suspicions that there might be other sourceswith which he has not connected. The idea thatecosystems and landscapes have multiple func-tions is well established in ecology and land-scape planning which parallels (if not predates)their discussion in agriculture. By constraininghimself to multifunctional agriculture, Wilsonmay have arbitrarily limited his perspective.

I did take exception to Wilson in a few places.On page 181, Wilson complains of the lack of adiscussion of multifunctionalism in mining. Inmy view there is a considerable discussion aboutthe role of mining in sustainable development,including a major project, ‘Mining, Mineralsand Sustainable Development’, which wasmanaged by the International Institute forEnvironment and Development, with its majorreport being released in 2002 (http://www.iied.org/mmsd/). Since about 2000, the journals,Resources Policy and Natural Resources Forum,have many articles that argue that mining needsto contribute to social development, notablyarticles by Labonne, Humpreys, and Hilson andMurck.

Wilson comments that multifunctionality onlyentered academic writing of antipodean academ-ics around 2005 (p.183). This may be true interms of publications (I reluctantly concludedafter some checking), but it is my recollectionthat it was a subject of discussion in Australia/New Zealand much earlier. Some homeworkrevealed that the Declaration of Vitoria-Gasteiz,with its second principle relating to multifunc-tionality, was published in the Australian journal,Rural Society, in 1999 – I was actually an invitedparticipant representing Australia at the 1998Vitoria-Gasteiz conference. It is my view that weantipodeans were well aware of the 1996 CorkDeclaration on a Living Countryside too, andperhaps I circulated it on the AON listserv. WithAustralia publishing its statement against theprinciple of multifunctionality (viewing it as atrade distortion) on the Cairns Group website in1999, I can’t image that we antipodean ruralsociologists and geographers weren’t talkingabout it. (See http://www.cairnsgroup.org/papers/paper_9901_multifunctionality.html forthe Australian position paper, described as a‘Fact Sheet’).

Despite these minor complaints, Wilson’scoverage of the literature is amazingly broad.However, in his attempt to be so encompassing,at times I considered he had a rather superficialtreatment of the issue at question, and at times Iwas bemused by the references used to make a

point. Unfortunately, I did find the book exces-sively long, repetitive in parts, and slightlylaboured by over-thoroughness. A more commer-cially oriented publisher may have encouragedhim to spend longer editing the book to removethe repetition and to reduce its length. The bookwon’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but it is for themoment at least the definitive text on the topic ofmultifunctionality, and for people willing toaccept the book’s shortcomings (that is, prima-rily its lengthiness), I would recommend it. Thebook does present a challenge for someone elseto expand the field of what’s on offer.

Frank VanclayUniversity of Tasmania

Australia

North American Explorations – Ten Memoirsof Geographers from Down UnderLeslie J. King (ed.), Trafford, Victoria, BritishColumbia, 2007, xiv + 179 pp, ISBN 978 1 42512751 0 (paperback), US$ 21.74.

This invigorating volume sparkles with theautobiographies of four Australian-born geogra-phers (Reginald G. Golledge, Malcolm I. Logan,Janice Monk and Robert H.T. Smith), and sixNew Zealand-born geographers (William A.V.Clark, Peter G. Holland, Leslie J. King, TerryMcGee, Warren Moran and Brian Murton). Allspent much or part of their stellar academiccareers in Canada or the United States. Whattales they tell! Here is Cornford’s Microcos-mographia Academica for young, aspiring geog-raphers with devious minds, plus the EmigrantGeographer’s Guide to Success Abroad. Hereis what non-geographers should read for asprightly, intimate insight into what geographershave been up to since 1960.

The ten authors do not represent theantipodean diaspora. They include only onephysical geographer, one feminist, and no devo-tional post-modernists. Their North Americansojourns have lasted from less than five years toover fifty, with an average of 28.6 years. Theiraverage age is 71.8 years, but not one is over thehill or into the last ditch.

All ten authors trace their academic motiva-tions back to childhood, often spent in rural iso-lation or inner city deprivation, with untutoredparents, under working class duress. Was geog-raphy then the poor student’s alternative to lawor medicine? Several considered majoring in

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English or history, thanks to inspirational highschool teachers, before geography enrapturedthem. All found compasses during their under-graduate and post-graduate years – the first typi-cally in the antipodes, the latter often in NorthAmerica. Jobberns and Macdonald Holmes weretheir god-professors.

Also influential in shaping their destinies werescholarly works by Haggett, Chorley, Bunge,Simon, Leopold, and Sauer, as well as Milly-Molly-Mandy. Most extol such mentors asMcCarthy, Broek, Taaffe, Braudel, and Simoons,although one or two mention neither heroes norheroines. The bogeymen include Hartshorne,Stamp, Russell and Kniffen, who scorned quan-tification or remained mired in regional geogra-phy. Curiously, two contributors still remainmired in Asian studies, and another hitched hisascending star to the Australian Department ofUrban and Regional Development. Retirementhas also mellowed two erstwhile scoffers intowriting histories of a golf club and the Mediter-ranean lands.

Stinging setbacks have hindered (but nothalted) their progress – Second Class Honours,Teachers College bonds, plagiarism by a Scottisharchivist, rebuffs by British universities andrejection by a university that ultimately awardedthe outcast an honorary degree. Then there werecalamities such as cancer, the death of a spouse,and blindness. Where these undaunted high-flyers found their perseverance and hard-wiredmotivation is rarely made explicit. Perhaps theylurk in some irrepressible need for recognition,achievement, power, beneficence, or adventure.One said that open doors always signalled ‘whynot’?

Honours of every kind have been showered onthem, from ‘Australian of the Year’ and the presi-dencies of geographical associations to SenatorProxmire’s Golden Fleece Award. They have leddepartments, faculties, and whole universities,through hell and high water. Administration oftenloosened their ties with geography. Yet severalmobilised the ‘quantitative revolution’, orrecruited women into geography, dignified thelives of minorities, palliated economic distress,and chaired major national projects. Severalreveal their mature creeds about geographicaleducation, which first simmered as manifestoesby Young Turks. Some lament that the ‘verybroad church’ of geography has now lapsed intopost-modern relativism.

Their North American exploration typicallybegan on ocean liners and Greyhound buses.

The initial cultural shock of exile in Americawas softened by fellow post-graduates, evolv-ing research networks, and rollicking seminarsthat broadened their minds. Migration redefinedthe edges and centres of intellectual ferment,and challenged their self-images. Sabbaticalleave in the African or Asian tropics becamedefining experiences. Most found that theireducation in New Zealand and Australia wasboth robust and spotty. They soon erased thespots.

Despite an average of almost thirty years spentin North America, few of the authors expressmuch enthusiasm for living there. They doacknowledge the intellectual challenge and rapidprofessional advancement, but these were tem-pered by aversions to race relations, studentsit-ins, the Vietnam War, and the Bush-Cheneyadministration. Some authors became so uneasythat they hastened to Canada or returned toAustralia. None wanted to visit all fifty states ormake pilgrimages to the heritage sites as gung-hoAmericans often strive to. Nothing is said of theart museums, orchestras, or national treasuresthat excite the native-born intellectuals. Explora-tion for these expatriates meant mind games –not travel, not culture, and certainly notAmerican politics. Many found immersion intheir research areas easier than assimilation intoNorth American society.

Repatriation has restored half of the authorsto their homelands. Some hoped to transplantAmerican practices (notably from Wisconsin),but were largely disarmed by the British hege-mony in colonial geography. Why they returnedis unclear. One remarked that his fervent nation-alism had shifted gears into internationalism.Alienation enabled him to criticise New Zealand.Given the outstanding careers of these expatri-ates, their return home was triumphal. Whichpassports they carried for all those years is warilyconcealed. Some exiles feel like traitors.Ambrose Bierce defined an exile as ‘one whoserves his country by residing abroad, yet is notan ambassador’.

Since each biography contains only 9,000words, many questions remain unanswered. Thelacunae are instructive. There is no mention ofany Gradgrinds among the influential teachers.Did nobody denounce a false prophet, or fleefrom an intolerable situation? There is next tono criticism of colleagues. Even differencesof opinion are muted – except about Simonett.Did collaboration never become cronyism,or collegiality slip into name-dropping? The

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demoralising decimation of American geographyprograms and departments (including those atChicago and Ann Arbor) occurred on this gen-eration’s watch. Why is it kept in the closet?

The academic context is constricting. Are noneso crass as to count their success in salaries,luxury goods, or fine homes? Nor is family lifecited as the behavioural pivot it often is, with kidsneeding continuity in their schooling, spouseswanting stable homes or their own careers, andelderly parents declining. None confesses to anyreligious compunction, despite several sojourn-ers in the Bible Belt. Leisure pursuits and mili-tary service are defining landmarks in some lives,but not these. With a champion cat-herder aseditor, all ten biographers cleave to a circum-scribed academic narrative.

The American-Antipodean matrix extendswell beyond these ten memoirs, exemplary asthey are. It involves the reciprocal presence ofNorth American geographers in Australian andNew Zealand universities. Some worked here(like Sternstein, Bauer, and Horvath) whileothers researched here (including Andrew Clark,Meinig, and McKnight). British geographers likeWebber, Dury, and Brookfield also roosted in thesouthwest Pacific before finding North Americanjobs. All ten authors threw themselves into trail-blazing research or social reform. None seemsto have explicitly injected Australian and NewZealand studies into the curriculum, as others did– like missionaries – at Santa Cruz, Penn State,and Cincinnati.

Autobiographies are often opportunities tolionise one’s life or ponder its value. The Narcis-sism Index used here is based on the incidence ofthe personal pronoun ‘I’ in a sample of twentypages. It ranges from two to twenty-four self-references per page. Yet the prevailing toneavoids solemnity. It exudes bonhomie. Theveracity of undocumented memoirs is hard toverify, but these do ring true. As Samuel Johnsonwarned, ‘In lapidary inscriptions, a man is notupon oath’. Most authors list a few of their ownworks in the chapter bibliographies. Are thesetheir proudest memorials, or do the real-worldevents they spawned count for even more? Thatis where the judgmental historian finally eclipsesthe geographer, unless geographers write theirown histories, as ten have here – with suchcandour, self-assurance, and wit.

Bruce RyanUniversity of Cincinnati

U.S.A.

Guidelines for Surveying Soil and LandResources, 2nd EditionN.J. McKenzie, M.J. Grundy, R. Webster andA.J. Ringrose-Voase (eds), Australian Soil andLand Survey Handbook Series Volume 2, CSIROPublishing, Collingwood, Australia, 2008, xiv +557 pp, ISBN 978 0 6430 9091 0 (hardcover),A$140.00.

Forty-five authors contributed to this new editionof the Guidelines for Surveying Soil and LandResources. The aim of the book is to provide adatabase on soil and land resources as a pre-requisite for making informed decisions onland use, development and management. It isargued that without a sound database there maybe inefficient use of resources and environmentaldegradation. A replacement for the first edition(1985) was deemed necessary because of thetechnological developments of the past twodecades, such as GIS, GPS, remote sensing,digital terrain analyses, simulation modelling,statistical analyses, and online access todatabases.

There are 32 chapters organised under fivemajor sections. Part 1, Introduction, deals withthe rationale for land and soil resource surveys,approaches to land resource survey and questionsof scale. Part 2 covers the landscape context andremote sensing and includes geology, geomor-phology and regolith, soil and landscape pro-cesses, digital terrain analysis, hydrology,vegetation, land use mapping, and remotesensing with air photography, imaging spectros-copy, temporal analysis and gamma-ray spec-trometry. Part 3 describes the mechanics ofsurvey, survey specification, planning andresources, field operations and measurement,qualitative survey and soil and land classifica-tion. Part 4 considers digital soil mapping andpedometrics, the application of mathematical andstatistical methods for the study of the distribu-tion and genesis of soils. Part 5, on land evalua-tion, includes treatment of conventional andquantitative land evaluation, intensive survey foragricultural management, monitoring soil andland conditions, legal and planning frameworksand communication.

If there is an expectation that after reading thebook one would be qualified to undertake soiland land resource surveying, this would lead todisappointment. Often the book does not provideactual details of carrying out surveys but refersto other publications, references and handbookswhere those survey techniques may be found.

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