Full Description
In The Nature of Space, pioneering Afro-Brazilian geographer Milton Santos attends to globalization writ large and how local and global orders intersect in the construction of space. Santos offers a theory of human space based on relationships between time and ontology. He argues that when geographers consider the inseparability of time and space, they can then transcend fragmented realities and partial truths without trying to theorize their way around them. Based on these premises, Santos examines the role of space, which he defines as indissoluble systems of objects and systems of actions in social processes, while providing a geographic contribution to the production of a critical social theory.
Contents
Introduction to the English-Language Edition: Milton Santos: Rebel of the Backlands, Insurgent Academic, Prescient Scholar / Susanna Hecht vii
Introduction 1
Part I. An Ontology of Space: Founding Ideas
1. Techniques, Time, and Geographic Space 13
2. Space: Systems of Objects, Systems of Action 34
3. Geographic Space, a Hybrid 53
Part II. The Production of Content-Forms
4. Space and the Notion of Totality 69
5. From the Diversification of Nature to the Territorial Division of Labor 81
6. Time (Events) and Space 91
Part III. For a Geography of the Present
7. The Current Technical System 111
8. Unicities: The Production of Planetary Intelligence 124
9. Objects and Actions Today: Norms and Territory 142
10. From the Natural Milieu to the Technical-Scientific-Informational Milieu 157
11. For a Geography of Networks 177
12. Horizontalities and Verticalities 192
13. Spaces of Rationality 198
Part IV. The Power of Place
14. Place and the Everyday 215
Universal Order, Local Order: Summary and Conclusion 229
Notes 237
References 241
Index 273
