Space and Place

The Perspective of Experience

2001
Author:

Yi-Fu Tuan

On the 25th anniversary of its publication, a new edition of this foundational work on human geography.

Eminent geographer Yi-Fu Tuan considers the ways in which people feel and think about space, how they form attachments to home, neighborhood, and nation, and how feelings about space and place are affected by the sense of time. He suggests that place is security and space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other. Whether he is considering sacred versus “biased” space, mythical space and place, time in experiential space, or cultural attachments to space, Tuan’s analysis is thoughtful and insightful.

Since it is the breadth and universality of his argument that concerns Yi-Fu Tuan, experience is defined as ‘all the modes by which a person knows and constructs reality,’ and examples are taken with equal ease from non-literate cultures, from ancient and modern oriental and western civilizations, from novels, poetry, anthropology, psychology, and theology. The result is a remarkable synthesis, which reflects well the subtleties of experience and yet avoids the pitfalls of arbitrary classification and facile generalization. For these reasons, and for its general tone and erudition and humanism, this book will surely be one that will endure when the current flurry of academic interest in environmental experience abates.

Canadian Geographer

In the 25 years since its original publication, Space and Place has not only established the discipline of human geography, but it has proven influential in such diverse fields as theater, literature, anthropology, psychology, and theology. Eminent geographer Yi-Fu Tuan considers the ways in which people feel and think about space, how they form attachments to home, neighborhood, and nation, and how feelings about space and place are affected by the sense of time. He suggests that place is security and space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other. Whether he is considering sacred versus “biased” space, mythical space and place, time in experiential space, or cultural attachments to space, Tuan’s analysis is thoughtful and insightful.

Until retiring in 1998, Yi-Fu Tuan was professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is ranked among the country’s most distinguished cultural geographers and has earned numerous honors, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bracken Award for landscape architecture, and an award for meritorious contribution to geography from the Association of American Geographers. He was recently named the Lauréat d’Honneur 2000 of the International Geographical Union. He is the author of many essays and books, including Escapism (1998) and Cosmos and Hearth (Minnesota, 1999).

ISBN 0-8166-3877-2 Paper £12.50 $17.95x
248 Pages 29 black-and-white photos 5 7/8 x 9 February
Translation Inquiries: University of Minnesota Press


Until retiring in 1998, Yi-Fu Tuan was professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was recently named the Lauréat d’Honneur 2000 of the International Geographer’s Union and is the author of many essays and books, including Cosmos and Hearth (Minnesota, 1999).

Since it is the breadth and universality of his argument that concerns Yi-Fu Tuan, experience is defined as ‘all the modes by which a person knows and constructs reality,’ and examples are taken with equal ease from non-literate cultures, from ancient and modern oriental and western civilizations, from novels, poetry, anthropology, psychology, and theology. The result is a remarkable synthesis, which reflects well the subtleties of experience and yet avoids the pitfalls of arbitrary classification and facile generalization. For these reasons, and for its general tone and erudition and humanism, this book will surely be one that will endure when the current flurry of academic interest in environmental experience abates.

Canadian Geographer

Influential.

Annals of the Association of American Geographers