all geography stories

Geography center launched

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:27:25 -0400

Those of us who remember grammar-school geography lessons as a tedious affair involving a pink and green window shade map and a chalky wooden pointer would probably never guess that, in fact, it is estimated that 80 percent of all data contains a spatial component. That point was made clearly and colorfully at the launch of the new Center for Geographical Analysis (CGA), held May 5, 2006 at the Tsai Auditorium in the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS) South building on Cambridge Street.

When oil became black gold

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:23:13 -0400

Texas, Alaska, Russia, the Middle East - these are the regions one is likely to think of when asked to name the world's top oil- producing areas.

Galicia, an area of Eastern Europe now divided between Poland and Ukraine, would probably not make it onto anyone's list. And yet, 100 years ago, Galicia ranked as the third largest oil producer in the world.

It was the Kingdom of Galicia back then, a part of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire. Oil was discovered there in 1894, and production reached a peak in the early years of the 20th century. In fact, there was so much oil that the major problem for producers was finding people to buy it.

And yet, by the time World War I began in 1914, production had fallen off dramatically, leaving the German-led forces without sufficient means to fuel a modern mechanized military. The Allies, on the other hand, continued to obtain abundant supplies from Russia and the United States, leading Lord Curzon, later British foreign secretary, to remark after the war's end that "the Allies floated to victory on a wave of oil."

The rise and fall of the Galician oil industry is the subject of a new book by Assistant History Professor Alison Frank. She was drawn to the subject not out of a fascination with oil or economics, but through an interest in Austria-Hungary - the multinational state with its capital in Vienna, whose writers, artists, and scientists played a vital role in giving birth to the modern era.

Her book, "Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia" (Harvard University Press, 2005), tells a sad tale, one to which those who extol the free market economy as a cure-all for society's ills would do well to pay attention, although Frank emphasizes that the book is not policy-oriented.

"It's not a case study aimed at telling policymakers what not to do in Kazakhstan, although I do think there are certain lessons to be learned," she said.

Geographical information systems conference showcases the future

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:26:22 -0400

Begun as a mapping software decades ago, geographical information systems, known as GIS, today functions to manage different time- and place-dependent data and allows different variables to be projected together, making for decision support systems and for vivid, sometimes revealing comparisons. Brightly colored maps can show everything from traffic patterns to global warming to animal migrations, and track changes over time, providing a lens through which researchers can easily view their data. GIS was first developed at Harvard in the 1960s by Howard T. Fisher.