Features

New to This Edition

Restructured Chapters Organized Around Five Themes
For this edition, Lydia and Alex Pulsipher streamlined the thematic framework of their chapters. Students now navigate the complexities of the world’s regions by focusing on five essential themes:

•  Environment
• Globalization and Development
• Power and Politics
• Urbanization
• Population and Gender

Each chapter addresses these themes in a consistent order.

New! Geographic Insights
Chapters now begin with five learning objectives called Geographic Insights, each tied to a specific theme as it unfolds within the chapter. Geographic Insights are reviewed in “Things to Remember” sections throughout the chapter, as well as in “Geographic Insights Review and Self-Test” sections at the end of each chapter. 

New! On the Bright Side
These new commentaries offer relief from the often dispiriting view of the world today by highlighting hopeful patterns and opportunities emerging within each region.

New! Local Lives Photo Feature
This entirely new photo feature focuses on the interaction between people and animals, festivals, and foodways in particular areas, further emphasizing the book’s focus on the connections between peoples’ lives and larger global patterns.

New Photos and Coverage of Photo Interpretation

• Every photo in the text, including those in the Photo Essays and other features have been updated to help students understand the circumstances of people around the world.
• Thinking Geographically questions ask students to analyze all photos for insights into peoples’ lives.
• Chapter 1 now includes a short lesson on photo interpretation. Students are encouraged to use these skills as they look at every photo in the text, and instructors are encouraged to use the photos as lecture themes and to help generate analytical class discussions.

Up-to-Date Content, including:

• Climate change and its environmental, political, and economic implications
• The global economic recession that began in 2008 and its effect on migrants, labor outsourcing, and job security in importing and exporting countries
• The role of terrorism in the realignment of power globally and locally
• Growing disparity in wealth in North America
• Domestic and global implications of the U.S. political, economic, and military stances
• Conflict over oil pollution in the Amazon
• Immigration and the ways it is changing countries economically and culturally
• Changing gender roles, particularly in developing countries
• Recent economic crises in the European Union and the consequences for the original EU members, new and potential member states, and the global community
• Growing tensions between Russia, its neighbors, the European Union, and the United States
• Political revolutions and conflict (the Arab Spring) in North Africa and Southwest Asia (often referred to as the Middle East)
• The new influence of Arabic media outlets, such as Al Jazeera
• Maps reflecting the new country of South Sudan (some data remain based on Sudan as a whole because South Sudan has not yet begun reporting statistics)
• Growing tensions over water in South Asia
• Disputes in East Asia over the Senkaku Islands
• Civil unrest in Thailand
• The consequences of global climate change on Pacific Island nations

Consistent Base Maps
To help students make conceptual connections and comparisons across regions, every chapter contains:

• Regional map with landscape photos at the beginning of each chapter
• Political map
• Climate map with photos of different climate zones
• Map of the human impacts on the biosphere, with photo essay
• Map of the region’s vulnerability to climate change, with photo essay
• Map of regional trends in power and politics, with photo essay
• Urbanization map, with photo essay
• Map of population density

An unprecedented, fully integrated print/media resource
LaunchPad
World Regional Geography Concepts, Third Edition is accompanied by its own dedicated version of W.H. Freeman’s breakthrough online course space, which offers:

• Pre-built Units for each chapter, curated by experienced educators, with media for that chapter organized and ready to assign or customize to suit your course.
• All online resources for the text in one location, including an interactive e-book, LearningCurve adaptive quizzing (see below), and an expanded number of videos (over 400 total — about 35 per chapter).
• Intuitive and useful analytics, with a Gradebook that lets you see how your class is doing individually and as a whole.
• A streamlined and intuitive interface that lets instructors build an entire course in minutes.

LearningCurve
In a game-like format, LearningCurve adaptive and formative quizzing helps get students more deeply involved in the coursework. It offers:

• A unique learning path for each student, with quizzes shaped by each individual’s correct and incorrect answers.
• A Personalized Study Plan, to guide students’ preparation for class and for exams.
• Feedback for each question with live links to relevant e-book pages, guiding students to the reading they need to do to improve their areas of weakness.

More Videos
LaunchPad features 400 brief videos clips for the new edition—about 35 per chapter. Icons in the text alert students to available, relevant clips. Each video includes assessments that feed into LaunchPad’s gradebook.