Bavaud F., Mager C. (eds.) Handbook of Theoretical and Quantitative Geography

Lausanne: FGSE, University of Lausanne, 2009. — 470 p.Modern geography is alive, robust and flourishing. This is what I conclude from the recently published 'Handbook of Theoretical and Quantitative Geography', edited by François Bavaud and Christophe Mager of the University of Lausanne. The book contains twelve substantive papers in 457 pages. I say substantive because they average 38 pages each, with appropriate empirical data, and treat subjects both old and new. The old are topics of long standing interest; the new are à la mode, so to speak.
All are based on a conference of the same name held in 2007 in Montreux, Switzerland, on the lovely north shore of the Lake of Geneva. The European Colloquia for Theoretical and Quantitative Geography have now been held for many years, but, in my opinion, are not sufficiently well known outside of Europe. Unexpectedly there is one presentation that cogently argues the merits of qualitative approaches to information.
Papers from scientific conferences are most often a heterogeneous lot and often of widely variable quality. That is not the case here. The materials were obviously carefully selected and clearly warrant the 'Handbook' title. The authors came from Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. One third of the papers actually came from authors residing in two different countries, which speaks well for inter-country collaboration, an objective of the European Union.