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strong enough argument. I agree with the author

that social geography is about inequality and

its uneven geographies. Why then did the book

offer so little analysis of inequality? The discus-

sion about health care did not include any dis-

cussion of the uneven healthcare geographies

of the USA structured as they are by race,

class and space. Similarly, in Chapter 8 on

Kornblums (2008) study of ageing and life

expectancy in the USA, the classed and racia-

lized inequalities underlying the data are under-

stated as are those structuring the prison system

discussed in Chapter 5.

I will certainly use this textbook with my

students, the overview of the subdiscipline is

very helpful there is a great diagram summar-izing different methodological approaches in

Chapter Three! The book also thoughtfully

engages with the scope of social geography

particularly in reflections on more-than-

human social geography. However, I think the

latter part of the book suffers from being too

dense and too descriptive with not enough to

excite and engage students nor a strong enough

narrative thread to carry them through. This

failure to sufficiently engage is perhaps reflectedin the student exercises which struck me as both

difficult and largely based on library or internet

research. I think social geography should be

about passionate argument about social inequal-

ities and social formations and, although I am

sure the author believes that too, this book does

not do enough to convey that passion.

References

Kornblum A (2008) Life expectancy worsening or stagnat-

ing for large segment of the US population. USA Today.

Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/

2008-04-21-life-span-study_N.htm.

Mitchell D (2000) Cultural Geography: A Critical Intro-

duction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Panelli R (2004) Social Geographies: From Difference to

Action. London: Sage.

Valentine G (2001) Social Geographies: Space and

Society. Prentice Hall.

Wilson Gilmore R (2007)Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus,

Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California.

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Eyles J and Williams A (2008) Sense of Place, Health and

Quality of Life. Aldershot: Ashgate. 221 pp. 55 cloth.

ISBN: 978 0 7546 7332 2 cloth.

Reviewed by:Jennifer Lea,University of Reading, UK

This book forms part of Ashgates Geogra-

phies of Health series: a new and expanding

series made up of volumes covering key concepts

in health geographies such as care, therapeuticlandscapes, obesity and (dis)ability. Edited by

John Eyles and Allison Williams, this book

examines the relationship between sense of place,

health and quality of life. The humanistic concept

of sense of place directs analytic focus to the

significance of human perceptions of place in

determining health outcomes. The book takes a

practical approach, noting that enhancing the

health promoting qualities of the places where

people spend their time improves the inhabi-tants sense of place and thus their health (p.

5). The first half of the book offers a useful and

accessible introduction to the literatures (DeMi-

glio and Williams), philosophies (Relph, Stefano-

vic), and methodologies (Eyles qualitative;

Williams et al. quantitative) of sense of place.

Offering a useful and accessible introduction to

the concept, this half of the book would be of par-

ticular interest to readers, from undergraduate

level upwards, who want to get to grips with

sense of place, particularly in relation to health.

The second half of the book consists of case stud-

ies that work the concept through a range of

empirical contexts. Mostly, these reflect the con-

tributors locations, ranging from Canada and

North America to Europe (particularly post-

socialist countries).

The contributors write from a range of

disciplines across the social sciences, giving

Book reviews 853

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rise to a diversity of interpretations of sense

of place. On the one hand this is productive,

offering the reader a wide range of options for

their own understanding of the relationship

between sense of place and health. On the

other hand, it runs the risk of disorientating

the reader. While sense of place is a com-

mon term of reference, its meaning is consid-

ered in very diverse ways and it is often left to

the reader to negotiate this. For instance,

while one chapter introduces quantitative

modelling to validly and reliably measure

sense of place (Williams et al., p. 81), many

of the other authors resist pinning down a def-

inition of sense of place. There is also dis-

agreement over the location of the sense ofthe place. Ashworths chapter argues that

sense of place is derived from people in place,

as places have no sense in themselves (p.

186). Other authors make strong claims for

place as a localized bounded and material

entity having intrinsic character themselves

(Krevs, p. 136). Relphs chapter offers the

uninitiated reader a guide to differentiate

between sense of place, sense of a place

and sense of places (p. 38).This diversity arises in part from the lived,

everyday quality of sense of place. On the

whole, it is easy to understand sense of place

through our own commonsense understanding

of the places we live in, work in and visit. The

danger of this kind of everyday understanding

is that it can obscure the multiple senses of

place that might exist in any one location.

The book would offer a more rounded contribu-

tion to the literature on place and health if it

explicitly interrogated the moral geographies

of the very idea of sense of place (Cresswell,

2006: 26). The common thread that runs

through many of the chapters is one of sense

of place as a way of thinking about the

world which is reliant on notions of rooted-

ness, belonging, attachment, meaningfulness

(Cresswell, 2006: 26). For instance, Ash-

worths chapter asks how places can be planned

with the objective of revealing, preserving,

enhancing or inventing local place identity

(p. 185), thus unproblematically assuming that

the development of a strong local place identity

is a good thing. The conclusion of the book

reproduces similarly configured moral geogra-

phies, examining the effects of globalization,

technology and mobility on sense of place and

well-being, and concluding that these effects

are generally detrimental. More sustained

engagement with recent debates in human geo-

graphy would have allowed Ashworth to valu-

ably ask critical questions about whom local

place identity is valuable or detrimental for, and

the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that

arise.In relation to this, while the editors

advocate the development of a holistic view

of health and usefully break apart the WHO

definition of health, a singular configuration

of health as a particularly configured

mind-body state prevails through the book.

Given the wide range of case studies it was

perhaps surprising not to see a wider range

of definitions and experiences of health and

well-being reported, to reflect the contextual,contingent, socially and spatially variegated

nature of health. These critiques noted, the

book remains a welcome addition to the

Ashgate series, including chapters with the

potential to speak more widely to researchers

working across the discipline. Particularly of

note are chapters by Buzzelli (which develops

the idea of sense of place in relation to the envi-

ronmental justice movement), and Lynne

Manzo (which looks at sense of place in relation

to social justice public housing restructuring in

North America). These demonstrate the

potential value of sense of place as a cur-

rently resonant human geographical concept

particularly well.

Reference

Cresswell T (2006)On the Move: Mobility in the Modern

Western World.Abingdon: Routledge.

854 Progress in Human Geography 34(6)

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