A massive continent, stretching from Turkey and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and Red seas to the Pacific, from the Indian Ocean to the vast desert of Mongolia right through the towering Himalayas and the plateau of Tibet, Asia is a colossal geographic collage. One can find in Asia virtually every form of landscape, both real and imagined, including James Hilton's (1933) Shangri-La, planted in the imaginative geography of Western travelers and tourists (also see Bishop 1989). As the cradle of three of the world's early civilizations, Asia is a magnificent tapestry of cultural diversity. Asia has also given birth to all the major institutional religions that are practiced today: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and others. As such, few would deny its enormous historical significance and contributions to human progress in every respect - spiritually, materially, and intellectually. Home to some 60 per cent of the world's population, Asia is a human mosaic that is unparalleled in history (Table 1). So it is hardly surprising that Asia offers endless research challenges and opportunities, virtually in every field of geographical studies. With this in mind, this chapter is divided into four major sections. First, we provide a brief journalistic survey of major regional political events across Asia. This is followed by a segment on the state of Asian geography in America in the second part. Third, we discuss some of the developments, trends and research themes in Asian geography in America during the period, 1988-2000.2 Finally, we conclude the chapter with some general remarks on the vexing question of what lies ahead for regional geography.

We explore this question not because we foresee an imminent demise of regional geography, but because some of the remarkable developments during the 1990s have definite impacts on the way we see and do regional geography. Particularly relevant to our exploratory discussion of the emerging dilemma or challenge for regional geography are: 1) the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading to the end of the Cold War, and 2) the phenomenal speed of advancements in the field of information and communication technologies.3 The Cold War's end has deeply affected the configuration of regional geography. This is particularly pronounced in Asia, an intensely contested territory of many hot and cold geopolitical battles over the past fifty years and now a crucial frontier of global capitalism.

As the defunct Cold War has prompted some scholars to advance the competing theories of the borderless world (the end of history, the end of nation states, and, hence, the end of geography) and the clash of civilizations (cultural/religious wars), questions arise about regional geography and its relevance, viability, and future directions. Of specific concern is the normative question of how geographers ought to conceptualize and analyze regional issues in view of galloping globalization and potential civilizational conflicts, when both of theses phenomena defy the conventional notion of region as a contiguous spatial entity. Then there are issues about national alignments or groupings, a form of regionalization of different sovereign nations, based on such characteristics as the level of economic and technological development or particular political and economic agenda. Complicating such alignments is the tendency for them to shift from time to time. All these raise questions about what constitutes a region. What are the parameters of regional analyses? However, the regional review of Asian geographic research in America offered later in this chapter reveals that Asianist geographers have already begun to chart this vast terrain from different angles, especially in the context of East and Southeast Asia (also see Lin 2000; Yeung 1998). Certainly, there is a lot more to be done, but the foundation has been laid. Therefore, much of our attention is focused on the issue of information and communication technologies as it is inherently related to one fundamental function of regional geography: to produce, synthesize, and disseminate regional information. It is precisely this function, after all, that forms the public and popular domain of regional geography, regardless of how we view and project it. The issue revolves around the question of speed as related to the production and dissemination of regional data and information. The phenomenal advancements in these technologies have fundamentally altered the nature of such regional information generation and distribution, thereby significantly affecting the role of regional geography. With this premise, our principal expectation is that this exploratory discussion will set the stage for a lively and constructive discourse on the future direction(s) of regional geography which, in large measure, determines the fate of Asian geography.

A GLIMPSE OF THE ASIAN SCENES AND ECONOMIC CRISIS
This review covers some of the notable changes that Asia has witnessed since 1988, mainly focusing on those that have significant implications for its evolving role in the global economy and international politics and how they inform and reorient its regional geography. This survey is intended to serve two specific purposes simultaneously. First, it sets a broad geographical context for the regional focus of this chapter. Second, it indicates that almost all the issues underlying this brief survey of the Asian scenes provide an excellent foundation for geographical research.

To begin with, although Deng Xiaoping has passed away, his post-Mao policy of Four Modernizations continues to serve as the steering wheel of China's ever deepening involvement with the market economy, often euphemistically dubbed "market socialism." Once inducted into the World Trade Organization, China's market economy will most likely be fully formalized. In addition, Hong Kong has been finally returned to its fold. However, suspicion about China dealing a crushing blow to its relative economic autonomy, still runs relatively rampant within this tiny territory where the practice of free market often reaches its extremes. Across the strait, Taiwan, despite its deepening economic woes, has emerged as a leading foreign investor in China, but remains defiant and vigilant of its intention. In the meantime, the election of Chen Shui-bian as the island's president has not only ended the Kuomintang's hold on power, but also added a new episode to what may be labeled a "big Taiwan question." Mr. Chen has long been a fervent advocate of Taiwan's independence, and was elected despite China's vehement opposition and the Kuomintang's use of the terror card during the campaign. The question is bound to hang heavy as both Washington and Beijing keep a close watch on the realpolitik of international diplomacy.

Also long gone is North Korea's Kim Il Sung, one of the products of the Cold War that led to the Korean War and the subsequent partition of the peninsula. However, his son seems to carry on his legacy, remaining faithful to its communist ideals and defying immense pressure from the United States. So far, it is the only unyielding Asian chip in the capitalist domino play of the Cold War that the United States has waged in Asia for the past fifty years. For the US, it is a nagging gnat that refuses to be swatted away. Accustomed to the ingrained Cold War mentality - or hegemonic thinking as some might claim - the US appears determined to continue its policy until all the domino chips are brought down to comply with its global design. Further down along the peninsula, the presidency of Kim Dae Jung, once a self-proclaimed socialist who barely survived an assassination plot in the early 1980s, represents a remarkable feat of personal achievement. From a national viewpoint, his ascension to power is not only a clear rebuke of South Korea's dictatorial tradition and regional politics, but also a significant victory for democracy. In addition to carefully guiding the country through its serious economic crisis, Kim Dae Jung has seemingly made some inroad in his peninsular diplomacy to gradually nudge North and South Korea toward a zone of mutual trust and, hopefully, eventual reunification.

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam has followed the same economic path that China has charted, opening up its borders to welcome ever expansive agents of global capital. But in Indonesia, the Asian economic crisis has swallowed its first political victim as President Suharto was forced to abdicate his power that he usurped more than thirty years ago from President Sukarno through a military coup. Furthermore, Indonesia has lost its repressive grip over East Timor after it failed to drown its liberation aspirations in the pool of East Timorese blood. And, now, Suharto's successor Habibie has been replaced by Megawati Sukarnoputri, a daughter of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno. However, her rise to presidency has been marred by public doubts about her ability to effectively govern this huge archipelago nation of more than 200 million people, the largest Muslim country in the world. A similar political development occurred in the Philippines where President Joseph Estrada was deposed on perjury charges and replaced by President Gloria Macapagal Arroya, the late president Diosdado Macapagal's daughter. Both Indonesia and Philippines continue to suffer from the grimy economic outlooks. No less troubling is the growing Islamic opposition to what Indonesian protesters consider to be the blatant US bias against Arabs and Islam in its self-declared war on Afghanistan. In the Philippines, the Muslim guerilla movement has been quite active for many years and now may spill its own wrath against US citizens and interest in the country. The economic picture of Thailand, the nation that was viewed as a buffer state between the British and French colonial empires, remains equally gloomy, although its southern neighbors, Malaysia and Singapore, have been relatively less affected by Asia's ongoing economic crisis. To its west, the rich land of Myanmar continues to be mired in militarism. By aborting the outcome of the national election, its military rulers have denied Daw Aung San Suu Kyi her electoral right to form a civilian, democratic government.

On the Indian subcontinent, what is notable is the rise of Hindu fundamentalism in India, a country that prides itself in religious pluralism and openness. It is a scenario that is no less daunting than that seen in other religions such as Christianity and Islam. This undercurrent of fundamentalism has erected the specter of religious nativism as it has brought a staunchly Hindu party to power. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the party has won two consecutive elections. Additionally, the nuclear age has arrived on the subcontinent. India has passed its nuclear test, prompting Pakistan to follow suit. Now that both countries have successfully joined the nuclear club, the subcontinent has been thrust into a heightened state of militarism. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the late prime minister of Pakistan, envisioned a day when his country would have what he referred to as its own 'Islamic' bomb to match the 'Christian' bomb, the 'Jewish' bomb, and the 'Hindu' bomb.

Ironically, however, Bhutto's dream was attained under the rule of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the archenemy of his daughter, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the first female head of an Islamic state, who has risen to power twice and gone down both times as a fallen angel. In October 1999, Mr Sharif was overthrown in a bloodless coup in which General Pervez Musharraf seized power, thus short-circuiting, once again, any hope of lasting democracy in Pakistan. It is, however, relevant to note that President Musharraf's rule is quite shaky, especially given his open support to the Bush administration's overt decision to overthrow the Taliban government in Afghanistan.4 Standing at the crossroads of South, Southwest, and Central Asia, Afghanistan was once regarded as the former Soviet Union's Vietnam. But now it has come under relentless and enormous strikes by the US forces because of its refusal to hand over Mr Osama bin Laden, believed to be the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks that shook up America and shattered its ingrained sense of invincibility.

The real question is not, however, who will win the war. What is at issue is the prospect of increased and wide-spread Islamic militancy, multi-front hit-and-run struggles to haunt the US which most Muslims perceive to be the real power behind Israeli attacks against Palestinians. In these struggles, "terror" will, of course, be the weapon of choice, for it is the most potent weapon of the weak who have little military ability to engage in conventional battles against the US, the mightiest power in the world. As the magnitude of the US-led destruction of poor and militarily weak Afghanistan, whose only reliable and biggest weapon against the West's fire power may be its hostile topography and its people's tenacity and dogged resiliency, goes way beyond any reasonable international norms of proportionality, the war will be treated by the Muslim masses across the world as a new crusade against Islam irrespective of the repeated denials by the Bush and Blair administrations. As innocent Afghanis (including children and women) are counted as collateral casualties and countless hit the refugee trails covered with clouds of dust, and as the crushing winter joins the forces of massive hunger to devour many weak and feeble refugees, along with the injured, those tragic pictures will be beamed in every corner of the world by CNN and BBC (assuming that the US and Britain do not muzzle or restrain them from showing such pictures; on October 17, Duncan Campbell of Guardian News Service reported that "The Pentagon has spent millions of dollars to prevent Western media from seeing highly accurate civilian satellite pictures of the effects of bombing in Afghanistan. The images, which are taken from Ikonos, an advanced civilian satellite launched in 1999, are better than the spy satellite pics...The decision to shut down access to satellite images was taken last Thursday, after reports of heavy civilian casualties from the overnight bombing." This was subsequently reported by Michael Gordon in The New York Times).

As those pictures are intimately linked to devastating US strikes, the public sentiment in the Muslim world will be inflamed, filled with rage and bitterness toward the US. So, even if the US manages to demolish the Taliban infrastructure and regime and liquidate bin Laden, it will not be able to defeat terrorism, especially if it fails to restrain Israel from its current course of policy/action that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pursued and address Palestinian rights and tragedies with sincerity and seriousness. The Talibans may lose, but they will not vanish. And anti-US terrorism will rear its head in many places and in many forms until the US is prepared to deal with the root cause of "terrorism" in the realms of policies rather than in the fields of battles.

Although the future is difficult to forecast with any certainty, the likely long-range outcome of the short-sighted US military destruction of Afghanistan may prove to be one of more chaos, complication, and consternation. The country is bound to be further fragmented, geographically, politically and ethnically. If Afghanistan emerges as the epicenter of global Islamic militancy and becomes politically unstable - both of which are more than mere prospects - the ripple effects of the American war will reach far beyond the immediate region. Within South Asia, the ever fragile balance of power in its regional politics will be disrupted, thereby further compounding the quagmire of Kashmir, a huge landmine for both India and Pakistan; more conflicts and more suffering will follow. If this scenario unfolds, the US will have only plowed anew the very field that the British left fractured. As the late Chinese Premier Chou En Lai once remarked about one of the most damning legacies of British colonialism, "Wherever the British went, they left a little tail behind." Once savaged by European colonialism, Asia's regional geography now appears to be inseparably fated to the omnipresent tentacles of the American global agenda which at times is designed more for domestic political consumption and expediency than for lasting international peace and invariably based on one-sided power relations rather than mutually-respectful cooperation.

Even the tiny Himalayan nation of Nepal has made some headlines as it became in the early 1990s the first country in Asia to have formed a popularly elected communist government. Although the minority communist government has lost its power, the party is currently the main opposition party in the parliament. Excluded from this party is the Maoist group that has been, since early 1996, launching a nationwide people's (guerilla) war, currently establishing its control over more than 25 per cent of the country. This is an interesting development precisely because it is taking place at a time in history when communism has suffered serious setbacks in the aftermath of the Soviet disintegration and when globalization is seemingly the order of the day. In addition, the country witnessed a horrendous royal massacre --never seen in history before --one in which every member of King Birendra's immediate royal lineage was wiped out by his own Crown Prince son Dipendra who later took his own life. Consequently, the royal lineage was passed on to Birendra's brother Gyanendra. And Sri Lanka is still deeply submerged in its ongoing ethnic civil war. As this war has been raging for many years, it has consumed many lives on both the Tamil and Sinhalese sides, the two feuding ethnic and religious factions in the country.

In Southwest Asia, although almost everything seems stalemated, much has happened since 1988. The region is a major concern for the US for two primary reasons. First, it is currently the largest source of oil. Second, some of the principal choke points of global sea lanes are located in the Middle East, thus making its regional geography vitally critical for the US and for global capitalism. If any of these points is closed, it could cause major havoc for the global shipping industry and hence for the global economy. The memory of Egypt being bombed and invaded by the Western powers, namely the British and French troops, in 1956 when President Nasser decided to nationalize the Suez Canal is still fresh in many minds. Aside from lending military support to the Israeli forces, the objective of Western invasion of Egypt was to insure that the canal, perhaps the most important artery of global shipping, stayed open.

More than thirty years after the Shah's dethronement, Iran still operates outside the American sphere of influence, with a firmly fundamentalist bent in its theocratic rule. Hopes were raised by the electoral victory of reform-minded president Mohammad Khatami about the prospect of initiating a dialogue with the US, but they have yet to materialize. In addition to the current war against Afghanistan discussed above, the Gulf War that the US orchestrated against Iraq constitutes not only a significant event, but also a powerful marker of American resolve to keep the region under its control. In the mid-1970s, President Gerald Ford openly threatened that, if necessary, the US would intervene in the Middle East militarily to keep the oil pipelines flowing without any interruption. And President (father) George Bush fulfilled Ford's promise some 15 years later. However, the much anticipated demise of Saddam Hussein was apparently overstated.

Significant developments of both a positive and negative nature took place in regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict. They include a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan, Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, and, certainly, the creation of the Palestine National Authority (or Palestinian homeland) with its patchwork rule over portions of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Yet, as of this writing, negotiations are once again far from producing a peaceful resolution to the entrenched conflict and a viable state for Palestinians. One recent development that is clearly noteworthy is that President (son) Bush has, although passingly, floated the US wish to see the formation of the Palestinian State. Adding to his comment, Secretary of State Powell stated, "There's no question the continuing difficulties between the Israelis and the Palestinians are...a major disturbing feature that causes the kind of situation we are in to exist, where it fuels discontent" (Strobel 2001: 8A). It is not clear, however, how hard Bush will strive to create the Palestinian State, especially if the war in Afghanistan is a short affair and the Arab support for it proves to be not that critical. Moreover, acutely strained Israeli-Palestinian relations remain a giant impediment to the question of Palestinian statehood. In addition, political leadership in the region is in transition, notably with dynastic rule of various sorts providing successors in Jordan and Syria and in Morocco. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York (World Trade Center) and Washington (Pentagon) - two powerful symbols of US domination of global finance and global politics (and military) - the regional geography of the Middle East again is being portrayed as a political quagmire and a source of terrorism. As in the past, the complexity of Southwest Asia is overwhelmed by common images that feed cultural stereotypes in which Arabs are branded as terrorists. What is most disturbing about such xenophobic tendencies is that the whole region and its people are chained to the shackles of these cultural stereotypes as they are generalized across the whole region. One spoiled apple in a basket full of apples, and the whole basket is labeled rotten.

But few of these political developments have been as geographically overarching in their scopes as the ongoing economic crisis that started in Japan, once considered the vanguard of what many proclaimed to be "The Pacific Century." The crisis soon diffused in many countries in East and Southeast Asia. As the crisis lingers, it threatens to drown the vision of capitalist globalism.5 In January 1998, Business Week carried a cover story on the Asian economic crisis, clearly documenting that it not only mars many Asian countries, but also stalks the much vaunted sanctity of today's global economy. It wrote, "The US sees the next century as the age of globalization, free market and increasing prosperity. It's a beautiful vision. A devastated Asia will make a mockery of it" (Business Week 1998: 30). In the same article, Eisuke Sakakibara, Japan's vice-minister for international affairs, bluntly remarks: "This isn't an Asian crisis, it is a crisis of global capitalism" (p. 28). This is a sobering comment whose gravity is heightened by the fact that Japan, once thought to be rock-solid and generally immune to such periodic crisis of capitalism, remains buried in it. In short, the dragon land of Asia has been a drag on the global economy.

In November 2000, Business Week published a special report on the crisis of global capitalism that Mr. Sakakibara spoke of three years ago. The report was not only timely in that it was published at a time when anti-globalization protests were sprouting all over and the US economy was showing signs of teetering after a relatively long joy ride, but also surprisingly frank in its assessment of globalization's debilitating impacts on the poor and downtrodden across the globe. At any rate, the dyke that kept the global economy from being swept away was mainly anchored to the twin pillars of America's booming bull market and insatiable consumerism. Even before these signs of America's economic decline were on the horizon, some wondered loudly how long this US dyke would fend off the Asian crisis (see Greider 2000). Wonder one does not have to any more. Caught in the vortex of Asia's persistent economic flu and the weight of its own oversaturation, the US economy is experiencing a recession. Given this, whether Asia's economic vitality is fundamental to the continued US economic well-being and to the global economy is a moot question. What is interesting to note here is that this is the first time all three centers in the tripolar system of global capitalism - the US, Japan, and Western Europe - are undergoing a period of serious downturn at the same time (also see British Broadcasting Service 2001). These are potentially dire times. So the questions are: how long will this global economic bust last, which of the three poles will reemerge first from the economic sinkhole and begin pulling the heavy wagon of global capitalism, and when will the Asian economic boat float again so it can lift the global economy? To wit, answers to these questions are beyond the boundary of this chapter. Our attempt is, therefore, naturally limited to a cursory discussion of the Asian economic predicament in relation to the last question.

Long subjugated to the rapacity of European colonialism, Asia emerged as an economic powerhouse in the 1970s and 1980s. During the development decades of the 1950s and 1960s, Western economic gurus were almost universally disdainful of the so-called Asian values or what Karl Marx called the Asian mode of production. To them, these values were the root cause of Asia's sluggish economic growth and backwardness. Then came the 1970s and 1980s when, under the aegis of export-oriented industrialization and led by Japan, many East and Southeast Asian countries posted exploding rates of economic growth that few other countries could match.6 Centrally configured into US geopolitics, Taiwan and South Korea greatly benefitted from the Cold War as US capital was infused, along with the US push for land reforms in both countries. For example, as a leading contractor for the US during its involvement in Vietnam, South Korea found a reliable source of capital formation which proved to be the lifeline of its industrial drive. In the wake of such growth, the very Asian values, namely the neo-Confucian values, that were once berated as being Asia's inherent ills were being waved like a victory banner to explain their miraculous economic growth. There were talks of the "Pacific Century," i.e. the resurgence of Asia as a globally dominant power. In the aftershocks of the region's economic earthquake, however, these same values have once again come into question as they are suspected of having contributed to the region's economic collapse (for a detailed discussion, see The Economist, 1998: 23-8).

Regardless of the raging debate over the economic efficacy of the Asian values and ongoing economic crisis, Asia's position in the global economy is, to repeat, unshakable as well as critical. First, despite the fact that Japan finds its economic foundation cracking, it is still the second largest economy in the world and one of the three poles of global capitalism. Second, in terms of gross national product, Asia control almost one-third of the world's output, with China gradually emerging as a global economic player. Third, as already noted, Asia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's population; that alone is enough to secure its pivotal place in the global economy. Simply expressed, it constitutes a huge reservoir of human capital - or labor as it is conveniently called. Probably, few would dispute that, in the past thirty years, it is the vast pool of Asian labor that has served as a human machine, powering and propelling the contemporary global economy to a height that it could not reach during its colonial phase. As more and more multinational companies from Japan, the US, and Western Europe relocated or expanded their manufacturing operations to Asia, the vital role of its labor power in creating value for the global economy acquired greater importance. In terms of the spatial division of globalized manufacturing (especially garment/textile, consumer electronic, and computer-related hardware production), the gravity of Asian labor has shifted over time, from Japan to four little dragons (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) - and now to China and Southeast Asia. As the labor costs rise in these countries, there are signs that this gravity is slowly moving toward South Asia, a region that has for long been much maligned and neglected by the pundits and players of globalization. Endowed with an abundant supply of computer programmers, India is already emerging as a software engineering Mecca for many American software companies, led by the daddy of all: Microsoft.

Fourth, besides labor, how can one overlook its vast consumer frontier, especially given its middle-class population boom in the last decade? China alone is estimated to have 250-300 million middle-class people. Once a laughing stock in the arena of economic growth, India was largely unscathed by the Asian economic crisis and is now experiencing a relatively steady pace of growth since it embarked on the path of liberalization in the early 1990s. It adds another 200 or so million to the global market of consumers. Other Asian countries also contribute to this large pool of consumers. Not only do these Asian consumers possess enough disposable income to fan the culture of consumerism, but they are also rife with vociferous appetites for Western/American products. To put it plainly, the success of capitalist globalism relies as much on the globalization of consumerism as it does on the globalization of production and service. Finally, Asia is not only a global manufacturing center, it has also become a primary hub of software production, the nerve center of ongoing information and communication revolution which itself is a vital engine of today's globalization. That is, although the US is the epicenter of the information age, much of the software programming and engineering operation is outsourced to Asia.

To summarize, in the last fifty years since the end of World War II, Asia has traversed a vast space of what is routinely called development - from poverty to prosperity to current economic perplexity. Asia has certainly attracted the attention of the American business community (Krugman 1998; Business Week 1998, 2000; The Economist 1998; Montagnon 1998). The question that concerns us most is: how has Asian regional geography in America fared during this relatively rapid journey of Asia, especially over the past 10 years? Before exploring this question, we first assess the state of Asian geography in America.

ASIAN GEOGRAPHY IN AMERICA
As revealed by Karan et al. (1989), the American foundation of concerted research and field studies on Asia was laid in the early 1900s. Built on this early foundation, Asian regional geography gained its popularity in America in the 1930s and 1940s as the need for systematic knowledge about Asian countries during and after World War II became critical for strategic intelligence and defense purposes. It is, therefore, no surprise that World War II and the subsequent Cold War (including the Korean and Vietnam wars) were instrumental in the continued growth of Asian regional geography. As the Cold War intensified following the end of World War II and as the Domino Theory was figured into the American geopolitical calculus, Asia came to occupy center stage. It was a battle ground between communism and America-guided capitalist globalism, hinged on the twin goals of its ideological triumph and commercial advance (Greider 2000). This growing importance of Asia in America's geopolitical play prompted a flurry of studies on Asian countries. In short, wars were mighty good for the growth of Asian geography, and hence for the discipline as a whole.

As America became increasingly entrenched in the Cold War, the 1950s saw the publications of several geography (text) books on Asia. For instance, Cressey's Asia's Lands and Peoples (1951) provided the most complete descriptive reference source on the continent, thus constituting a breakthrough for Asian regional geography in America. It was followed by Spencer's Asia, East by South (1954), which offered a detailed portrayal of Monsoon Asia's historical and cultural geography. In his edited volume, The Pattern of Asia, Ginsburg (1958) discussed Asian political and economic problems from a geographical viewpoint. All this boded well for Asian geography as it continued to flourish as a subset of American geography. Among this new band of geographers was a fresh Ph.D. graduate named P. P. Karan, the first non-American among the widely-published Asianist geographers, whose role in raising the profile of South Asia within Asian geography is highly notable. Almost 40 years after his first book came out in 1960, Karan remains extremely active and prolific in Asian geographic research as clearly evidenced by his numerous publications. Karan is one of the very few geographers whose research coverage is as extensive as his depth of knowledge of Asia. His research expands from Southwest to East Asia, from an isolated periphery like Bhutan or Tibet to a metropolitan country like Japan.

One common strand of most of these studies was that they generally offered a fairly conventional view and interpretation of Asia. However, some two decades later, Rhoads Murphey (1977) offered a refreshingly new approach to Asian geographic research. Taking a historical angle, Murphey's analysis focused on how colonialism structured and arranged the political and economic systems of Asia, namely India and China, from a spatial perspective. More specifically, Murphey investigated the colonial city and the treaty-port. The founding of international trading centers at port cities was aimed at transforming the traditional inward-facing economies that were dominated by profiteering European operations. According to Murphey, the colonial port dynamics played critical roles in transforming the Indian administrative and economic systems (also see Shrestha and Hartshorn 1993). The pattern of India was duplicated in China as the latter fell under Western control, following the conclusion of what is popularly known as the Opium war in the early 1840s.

Since the end of the Vietnam war, however, the fortunes of Asian regional geography in America have largely faded as indicated by steady declines in its curricular focus. No comprehensive Asian geography textbooks have been published since then. While the so-called quantitative revolution in the 1960s is often attributed as a setback for regional geography in general because of increased emphasis on topical and systematic themes (see Karan et al. 1989: 508), America's Vietnam debacle seems to have cast a dark shadow on Asian geography. In the meantime, a dramatic reduction in the Cold War fever stemming from the sudden disintegration of the former Soviet Union and the Berlin wall has further eroded its progress. It is generally true that Geography has attracted significant attention from other disciplines and experienced a noticeable rise at public schools over the past several years (Rediscovering Geography Committee 1997). Few would deny the contribution of the Geographic Alliance project toward this recent popularity of basic geography. As the Rediscovering Geography Committee implied in its report, such seeming popularity of geography to "outsiders" has largely failed to translate into the growth of Asian regional geography - or regional geography as a whole - among the "insiders" (particularly in Ph.D. granting departments). It is perhaps no exaggeration that the past twelve years -- a period which directly coincides with the collapse of communism and subsequent market triumphalism across the globe-- can indeed be considered a curricular watershed for Asian geography in America.

Status of Asian Geography in Doctoral Departments
The 1994-5 Guide to Programs in Geography lists a total of fifty-three geography departments offering Ph.D.s in the United States (Association of American Geographers 1994). Only nineteen of these mention Asia as part of their program emphasis, and three of them have no faculty listed as Asianists and another five have only one faculty member each with some kind of Asia focus (Table 2).

Given this reality, the outlook of the Asian geography curriculum in America is hardly inspiring. It is plausible to infer from Table 2 that, in view of the low priority given to Asian geography, the pipeline of Ph.D. graduates with a regional focus on Asia is diminishing. With less than 7 per cent of the faculty in these Ph.D. granting departments composed of Asianists - roughly one per department on average - it would be naive to expect future growth in Asian geography. Furthermore, many of the Asianists in these departments are approaching retirement. But retiring Asianists are seldom replaced by young scholars pursuing Asian geography. Furthermore, as it is obvious from the current discussion, young Asianist geographers are a shrinking breed anyway. So the future of Asian geography in America is fuzzy. There are, however, some indications of research in Asia by geographers who are not area specialists. This is a heartening sign.

Asian Geography Research Publications in American Geographical Journals
The research frontier of Asian geography is somewhat brighter than the Ph.D. curriculum regarding Asia or the production of Ph.D. graduates with an Asia focus. In their 1989 article, Karan et al. included two tables, showing the number of articles on Asia published in the Annals and Geographical Review over a period of 1955-87 (Karan et al. 1989: Tables 1 and 2). Overall, 6.5 per cent of the articles published in the Annals and 11.4 per cent of the articles in Geographical Review were on Asian topics. For the period between 1981 and 1987, the respective figures were 4.1 and 16.2 per cent. For this study, we focused on the ten-year period following the previous tabulation of publications done by Karan et al. Our compilation of research publications in selected American geography journals during the1988-98 period reveals a slightly better output for the same two journals (Table 3).

In other words, as seen from Table 3, Annals and Geographical Review respectively carried 6.7 and 16.3 per cent of their articles on Asian topics. For the same period, Economic Geography and The Professional Geographer had a similar share - 8.7 and 8.4 per cent, respectively. Antipode featured the lowest number (4%). On average, 8.8 per cent of the articles published in these selected journals were focused on Asia. The Geographical Review has consistently been the one most inclined to publish Asian geography articles, whereas Antipode has published the least. The Annals, as the "mouthpiece" of the Association of American Geographers, has the greatest influence in the field. Unfortunately, relatively few articles on Asian geography are appearing between its covers. Will Graf (1999: 2), past President of the AAG, stated that "Of the five largest specialty groups, only one, Urban, is frequently represented in the Annals. This lack of representation is problematic because if the flagship journal is to fairly represent the discipline on a global basis, it ought to have a range of products from the membership." While it is difficult to determine whether this tendency is an outcome of a low rate of submission of Asian geography manuscripts, a high rate of their rejection, or some combination of the two, the trend shown by the Annals is hardly encouraging. Regardless of the reason(s), it is likely that authors have, to extend Graf's argument, the perception that the journal is not too receptive to Asian geography papers. In fact, the AAG as a whole has given little voice to Asian geography. In the past twenty-five years or so, few members of its corps of officers have been drawn from the group of professed Asianists to represent the discipline to a larger audience. Whether true or not, the general perception is that the Association suffers from a clubbish mentality as, many times, the same group of people moves from one officership (position) to another, almost like the rotational movement of the same baseball managers from one team to another. In many respects, the exclusion of Asianists may have a direct linkage to the Association's general and historical tendency to exclude minorities from its corps of officers. Speaking broadly of the lack of minority representation, Graf (1999: 2) has boldly asserted: "it is vital that we have broad and effective representations of the range of perspectives and experiences that minorities bring to our organization" (emphasis added; also see Rediscovering Geography Committee 1997).

Irrespective of these facts, Asian geography research remains vital and vibrant; it has done very well in terms of overall publications. In addition, Asianist geographers in America have published in various other related journals, thus clearly revealing their wider appeal and receptivity beyond the domain of Geography.

RESEARCH TRENDS IN THE SUBREGIONS OF ASIA
Asia is simply too large to be conceptualized as a single area. Accordingly, it is conventionally divided into four subregions to provide a spatial framework for organizing scholarly activities. Specifically, the present coverage of American geographical research on Asia is focused on: East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Southwest Asia. Although East Asia encompasses China (including Taiwan and Hong Kong), it is not included in the regional research section of this chapter for the simple reason that Chinese geography has its own separate specialty group in the AAG (see the China Chapter in this volume). We do, however, include here some research on China's ties with the other regions of Asia. As explained in Footnote 2, we have also decided not to cover Central Asia in the current chapter.

East Asia
From 1988 to 2001, an energetic segment of researchers and research publications in North America addressed Korea and Japan, here taken as East Asia. The works below represent disparate but linked geographies of historical development and contemporary crises across many scales.

1. Spaces of the Past. The historical construction of East Asian regions has been illuminated by Kären Wigen, first in a 1992 article questioning the space-consciousness of histories of Japan. Her 1995 book focused on a Japanese locale, the Ina Valley, through its nineteenth century transformation from autonomy in interregional trade to subordination in the silk economy of the Meiji Period. Wigen detailed economic interests underlying material transformations and shifts of power within and without the region. Wigen went on to examine the production of regionalist discourses in Japan's Shinano (1996, 1998, 2000) and in East Asia (1999). Analysis of once-central places marginalized by modernity continued in Yoon Hong-Key's historical geography (1997) of a temple town, Saidaiji in Okayama Prefecture. Yoon found the old town struggling against the growing dominance of Okayama City in transport and retailing. The history of Japan's contemporary urban hierarchy also inspired Yoshio Sugiura's (1993) study of early electric power companies' choices of locations and fuels. Edwina Palmer's historical geography shed new light on Japan's early twentieth century influenza epidemic (Rice and Palmer 1993). Siebert (2000a) explained why ancient province names appear in modern railway station names.

2. Cartography. The history of cartography in Korea and Japan advanced in Harley and Woodward's comprehensive project. Their second volume included chapters by Unno (1994) and Ledyard (1994) tracing the native roots of cartography in Japan and Korea, and the impacts of European mapping practices. Nemeth (1993) interpreted cosmography of Korean historical maps. Yonemoto (1999) read the interests of Japan's early modern state in its charted seas. She further revealed Tokugawa Japan's expansive culture of popular mapmaking and spatial consciousness (Yonemoto 2000). Siebert applied GIS technologies to visualize the historic urban growth of Tokyo (Siebert 2000c).

3. Cultural Landscape. Geographers have continued to examine East Asian places as lived and interpreted on the ground. Childs (1991) explored the landscapes of Japan's snow country to understand Kawabata's theme of the ambivalent urban soul. Latz (1992) reviewed environmental influences on aesthetics of place in Japan. Ikagawa (1993) showed "natural" landscapes of sand and pine in Western Japan to result from centuries of human disturbance of upslope soils and forests. Patchell and Hayter (1997) probed various woods prized in Japanese home construction and their multiple sources of value. Mather, Karan, and Iijima (1998) insisted that Japanese landscapes remain a merger of land and life, and argued their point with many photos of 1990s Japan. Concerning the cultural landscapes of Korea, Nemeth's 1987 work on the influences of geomancy on Cheju Island stands as one of the last important contributions by North American geographers; the 1990s left the cultural geography of Korea much underexplored.

4. Cities in Japan and Korea. The themes of urbanization and comparative national experiences have continued to intrigue geographers. Japan and Korea appeared in general and comparative works about cities in East Asia. Karan and Kornhauser analyzed Japan in Costa et al. 1989. Kornhauser's (1991) urban survey of Japan entered its second edition. Song, Dutt, and Costa (1994) surveyed rapidly urbanizing South Korea in Dutt et al. Latz examined farm survival at the Tokyo urban fringe in Ginsburg et al. (1991). Machimura offered Tokyo's imperial palace district as a space of modernity in the capital in Kim et al. (1997). Siebert (2000b) traced land use from Tokyo to suburban Kanagawa.

The decade brought a wealth of articles and books on particular cities, often noting changes in industrial structure. Such were the works of Edgington for Kansai (1990b), Yokohama (1991a), Nagoya (1992), and Osaka (2000). Machimura examined urban restructuring in Tokyo (1992), S. O. Park (1993, 1994) and Nahm (1999) did so in Seoul, and Shapira in Kitakyushu (1994). B. G. Park (1998) compared housing policies in South Korea and Singapore under conditions of urban industrial growth. The polarization of the fortunes of cities and the continuing growth of primate cities, especially through social increase of population (Liaw 1992; Masai 1994), was seen as the problematic outcome of "one point development." The dominance of both Tokyo and Seoul was reflected in geographic research. Roman Cybriwsky published several rich studies of Tokyo during the past decade. His 1988 study of Shibuya introduced his approach to distinctive nodes of transport, commerce, and consumption. Cybriwsky expanded this approach to five "epitome districts" in his first book about Tokyo (1991). Cybriwsky's 1998 book further interprets the spatial structure of the Shogun's city and previews Tokyo's futuristic megaprojects for the next millennium. This volume added to a new World Cities series, which included a volume about Seoul by Joochul Kim and Sang Chuel Choe (Kim and Choe 1997). A volume on The Japanese City edited by P. P. Karan and K. Stapleton gave Tokyo further treatment by Cybriwsky (1997) and Okamoto (1997). The volume included wide-ranging examinations of life in cities across Japan by several authors, including Karan (1997) and Mather (1997). Sociologists Fujita and Hill, editors of Japanese Cities in the World Economy (1993), contributed research on Osaka to The Japanese City (Fujita and Hill 1997). The 1995 earthquake in Kobe tragically demonstrated the hazards of urban life, the difficulties of reconstruction (Edgington, Hutton, and Leaf 1999), and the relevance of research on vulnerabilities and preparations for the next big one (Palm 1998; Wisner 1998). We thus end the 1990s with a much richer literature on the urban geography of Japan and Korea.

5. Patterns and Processes in the Space Economy. Economic geographers, including many whose regional emphasis is not East Asia, focused on Japan and Korea in the 1990s. Firms' practices, locations, and restructuring strategies have been areas of intense research and lively debate among geographers in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia-New Zealand. How have Japanese and Korean manufacturing firms, especially those in electrical and transport machinery industries, organized their production socially and spatially? Industrial organization, labor practices, and locational patterns were studied by Kenney and Florida (1988, 1993), Florida and Kenney (1990), Glasmeier and Sugiura (1991), Patchell (1993), and Hayashi (1994). Korean firms' industrial structure and production systems were examined by Choo (1994) and Suarez-Villa and Han (1990).

Economic growth in East Asian nations has also been seen in terms of place. Ettlinger (1991) compared components of regional competitive advantage in Japan and California. The state models within which East Asian development should be understood were discussed by Hart-Ladsberg and Burkett (1998), Douglass (1994), and Auty (1997). The specific ways states create place for industries have been studied Edgington(1994c and 1999), Glasmeier (1988), McDonald (1996b), and Markusen and Park (1993). Policies toward small business in Japan and the US were compared by Aoyama (1996, 1999) and by Aoyama and Teitz (1996). Aoyama (2000a) found Japanese state policy solutions for troubled small enterprises reaching their limits in the late 1990s. Women's labor in development across Asia was surveyed by Prorok, Chhokar, Park and Cartier (1998).

Rural industries and rural policies of Japan also remained a focus of North American geographers, showing a countryside increasingly usurped by industrialization and by urban-biased planning measures. Latz's studies at the beginning of the decade saw agricultural land and water use surviving alongside urban and industrial land use (Latz 1989, 1991). Later studies, showed farm labor and farmland absorbed by the reach of branch plants into regions such as Tohoku (McDonald 1996a, 1997). Communities losing labor to out-migration can no longer sustain high value fruit production (Brucklacher 1998). As primary industries throughout Japan shrank, Japan's investments in supply lines from abroad increased, as Parker (1997) demonstrated for the case of coal and McDonald (2000) for food.

The strength of the yen since 1986 has been an important factor driving the investment decisions of Japan's industries. Aoyama (1997, 2000b) compared firms' overseas locational strategies in theory and practice. Pressures on firms to move production abroad and employment effects in Japan were studied by Rimmer (1997) and by Edgington (1993, 1994a, 1997). Japanese investment in Australia was also analyzed by Edgington (1990a, 1991b). Japan's hierarchy of manufacturing networks in Asia was questioned by Edgington and Hayter (2000). The movement of banking services into the United States was traced by Hultman and R. McGee (1990). Capital flows into North American real estate were studied by Warf in New York (1988) and by Edgington in Canada and the US (1994b, 1995a, 1996). Edgington and Haga (1998) studied service firms' locational decisions in Pacific Rim cities. Korean business locations in the Chicago area were traced by Park and Kim (1998). Patterns of commerce within Japanese and Korean cities have been likewise restructured by information technologies (Aoyama 2001a, b; S. O. Park 2000).

Japanese auto and steel transplants abroad have captured the attention of many geographers. Japan's investments in auto and steel manufacturing in North America have been studied by Rubenstein (1988, 1992), Mair, Florida, and Kenney (1988) Elhance and Chapman (1992) Florida and Kenney (1992, 1994), Kenney and Florida (1992), Jones and North (1991), Mair (1992, 1993, 1994), and Reid (1995). Sadler (1994) studied the case of Japanese auto factory location in Europe. Given the much smaller flow of foreign direct investment by North American firms into Japan, few geographers have traced investment into Japan, but see Hayter and Edgington (1997).
North-South trade within Asia and the regional structure of the Asia-Pacific economy were traced throughout the 1990's by geographers such as Graham (1993), Latz (1993), Poon and Pandit (1996), Poon (1997a, b), Poon and Thompson (1998), and Thompson and Poon (1998). Regional interdependencies were seen in the financial crisis of the late 1990's by observers such as Poon and Perry (1999), Poon and Thompson (2001), Edgington and Hayter (2001), and B. G. Park (2001).

Economic transnationalization has had social concomitants for Japan, Korea, and for their citizens abroad, often involving unforeseen boundaries and struggles. Nicola (1997) examined foreigners marrying into Japan. Experiences of immigrants and their descendants in North America were traced by Kobayashi and Jackson (1994) and Kobayashi (1996). Tyner (1998) linked the 1940s politics of eugenics to the incarceration of Japanese Americans in the US. Kwon (1990) examined Koreans' livelihood in the Bronx in terms of "opportunity structure" in their new setting.

6. Political Concerns. Economic and social change in East Asia has had political ramifications, both in regime change within individual countries and in bilateral relations within the East Asia region. Political dynamics on the Korean peninsula were studied in light of demographics by Fuller and Pitts (1990), regional rivalries by Dong Ok Lee and Stan Brunn (1996), and United States' interests by Pitts (1997). Relations between Japan and the US were studied by Grant and Nijman (1997) through relative levels of foreign aid to the region, and by O Tuathail (1992, 1993) through tendentious cooperation on defense projects. Geographers saw geoeconomic concerns replacing former geopolitical considerations in trans-Pacific diplomacy (Kodras 1993). Edgington observed new North American regional responses to trade opportunities with Japan (1995b). R. Grant (1993a, 1993b) and O'Loughlin and Anselin (1996) examined the boundaries of trade competition between the US and Japan. Ufkes called for new research into the politics of Asia's changing agricultural trade (1993a), and contributed a study of Japan-US feed and beef trade (1993b). East Asian fisheries policy study was aided by a new marine atlas by Morgan and Valencia (1992). Changing themes in political geography within Japan were analyzed by Yamazaki (1997) and Fukushima (1997). Japan's emergent leadership in global environmental issues met with the skepticism of Taylor (1999). The slow thaw of the cold war in Northeast Asia has introduced new possibilities for cooperation among states in the region for economic development, as in a proposed Tumen River special economic zone on the Sea of Japan studied by Marton, McGee and Paterson (1995) and by Morgan and Olson (1992). New questions as to how geographers and policymakers should think about regions in Pacific-Asia have been posed by Murphy (1995), Watters and McGee (1997), Forbes (1997), and McGee (1997).

7. Studying East Asia. A good measure of self-critique has suffused academic geography as it apprehends East Asia in the 1990s. Asianist geographers have asked whether the structures of our discipline meet the intellectual challenges of today's Pacific Rim (Alwin 1992; Ginsburg 1993), whether geographies of Asia can escape Eurocentrism (McGee 1991), and whether the Asia inherited from past regional geographies can serve geography today (Lewis and Wigen 1997). East Asia as a subject within the secondary and undergraduate curriculum has continued to command the thoughtful attention of academic geographers (Latz and Borthwick 1992; Cybriwsky 1996; P. Grant 1998; Nemeth 1998; Latz 1996, 1999). Geographers in East Asia have also combed North America to compile useful reference works such as Hong's (1999) bibliography of Korean geography.

Southeast Asia
Over the past decade, American geographers working on Southeast Asia have pursued the traditional themes of geographical research associated with the region while simultaneously branching into new terrain. Principal among the new areas of interest are gender studies, political geography, and the study of social identity. Recent work shows an increasing concern with economic and political processes that link Southeast Asia with other parts of the world and, ultimately, with the global economy. Research on the region has also grown more reflexive, with several studies examining the fundamental geographical concepts through which Southeast Asia has been framed.

1. Environmental Concerns. The relationship between people and the natural environment has long been a central theme of geographical publications on Southeast Asia. Key areas of concern in the 1990s include deforestation, agroforestry, soil erosion, and other forms of upland environmental degradation, aquaculture and its related ecological problems, and the creation of protected areas.

Deforestation, arguably the most serious environmental problem in Southeast Asia, has been examined in depth by Kummer (1991, 1992; Kummer and Turner 1994). Through an exhaustive statistical study, Kummer has shown that forest loss in the Philippines - a process now almost completed - has been caused largely by politically protected, profit-seeking logging firms and not, as the popular imagination often sees it, by land-hungry shifting cultivators. Along with Concepcion and Canizares (1994), he has also examined environmental conditions on Cebu, an island often viewed as the paradigm of total ecological despoliation. Again confounding popular beliefs, Kummer and his co-workers discovered that the island's ecosystem is far more resilient than was previously believed. Several of their conclusions about Cebu are confirmed by Bensel and Remedio (1992a, b, 1995), who have examined the island's wood-fuel market in painstaking detail. They discovered small-scale rural entrepreneurs responding to market forces by reforesting significant areas -- a process that is not, however, without its own environmental problems (see also Bensel and Harris 1995 and Bensel and Kummer 1996). Worrisome levels of soil erosion and other forms of environmental degradation were discovered by DuBois (1990) in his study of the neighboring island of Siquijor.

Several geographers have focused on similar environmental issues elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Hafner (1994) has investigated small-scale reforestation and agroforestry efforts in Thailand (see also Hafner and Apichatvullop 1990), and Suryanata (1994) has reported on agroforestry in Java. Detailed studies of Thai fishing and aquaculture have been conducted by Flaherty and Karnjanakesorn (1993, 1994; see also Flaherty and Vandergeest 1998). As they show, the widespread conversion of mangrove forests and other coastal lands - and now even of freshwater rice fields - to shrimp ponds has disruptive environmental consequences. Thailand's urban environmental problems, coincident with its rapid industrialization, have come under scrutiny by Hussey (1993). The difficult struggle to ensure the protection of natural ecosystems, meanwhile, has been investigated by Aiken (1994) in Malaysia, and Hafner and Apichatvullop (1990) in Thailand.

The linkages between environmental and economic issues have been the subject of a number of recent studies. Crooker and Martin (1996) and Lewis (1989, 1992) have examined highland vegetable production in northern Thailand and northern Luzon, respectively, while Surayanta (1994a, b) has investigated highland fruit production in Java. Lewis (1992) concluded that environmental degradation in the vegetable districts of northern Luzon has been exacerbated by an indigenous system of belief and ritual that encourages high-risk economic behavior. For upland Java, Suryanata (1994) argues that certain agro-economic formations have resulted in the increasing social differentiation of poorer and wealthier cultivators, whereas others have reinforced small-scale production. Issues of social differentiation in Southeast Asian agriculture have also been studied by Hart (1989, 1991, 1992). Huke and Huke have examined agro-ecology at a far larger scale, surveying Southeast Asia as a whole. Their written reports, articles, and published maps document in detail the complex spatial patterning of rice, Asia's most important crop (Huke 1990; Huke and Huke 1989, 1990).

2. Economic and Urban Questions. Although rural and urban issues in Southeast Asia have usually been considered in isolation, Leinbach, in collaboration with several co-authors, has demonstrated how inextricably connected they can be. On the one hand, Indonesian peasants often depend crucially on off-farm income, including remittances from elsewhere in the country (Leinbach 1992, Leinbach and Bowen 1992, Leinbach and Watkins 1998). On the other hand, agricultural settlement schemes, particularly those associated with Indonesia's controversial transmigration program, often require close linkages to the urban economy if they are to succeed. Leinbach et al. have also demonstrated how labor-allocation decisions among transmigrant families often depend on the family's specific life-cycle state, a finding that builds on yet modifies the influential Chayanovian model of peasant economic behavior (Leinbach and Smith 1994; Leinbach et al. 1992). Migration in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia has also been investigated by Goss and others (1992, see also Goss and Leinbach 1996, Ulack and Watkins 1991, Watkins et al. 1993, and Silvey 1997); other demographic issues have been examined by Ulack (1989) and Leinbach (1988).

Urban geography remains a vibrant area of Southeast Asian geographical research. Studies of urban morphology have been conducted for Bangkok (Thomson 1998b), Belawan, Sumatra (Airiess 1991), and Melaka (Cartier 1993). Ford (1993) has advanced a general model of Southeast Asian urban form, while McGee (1991a, 1991b, 1995) has elucidated the new "megaurban" structure that are emerging as large cities expand (see also McGee and Greenberg 1992). Continuing his work on hill stations, Reed (1995) has outlined the growth of Dalat, Vietnam from a small hamlet to a sizeable city. Urban poverty and slumscapes - familiar features of all Southeast Asian cities save Singapore - have been investigated by Thomson (1998a; 1991) and Goss (1990). According to Goss, the exploitation of Manila's poor involves both socioeconomic and spatial processes. Sicular (1989) examined one of the poorest communities in the region: urban scavengers in western Java. Historical explorations in urban geography include Cobban's (1993) work on public housing in colonial Indonesia and Doeppers' (1991, 1994, 1996) investigations of the historical development of Manila. Tyner (2000) has more recently examined contemporary Manila in the context of the global city literature, arguing for the importance of labor mobility in defining the "global city."

Transportation geography also continues to command attention. In a major study of the region's airline industry, Bowen and Leinbach (1995) argue that pragmatic governments have sought to balance the benefits and risks of deregulation through proactive policy initiatives. Airriess (1989, 1991, 1993) has focused on shipping, a particularly vital industry in Southeast Asia. He shows how containerization is changing the shipping business throughout the ASEAN region, transforming port-hinterland transportation patterns and reshaping urban form.

Broader questions of economic development in Southeast Asia have been addressed by a number of geographers, including some whose primary research sites lie in other regions of the world. Scott (1994), for example, compared the spatial economics of agglomeration in the Los Angeles jewelry industry with that of Bangkok; Murphy (1995) mapped out the patterns of economic regionalization in East and Southeast Asia; and Glassman and Samatar (1997), comparing Thailand and Botswana, examined the Third-World state's role in fostering development. The latter authors concluded that elite unity in Thailand allowed the Thai state effectively to promote economic growth. Several Southeast Asianists have looked more specifically at the developmental effects of ASEAN (Hussey 1991; McGee and Greenberg 1992), direct foreign investment and trade policies (Leinbach 1995; Chang and Thomson 1994), and migration (Leinbach 1989). Leinbach (1995) concluded that direct foreign investment in Indonesia is not sufficient to ensure rapid industrialization, that Indonesia faces increasing competition in this regard from China and especially Vietnam, and that the country needs to emphasize technology and higher value added production. Regional economics in the "growth triangle" of Singapore, the Riau Archipelago, and Johor has been the subject of an innovative dissertation by Macleod (1995). Economic history has been tackled by Doeppers (1991), who determined that the effects of the Great Depression in the Philippines were far more spatially complex than scholars had previously assumed, whereas the economic crisis of the late 1990s was the focus of an important article by Poon and Perry (1999), who similarly argued for profound spatial variability. In an important study of this crisis, Glassman (2001), arguing from a Marxian perspective, stresses the declining profitability of manufacturing and increased international competition. Focusing on labor organizing in the Philippines, Kelly (2001) has concluded that a simple antagonism between global capital and local labor does not obtain. He instead stresses the geographical complexity, informality, and fluidity of local labor-control regimes.

3. Social Contexts and Political Questions. The most important new developments have been in the fields of social and political geography. Several scholars have highlighted the previously neglected dimension of gender: Silvey (1997) has shown how gender influences migration patterns in an export processing zone in southern Sulaweisi; Hart, investigating Malaysia's Muda region (1992), has highlighted gender dynamics to show the limitations of both the neo-classical theory of the farm household and of Scott's notion of "everyday forms of peasant resistance" (1991); Tyner (1996a, b, 1997) has convincingly argued that Southeast Asian international labor migration must be understood in gendered terms; and Yasmeen (1997) has examined the role of women in Bangkok's public sphere through the novel concept of the "foodscape" (see also Watkins et al. 1993; Walker 1997). The social construction of both place and identity has also emerged as new research foci. Cartier's (1993, 1996,1997) work in Melaka, for example, illustrates how cultural identity may be place-based, thereby allowing the formation of powerful localized social movements, yet may be simultaneously employed to advance claims about common national identity. Tyner (1997) shows how Filipino migrant entertainers have been socially constructed as "disreputable," thereby justifying their exploitation. Lewis' (1991) work in northern Luzon demonstrates how cultural identity can vary tremendously depending on social context and the spatial scale of analysis. Cartier (1998a) and Thomsom (1993) have examined the complex patterns of identity among Southeast Asians of Chinese ancestry, with Thomson showing that the Chinese in Thailand, with the encouragement of the Thai state, are increasingly identifying themselves as "Thai."

The study of tourism in Southeast Asia has recently emerged as an active field of research. Several works have assessed the environmental and economic impact of tourist facilities in particular areas: Dearden (1991) in northern Thailand, Hussey (1989) in a Balinese village, and Lenz (1993) in Vietnam. In a series of innovative articles, Cartier (1996, 1997, 1998b) elucidated the role of tourism in Melaka, demonstrating how the state and developers in concert have created high-cost, environmentally damaging "ersatz leisurescapes," often sacrificing natural and historical amenities in the process (see also Chang 1999 on heritage tourism in Singapore). Generally missing, however, from these studies is in-depth research into tourism's ingrained role in the growth of prostitution and its public health consequences in the region.

Political geography in Southeast Asia has evolved in a number of different directions. National integration in Indonesia - a notoriously complex and politically charged issue - has been studied in depth by Drake (1989, 1992). Thomson (1996), questioning the political role of the Sino-Thai by analyzing electoral returns, concluded that the Chinese in Thailand do not form a distinct political group. Dissecting the political geography of ethnic rebellion in war-torn Myanmar (Burma), Thomson (1995) also determined that the unitarist policies of the Burmese government consistently undermine national integration (see also Thomson 1994 on Thailand's May 1992 democratic uprising). Kummer (1991, 1992, 1995) has uncovered the political processes underlying Philippine deforestation, and has examined the problems that this poses for researchers; in many cases, statistics have been destroyed by state functionaries eager to conceal the extent of forest destruction.

4. The geography of geographical research in Southeast Asia. Geographical scholarship on Southeast Asia has been conducted at a wide range of spatial scales. While a number of studies have focused tightly on individual village communities or urban districts, others have targeted provinces or other sub-national regions, and a large number have taken the nation-state as their unit of analysis. Others have grappled with Southeast Asia as a macro-region (or at least those Southeast Asian countries belonging to ASEAN). A significant departure from past efforts is the sizeable number of studies examining Southeast Asia in broader global or comparative terms (see, for example, Airriess 1991, 1993; Bowen and Leinbach 1995; Drake 1992; Glassman and Samatar 1997; Kang-tsung and Thomson 1994; Macleod 1995; Warf 1998). Kelly (1997), inverting the terms in his Philippine study, demonstrated that processes of globalization can only be understood in the context of local social and economic relations; his work also counters the common notion that globalization is both inevitable and necessary. Another innovative approach is to examine Southeast Asian peoples and influences in other regions of the world. Examples here include Tyner's (1996a, b, 1997, 1999) work on overseas Filipino entertainers and on the historical exclusion of Philippine migrants from the United States, Cartier's (1995) study of Singaporean influence on urban development in Shanghai, and Law's (2001) work on how women migrants from the Philippines create their own senses of place in foreign cities through body politics, leisure activities, and sensory experiences. Finally, scholars have begun to examine Southeast Asia metageographically, interrogating the fundamental spatial categories used to think about the region and its place in the world. The lead here was set by Southeast Asian scholars (Savage, Kong, and Yeoh 1993), and was subsequently picked up by Lewis and Wigen (1997). Schwartzberg's (1994a, b) brilliant work on indigenous cartography in the region has also shed light on metageographical issues. In a somewhat different register, Tuason (1999) has examined the metageographical "ideology of Empire" implicit in the National Geographic magazine's coverage of the Philippines.

As in the past, certain parts of Southeast Asia have been much more closely studied than others. The Cebu region (including the neighboring island of Siquijor) is arguably the single most heavily scrutinized place; other parts of the Philippines have also received much attention. Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia have all been the subject of numerous geographical studies. Singapore, by contrast - despite its status as the financial, telecommunications, and transportation hub of the region - has been surprisingly little-studied (but see Macleod 1995; Macleod and McGee 1996; Airriess 1998; Chang 1999). More understandable is the relative invisibility of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam - countries that present serious obstacles for foreign researchers. Reed (1995) nonetheless has demonstrated the feasibility of conducting research in Vietnam, while Thomson (1995; see also Huke 1998a, b) has shown that significant work can be done on Myanmar despite the restrictions and repression of its government. Acker (1997), meanwhile, is conducting important research on Cambodia. Only Laos remains truly terra incognito on the map of American geographical scholarship, the exception being the edited work by Dutt (1996), who provides a valuable and comprehensive coverage of all of Southeast Asia.

To conclude, relatively little work by geographers on Southeast Asia has been conducted in the idiom of postcoloniality, an idiom that has substantially transformed area studies in the humanities over the past decade (for exceptions, see Silvey 1997; Tyner 1997; and Cartier 1997). But it must be recognized that the geography of Southeast Asia has become profoundly postcolonial in one respect: intellectual leadership on the subject is increasingly to be found within the region itself. Singapore, neglected as it is by American scholars, is now probably the most dynamic center of Southeast Asian geography, with the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography forming its premier scholarly publication (see also Kong, Yeoh, and Teo 1996). One might hope that more collaborative work between US and Southeast Asian geographers will enrich our understanding of this dynamic, diverse, and - for Americans - still relatively poorly understood part of the world.

South Asia
Once a center of bold and innovative development experiments, South Asia has turned into a stepchild of Asia. In the 1950s and 1960s, such experiments included systematic policies of village development, national planning as an institutional paradigm of development (which is still practiced), the green revolution, and import substitution-based industrialization. Today, in the world dominated by material development and growth, South Asia rarely gets a mention in the American press when its attention turns to Asia. Much of the focus is almost exclusively directed toward East and Southeast Asia. It is believed that this obvious neglect of South Asia is a direct reflection of its inability to rise up the Darwinian totem pole of economic growth which is invariably measured in terms of gross national product. For instance, in the mid-1960s, India and South Korea started roughly at the same level in terms of their GNP per capita income: $150. Today, South Korea's GNP per capita has soared to over $10,000, whereas India's remains staggeringly low at less than $400 ( Table 1). As India goes, so goes the rest of South Asia. Next to Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia is routinely described by the World Bank as the poorest region in the world. It is, therefore, no surprise that poverty occupies center court in its policy and political debate as well as research agenda.

Although American geographical research on South Asia is relatively productive, the circle of geographers conducting such research is narrow. For much of its foundation, South Asian regional geography in America owes a great deal to a small group of early pioneers in the field. For example, the works by John Brush, P. P. Karan, Rhoads Murphey, Joseph Schwartzberg, and David Sopher proved to be quite influential in generating research interest in South Asian issues (Karan et al. 1989). The foundation that they laid was later expanded by the second generation of South Asianist geographers, among whom stand Nigel Allan, Surinder Bhardwaj, Ashok Dutt, and Allen Noble. In their continuing efforts to uplift the research profile of South Asian geography in America, Allan has done much research on the mountain rimland. His research in the area of cultural geography and ecology has spawned a new breed of geographers who can be classified as the third generation of South Asianists. Bhardwaj has been a leading geographer among those studying religions. His work has been extended by Karan (1994), Stoddard (1988), and Stoddard and Morinis (1997). Dutt's and Noble's works, on the other hand, are largely focused on urbanization and regional planning. Their numerous publications are not only notable in their breadth, but also in terms of the depth of contribution they have made to our understanding of Asian urban systems and planning. Also included in this second generation of South Asianists is Lakshman Yapa, who continues to raise challenging questions about poverty and development.

One common denominator among these first and second generations of South Asianist geographers is that they have largely taken what can be called a conventional route to geographical analysis in that their studies are relatively free of controversial positions and issues about spatial patterns and processes. Murphey and Yapa are exceptions to this general rule. Taking a stance against the diffusionist model of modernization, Yapa (1977; 1993) has consistently questioned the material and ecological efficacy of the green revolution. In an important work on the history of cartography, Edney (1997) shows how ideologies of imperialism informed the British mapping of the Indian subcontinent. Kenny (1995) documents how the British established hill stations in various parts of India not only to recreate little England in the torrid colony, but also to separate themselves from the "inferior" subjects, thus projecting an image of their racial superiority. In other words, the wall of general conformity and continuity in the geographical analysis of South Asia is now coming down. Among the new (third) generation of South Asianist geographers in America, there is little uniformity. Although they continue to walk down the same path mapped by their predecessors, there is much diversity in the views, perspectives, methodologies, and historical lenses that they deploy in their geographical studies and analyses of South Asia. With this clarification, we now discuss two major, but interrelated, themes found in American geographical research on South Asia.

1. Poverty and Development Dilemma. When independence finally came to India after years of struggle against the British, the air was filled with euphoria. Rising material expectations swept across the country. Development seemed imminent and ready to slay the dragon called poverty to free the masses from their material abyss. Jawaharlal Nehru thunderously proclaimed that India had to achieve in twenty years what the West did in 200 years. More than one-half century has passed since independence, but poverty is still rampant and development remains a distant mirage. No wonder why poverty and development continue to hold the subcontinent captive as a haunting specter of its relentless past (Shrestha 1997; Yapa 1996, 1998).

In this ongoing drama of poverty, Ashok Dutt and his colleagues espouse regional planning and development as a sound economic strategy (see Noble et al. 1998; Pomeroy and Dutt 1998). Along this same line, they have also provided detailed studies of urban systems of South Asia (Costa et al. 1989; Das and Dutt 1993; Dutt 1993; Dutt et al. 1994; also see Dutt, Mitra and Halder 1997; Mookherjee 1994; Mookherjee and Tiwari 1996; Rasid and Odemerho 1998). It can be deduced from their studies of urban systems that cities serve as vital growth nodes, key central places from which modernization is presumed to diffuse into hinterlands, thus facilitating regional development across the nation (also see Shrestha 1990). On the other hand, Chakravorty (1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000a, b) offers a different view on this issue in his extensive treatment of the role of urbanization in development. Utilizing a political economy perspective, he asserts that for urban planning and development in democratic societies with market economies to be successful, the planning process must be transparent and the goals equity-oriented. This is particularly true of societies making the transition from a state-controlled to a market economy (also see Chakravorty and Gupta 1996). In addition, he shows, particularly in reference to Calcutta, how big cities tend to perpetuate social inequities. At the country-level, Karan and Ishii (1994) have offered a comprehensive analysis of development and change in Nepal, a country no less beset by poverty than any of its neighbors in the region (also see Karan 1989; Karan et al. 1996). Zurick (1989, 1990, 1992, 1993) has discussed the roles of spatial development and traditional knowledge, along with tourism, in Nepal's rural transformation and subsequent development. Tourism and its cultural effects have also been a focus of analysis that Stanley Stevens conducted in Nepal (Stevens 1988a, b, 1993b; Shrestha 1998a). In his valuable research, Metz (1989, 1990, 1994) has, on the other hand, emphasized the various subsistence strategies of hill residents in central Nepal.

On the Pakistan side, Nigel Allan (1989, 1991, 1995) has spent much time trying to develop a geographical understanding of mountain habitat and society. His analysis of the impact of road construction as part of overall regional development efforts on mountain society has shed illuminating light on this problem. He has also cast doubt on the utility of what is now being fashionably peddled as sustainable development throughout South Asia and beyond (Allan 1998). Butz (1995) and MacDonald (1998a) have extended Allan's discussion of the impact of roads on mountain society to mountain portering as an economic survival strategy in northern Pakistan. While MacDonald traces its colonial roots, Butz reveals a historical conflict between commoners and royalty over the issue of portering regulations (also see MacDonald and Butz 1998). In addition, MacDonald (1996a) discusses indigenous labor arrangements and household security, whereas Butz examines pastoralism as a source of resource in sustaining mountain communities (also see Butz 1994; Butz and Eyles 1997; MacDonald 1996b, 1998b).

One of the central themes in the poverty and development discourse is population and its associated issues such as family planning and health care delivery. These issues have drawn the attention of Paul's research endeavors, especially in the context of rural Bangladesh. His research ranges from family planning practices to health search and reproductive behaviors to infant mortality and AIDS (Paul 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997). Paul has also investigated flood damage to crops, a development and environmental hazard issue that has serious implications for those living in the low-lying coastal areas of Bangladesh and other Asian countries (Paul 1993, 1997, 1998). Regarding female healthcare in India, Tripathi's (2000) empirical findings reveal interesting dimensions of rural and urban women's health seeking behaviors. In the case of Shrestha's research, however, much of the population and development related emphasis has been placed on frontier migration and settlement in the Tarai region of Nepal. Through his extensive research, he has discovered that this rural-agricultural development strategy has boomeranged. As the population gravity of Nepal shifts from the hills to the Tarai as a result of growing migration, massive land encroachment and ecopolitical conflicts between the state and landless migrant peasants surface as serious issues that have significant ramifications for the country's regional political economy (Shrestha 1989, 1990, 1998b; also see Conway, Bhattarai, and Shrestha 2000; Shrestha and Conway 1996; Shrestha, Conway, and Bhattarai 1999). In their investigation, Shrestha, Velu and Conway (1993) have established that migrants' economic success at the frontier largely depends on the timing of migration as well as migrants' previous socioeconomic class background at the place of origin.

Another running theme in South Asia's poverty and development debate is the effectiveness of the green revolution in not only increasing food supply, but also advancing the cause of local and national development and hence reducing the level of poverty. Since its inception in the mid-1960s, the green revolution has received much research attention. While few question its ability to increase agricultural yields, many are doubtful of its ability to reduce poverty and achieve some sense of social parity in India and other South Asian countries (for atlases of rice and wheat production in South Asia, see Huke, Huke, and Woodhead 1994, 1993; Woodhead, Huke, and Huke 1994, 1993). Both Yapa (1977) and Das (1995, 1998a, b, c) have clearly demonstrated how the green revolution has generally failed to attain the latter goal of curtailing poverty despite a sustained and noticeable growth in total crop production. The structural flaws, according to Das, lie with the way in which the state is organized and operates in India (or, for that matter, other South Asian countries as well). Consequently, like its neighbors, the Indian state is patently incapable of alleviating poverty, for it is unable to distribute the economic benefits of the green revolution among social classes (Das 1997; Yapa 1977, 1996). This is a general sentiment that Stokke (1997) echoes in his examination of Sri Lanka's authoritarian state in the age of market liberlization. Stokke specifically contends that governance in Sri Lanka has not been the outcome of a certain economic system, but rather the result of specific political projects and accumulation strategies.

What we can discern from the works discussed above are two major conclusions which are closely entwined. First, the state has been the central and sole player in virtually every phase of development planning, projects, and strategies. This is true in every country in South Asia. While the logic of such a centralized development process or so-called "state capitalism" was firmly rooted in the belief that the State would achieve greater efficiency in the allocation of scarce capital resources and lead to both sectoral and spatial balance in national development, the outcomes have been anything by efficient and effective. Second, despite more than four decades of planned development, poverty as defined and measured by the World Bank has displayed little sign of retreat from the region's socioeconomic vista. Not surprisingly, therefore, some serious questions about official development and its failed messianic vision of uplifting the poor from poverty are being raised in many quarters. Leading the charge in this area is Yapa (1998) who, citing the case of Sri Lanka, stresses that anti-poverty measures, invariably founded on the international discourse of poverty and development, do not serve the interest of the poor. In his discursive analysis, Yapa further articulates that although Sri Lanka is often touted as an exemplary case of direct poverty alleviation because of its long history of social welfare, its official development policy fails to see that poverty is socially constructed. Because of this fundamental failure, the policy, he argues, is hardly in a position to cure poverty (also see Yapa 1996). In a similar vein, Shrestha (1999) documents how contemporary development is innately flawed as it systematically leaves behind a trail of victims, all in the name of development. He goes so far as to categorically claim that foreign aid, which now drives much of the development policy and activity in most of these countries, has to go if they are to realize the full potential of indigenous development, one that is self-sufficient and self-reliant as well as nationally sustainable. His argument is embedded in the logic that foreign aid is little more than a form of colonialism in its post-colonial garb, largely a product of the Cold War dominated foreign policy that is carefully crafted to serve Western interests rather than indigenous citizens and their communities. As such, it only engenders, and then deepens, Western dependency; it does not, it cannot, and it will not cure poverty.

2. Environmental Degradation and Ecological Breakdown. This is a theme that has gained growing popularity among South Asianist geographers. What started out as a loose theory of Himalayan degradation has now evolved into a well-entrenched field of research in and on South Asia. Once again, Karan (1991, 1989a, b) has generally led the way in this field (also see Karan and Ishii 1994; Zurick and Karan 1999). But many have pursued this topic and made significant contributions to our geographical understanding of environmental degradation and ecological breakdowns, especially in South Asia's mountain rimland. For example, Ives and Messerli (1989) have discussed at some length the various issues, revolving around the Himalayan environment and its human occupants as well as its regional political repercussions. The debate and discussion have been further extended by Allan (1995), who is now becoming increasingly wary of what he calls the "transaction costs" of doing fieldwork that is often physically demanding and time consuming.

A substantial amount of the geographic research in this field is focused on Nepal and the central Himalayan belt. Although these studies generally center around the theme of environmental degradation, one can observe much diversity in terms of specific research agendas advanced by different geographers. While Bishop (1990) and Zurick (1988) have generally investigated the human consequences of environmental degradation and ecological breakdowns in the western hills of Nepal, Brower (1991) has dwelt on the pastoral system and its impact on cultural landscapes in the eastern mountains, especially around the Everest region. Stevens (1993a, 1997) has further elevated this cultural ecology analysis of these eastern mountain communities to an even higher plateau in his thorough book, Claiming the High Ground (1993). Metz (1990, 1991, 1994, 1997), on the other hand, has generally confined himself to the central hills of Nepal where his research emphasis has been placed on the hill conservation practices, subsistence system, and forest product use patterns (for a similar case in southeastern India, see Balachandran 1995).

One exception to this general hill and mountain bias in the cultural ecology studies of environmental degradation is the political ecology work of Shrestha (1990), who has mostly concentrated his research on the ecological drama being played out in the Tarai lowlands. He has shed historical light on the dynamics of ecopolitical battles raging in the Tarai, and recently examined the environmental degradation taking place in the Kathmandu valley (Shrestha 1998; Shrestha and Conway 1996). On the India side, Paul Robbins has devoted a considerable amount of his intellectual capital, exploring various aspects of political ecology and ecosystem (Robins 1998a, b, 2000a, b, 2001). One of the themes that he has diligently highlighted is the issue of common resource access and control in relation to effective resource management. Tracing the history and effects of rights to forest and pasture in Rajasthan, India, he contends that neither the central state nor the local community is a necessarily superior manager of nature (Robbins 1998a, 2000b).

To conclude, there are many other pertinent topics that demand the research attention of South Asianist geographers in America, for example, a horrendous state of urban pollution throughout the region and its profound impact on public health (see Shrestha 1998a; Wallach 1996). It is a pending crisis that will not only pound on South Asia's cities, but cause immense human tragedies, thus compounding its massive poverty and development efforts. Ethnic conflicts and violence as well as the consequences of market liberlization and globalization for its poor masses are also very timely and relevant themes for geographic research. One recent exception to the general lack of globalization focus in South Asian geography in America is the work of Rupal Oza (2001), who takes a critical look at the local opposition to globalization in relation to the protest by different organizations to the 1996 Miss World pageant held in Bangalore, India. At this point, however, it unlikely that the two sets of issues discussed above will yield much ground to other research areas in the foreseeable future.

Southwest Asia
Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Michael Bonine (1976) published a query in the Professional Geographer, asking "Where is the Geography of the Middle East?" Despite the effort of a cadre of dedicated scholars, the same question might be asked today. A problem exists, of course, as to what constitutes research on Southwest Asia. The number of faculty listing Southwest Asia as an interest in the AAG guide can be counted on two hands, with digits to spare. This highlights both a problem of nomenclature and a challenge to geographers who (re)conceptualize the region in question. Geography textbooks dealing with the Middle East are not unanimous on this point. Fisher (1950) includes the territory from Iran in the East to Libya in the West, and from Turkey in the North to the Sudan in the South. Drysdale and Blake (1985) group the Middle East and North Africa, arguing that they are an integral unit, thus extending their boundary to Morocco in the West. Beaumont et al. (1988) acknowledge cultural linkages across North Africa, but bound their text with Libya's western borders. Whether or not one stops at some point between Egypt and the Atlantic, it is clear that "Southwest Asia" is not a regional appellation that holds much appeal for those who generally think of themselves as scholars of the Middle East. For that reason (and the non-inclusion of North Africa in the treatment of the Africa Specialty Group in this volume) a more inclusive approach is taken in this section. Yet, even with expanded boundaries, the question remains, where is the geography of the Middle East?

With the inclusion of North Africa, the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and specific country names as research interests, there are still fewer than forty such self-identified geographers associated with geography programs in North America. Bonine's plea to generate a larger group of scholars to study this region has not been met; indeed, a significant number of geographers interested in the Middle East are nearing retirement. What, then, is the nature of research conducted over the last decade? A number of concentrations, if not intellectual themes, can be identified during this period. Some of them have their roots in earlier geographic work on the region, such as urban morphology and sacred space/landscapes. Adaptation to arid environments continues to draw interest, and has been joined by a rapidly growing literature on water conflict. Conflict over natural resources is a subset of political dispute in general, and a number of facets of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have drawn attention, as has the indigenous Palestinian Arab population of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Physical geography has been notably lacking for the region as a whole, though with a number of localized exceptions.

1. Cities, Territory, and Politics in the Middle East. The Islamic city clearly continues to fascinate those who study both its morphology and meaning (Stewart 2001). Iranian cities have long been a staple of this literature, with Kheirabidi's(1991) work joining that of Hemmasi's (1994), examining both form and function. It is significant that this work continues to grow alongside that of scholars in Iran, despite the impediments to research in Iran following the Islamic Revolution (Hemmasi 1992). Bonine and Ehlers (1994) have contributed a bibliography of Islamic cities that is grouped by region, going beyond the Middle East to include those parts of the world populated by Muslim majorities. Cohen (1994) addressed colonial planning as a template for green space in Jerusalem, while Stewart turned her attention to the creation of new towns in Egypt (1996a) and the recreation of an old one in Beirut (1996b), and a political economy of morphology in relation to the region's largest city, Cairo (1999). A collection edited by Bonine (1997) reflects the mainstreaming of Middle East urban interests, as captured in its title Politics, Poverty, and Population in Middle Eastern Cities. Unfortunately, not counting Bonine's work, geography is represented by only one contribution, that of Vasile (1997a), who has studied migration, politics, and religion in relation to the impoverished communities of Tunis. This study provides a link to the growing interest in the interplay between the state, unequal development, and the role of Islamist groups in the Middle East. The focus on politics in and of urban areas is also developed in relation to Jerusalem, where Emmett (1993) examined political and religious landscapes in that city, as well as a variety of "solution" scenarios (also see Emmett 1996, 1997b). Cohen (1993) focused on manipulation of the environment as a tool both Israelis and Palestinians employ in trying to control that city. In an examination of a similar dynamic with a slightly different set of protagonists, Emmett (1995, 1997a) examined the struggle between Muslims and Christians for control of the town of Nazareth, while Falah (1992, 1996a, 1997) pursued the topic between Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Israelis in Nazareth and other mixed-towns in Israel. Territorial struggle and landscape representation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict received considerable attention. Cohen and Kliot (1994) examined the symbolic nomenclature imposed on the landscape by Israel, while Falah (1990, 1991a, b, 1996a) discussed the imposition of an Israeli imprint on the land at the expense of the Palestinians living there. Cohen (2000) examined the impact of territorial fragmentation on identity, place, and land tenure in the West Bank. Parmenter (1994) describes Palestinian identity, culture and representation in relation to the struggle against Israeli occupation. In a rare departure from the Israeli-Palestinian case in the political geographic literature, Drysdale (1992) commented on Syrian-Iraqi relations in terms of boundary, resource, and territorial disputes.

2. Water and Arid Lands. Focus on the political carries over into issues of water allocation, reflecting popular perception that water is a matter of war and peace in the Middle East (Kolars 1992, Drake 1997, Amery and Wolf 2000). Early in the decade geographers were engaged in assessing scarcity, recently they have turned their attention to strategies for dividing or sharing water to mitigate conflicts over usage. Kolars (1994a, b) has focused on the Euphrates from a variety of perspectives, including the generation of hydro-power in Turkey and the implications for downstream users, and the impacts of withdrawal on the ecology of the Arabian Gulf. Kolars (1995) has also examined the controversial issue of extra-basin transfers from the Jordan, and the Litani (1993), the latter pursued by Amery (1993) as well. Wolf and Dinar (1994a, b, 1997) have focused on the Jordan River and the aquifers relevant to the Israeli-Arab conflict, to develop models for markets and regional cooperation (also see Wolf and Murakami 1995). International efforts, albeit of a different nature, are also necessary to retard desertification and manage arid lands, as detailed in the work of Bencherifa and Johnson (1991) and Johnson (1996). Such research continues to provide new insights into nomadism and its impact on the environment (Johnson 1993a, b), and, along with pastoralism (Bencherifa and Johnson, 1990), has been discussed in terms of resource management. Grazing impacts after the cessation of grazing have also been studied in Israel (Blumler 1993), though here from the physical rather than the political perspective taken by Falah. The work of Pease et al. (1998), Tindale et al. (1998) and Tchakerian et al. (1997) approaches arid environments from a geomorphic and aeolian modeling angle, representing a small but significant exception in the lacuna of physical geography of the region's deserts.

3. Geography in the Middle East. While the description above is by no means exhaustive, it does capture the major elements of the work carried out in the last decade. There is, of course, a substantial corpus of research carried out by scholars in the region, including a significant amount of material published in English-language journals. Much of this work deals with local issues that would be difficult for foreign-based researchers to maintain, including research in areas that are inaccessible to foreigners. Some of it, particularly that of physical geographers in the Arab world, is carried out by those who received their training in the United States or Canada. It would be difficult to capture the breadth and depth of the work done by indigenous researchers, particularly as they publish in Arabic, Turkish, Farsi, Hebrew, English, French, and perhaps other languages as well. Fortunately, there are already summaries of some of the work being carried out in the Middle East. Gradus and Lipshitz (1996) have edited a collection of short essays by more than fifty Israeli geographers, organized in eleven thematic groups. While the contributions are compact, their bibliographies provide a key to the development of Israeli geography, in terms of both individual research programs, and the nature of the discipline in Israel as a whole. While Israeli geographers are not strangers to the pages of journals based here and in Britain, this volume gives a much fuller picture of their work. Yehiya Farhan (1996) of the University of Jordan provides a survey of geographic work in Arabic speaking countries, tracing influences of the American, British, French, and Russian schools of geography . Farhan also provides a quantitative breakdown of the faculty and research interests at more than fifty geography departments in the Arab states, organizing them along national lines. Unfortunately, according Farhan the majority of the Arab geographers do not belong to international professional associations, and their work is rarely published internationally, let alone in English, a point affirmed by Falah (1999). The recent genesis of The Arab World Geographer, an English-language journal based in the US, may help to rectify this situation. That is one of the stated goals of the journal, and, if successful, it should stimulate the interest of foreign geographers and help generate rich collaborative efforts.

4. Towards the Future. It is difficult to explain the paucity of research on the geography of the Middle East. Certainly the cause is not lack of interest among the general population. Indeed, whether it be the oil reserves in the region, the internecine conflicts, international conflagrations, or the ongoing religious attachments to history and territory, the English-speaking world is fed a steady diet of information and image concerning the Middle East. If there is comfort in company, anthropologists, too, have noted the relative neglect of the region in their research (Abu Lughod 1990). Particularly because of this long-standing problem, much remains to be done. Falah (1998:1) posits the Middle East as "one of the most culturally cohesive regions on the planet." While this may be true at some levels, the complexity and diversity of the region, in both cultural and physical terms, should serve as a magnate to geographers. The Middle East is also a region of historical richness and modern ferment. It continues to interact with worlds to the East and the West, and the failure to explore its depths is a critical shortfall in furthering our understanding of the world. The Middle East should not be truncated as Southwest Asia, appended to Europe, as in Blaut's (1993) colonizer's model of the world, nor kept at undue distance stemming from a reticence to engage following Said's (1978) critique of orientalism (Abu Lughod 1990). Instead, geographers need to engage the region, starting from a new approach to what constitutes the Middle East, and from there, to all that geographers bring to the study of peoples and the physical environment.

CONCLUSIONS: CHALLENGES FOR ASIAN/REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY
Regional geography, historically the bedrock of the discipline, has arrived at a critical juncture. As noted earlier, the world has undergone a dramatic reconfiguration since the early 1990s, largely due to two overarching forces. The first catalyst behind this reconfiguration is the abrupt end of the Cold War resulting from the sudden dismantling of the Soviet Union. Gone is the map of bipolar geopolitics deeply rooted in the ideological conflicts between communism and capitalism, the map that shaped many regional contours and contortions for more than fifty years. It is now replaced by a map based on the rise of unipolar geoeconomics under the tutelage of capitalist globalism - also fashionably called "globalization." The second major development of the decade is a great leap forward in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT). In this concluding section, we first offers a short discussion of implications of the Cold War's demise, specifically in conjunction with globalization and the thesis of civilizational clash, and then proceed to our discursive exploration of how information and communication technological advancements affect regional geography as the primary producer and transmitter of regional information.

The End of the Cold War and Regional Geography
1. Globalization and Regional Geography. As the intensely contested bipolar space of geopolitics lost its regional configuration, unipolar capitalist globalism (notwithstanding its internal contradictions and competition) was seen as a leveler of national boundaries and barricades. Swept by globalization and expecting to capitalize on its windfalls, countries raced to adopt market liberalization as the economic mantra of the day. Global capital thus found itself free from national fetters to embark on a furious march across the world, subduing one nation after another as if they were spellbound. Then there was a global surge of ICT. As it resolutely defied both the friction of distance and national boundaries and jurisdictions, reaching almost every corner of the world with one key touch, it seemed to further fortify the emerging vision of unipolar geoeconomics: one world under global capital. Not only did this scenario lend support to the triumph of capitalism over communism, but it was also seen as a testament to the primacy of capitalist economics over nationalist politics.

Given these trends, many rushed to claim the "end of history" (Fukuyama 1993) and "the end of the nation state" (Ohmae 1995). More joined the parade. What these proclamations amounted to, in essence, was the death of nationalism - a prime root of international conflicts and often an impediment to free trade - and, hence, an emergence of what Ohmae (1990) called "the borderless world," a homogenous world tailor-made for global capital. For geographers, the moral of the story as told by these globalists was: no more geography. In view of the Internet's global reach and the tidal