Martin Lewis on Geography

Martin W. Lewis is lecturer in international history and interim director of the program in International Relations at Stanford University. He graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a degree in Environmental Studies in 1979, and received a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in geography in 1987. His dissertation, and first book, "Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital, and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, 1900-1986," examined the interplay among economic development, environmental degradation, and cultural change in the highlands of northern Luzon in the Philippines. Subsequently, he turned his attention to issues of global geography, writing (with Karen Wigen) "The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography" (University of California Press, 1997). He is also the co-author of a world geography textbook, "Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development" (Prentice Hall), and is the former associate editor of The Geographical Review. Martin W. Lewis taught at the George Washington University and then at Duke University, where he was co-director of the program in Comparative Area Studies, before coming to Stanford University in the fall of 2002. His current research is on the core-periphery model of global spatial relations, focusing on its application to issues in Philippine and world history. He also has his own blog, GeoCurrents, consisting of "map-illustrated analyses of current events and geographical issues" relevant to contemporary politics.