Networks  177
12. Horizontalities and Verticalities  192
13. Spaces of Rationality  198
Part IV. The Power of Place
14. Place and the Everyday  215
Universal Order, Local Order: Summary and Conclusion  229
Notes  237
References  241
Index  273

“Milton Santos was one of the most important Black thinkers in the Americas writing in the last four decades, one of the most important Brazilian intellectuals of all time, and one of the most cited and noteworthy geographers in Latin America. This extremely important translation subverts our tendencies to ignore scholarship being produced in the global South and marks a key step in decolonizing thought in US academe.”
“Milton Santos is one of the most distinguished intellectuals of our epoch. So many of us have learned from him. I have long seen in his work something that became one of my modus operandi: transversality . . . not the familiar knowledge silos but the cutting across of those silos.”
"Milton Santos has offered one map for crossing the perilous terrain of academic specialties. At a time when so many take geography for granted as maps appear at our fingertips with the click of a button, this deeply humanistic guide may prompt us to ask anew where in the world we have been set down."
"There is little doubt that Milton Santos (1926–2001) is the most important Brazilian geographer of all time. . . . The most obvious audience of this work is advanced graduate students and scholars from departments across social sciences. Geographers will benefit from being exposed to one of the most important Brazilian books in our field of knowledge, and other social scientists will acquire tools to increasingly recognize the importance of space as a relevant category of analysis of society in our current times, a mo(ve)ment that is long overdue."

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Weight 1 oz
Dimensions 1 × 6 × 9 in