Harm de Blij, Geographer
Dateline: 09/28/98Last Monday I was fortunate to have been able to meet a man who has been something of an idol of mine for the past few years, Harm de Blij. Dr. de Blij has written over twenty books though the one most familiar to geography students is his Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, according to his publisher, used in 85% of undergraduate world regional geography courses. De Blij, who earned his PhD in geography in 1959 from Northwestern University, was also the Geography Editor for the ABC television program Good Morning America from 1990 to 1996.
Dr. de Blij came to my campus as part of a trip to Southern California to meet and gather input from faculty and students. I sat in on a morning guest lecture de Blij gave to undergraduates in a world regional geography course. De Blij is an animated lecturer; one can easily tell that he's in love with the discipline and all it has to offer. He shared with the 100 attentive students about the importance of geography and some of his own thoughts about the future. He feels that while global warming is occurring, "the human contribution global warming is infinitesimal." He equates the current cycle of global warming with the one of the tenth century that led the Vikings to North America and allowed England to grow grapes and export wine to France. While he agrees that temperature is rising, de Blij stressed that the planet needs to be spending more time in preparation of the warming instead of meeting to ban pollutants.
An equally ominous threat, de Blij pointed out, is the impending Cold War between China and the United States. While de Blij claims he was never frightened that the Cold War of 1945 to 1991 would result in nuclear destruction because, "we [the USA and USSR] knew each other," he feels that between China and the U.S. there is a huge opportunity to disastrously misunderstand each other. This misunderstanding may result because U.S. and Chinese culture are much less similar than U.S. and Soviet culture. De Blij noted that while many Chinese students know a great deal about the U.S. and know English, Americans know little about China and even fewer know Chinese.
Following has prediction, he encouraged future geographers to pick a region and study it in great detail; immerse oneself in a region, whether it be Asia or another region, to help understand a foreign culture and to help others comprehend it better. His comments resonated those of author James A. Michener.
When asked for his thoughts about the future of Russia, de Blij said that "I don't see a return to Communism, I do see a return to feudalism." He doesn't expect Europe to be able to truly unify and sees the definition of the modern state changing as devolutionary and centrifugal forces are getting more and more powerful. It appears that we can expect to see many more new, small countries appearing in the not-to-distant future.
Later, de Blij addressed a group of graduate students and encouraged them to publish more frequently. In his slight Dutch accent, he bemoaned the fact that graduate students in other disciplines are much more prolific and are usually co-authoring journal articles soon into graduate school.
De Blij is currently working on the ninth edition of his famous text and shared that the next edition will include an associated web site that will include additional background text as well as maps that weren't able to fit into the textbook. Since leaving ABC, De Blij has been busy traveling as part of his duties on the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration as well as filing reports for NBC news, the network he is currently affiliated with. (He recently filmed a news report about Hawaiian Independence).
After we met but before Dr. de Blij returned to his hotel to rest up for his next campus visit, I made sure I asked him to sign my copy of the 1995 Harm De Blij's Geography Book.
What do you think about Harm de Blij's ideas about the future? Is global warming just a natural process? Will Russia spit apart? Is a new Cold War imminent? Post your comments or thoughts on the Geography Bulletin Board
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