A very good overview. Covers the key topics well and in an accessible and engaging style.
- Dr Daniel Hammett, Department of Geography, Sheffield University

This is a revised and updated edition of a core undergraduate resource for political geography. Focusing on the social and cultural while systematically overviewing the entire discipline, Joe Painter and Alex Jeffrey explain:

Politics, geography, and 'political' geography: power, resources, institutions, and the history of the field
State formation: classical views alongside recent work on governance and governmentality
Welfare to workfare state: the restructuring of present state strategies
Democracy, citizenship and law: different models of democracy in European and global contexts
Identity and social movements: the relation between identity and political action
Nationalism and regionalism: ethnicity, national identity and otherness
Imperialism and post-colonialism: from world systems theory to post-structuralist accounts
Geopolitics: the political, economic, and strategic significance of geography.

Comprehensive, accessible and illustrated with real world examples, Political Geography provides undergraduates with a thorough understanding of the relationship between geography and politics.

Books by Professor Joe Painter