tributors use the term interchangeably with‘well-being’ while others only use the term ‘well-being’. Health status is self assessed in all theresearch reported here, and in most of what isreviewed: none of the contributions link sense ofplace to biomedical health assessment.

The book’s 14 chapters are valuable for bring-ing together reviews of the concept of sense ofplace in relation to well-being, contributions tomethodology for sense of place-health/well-being/quality of life studies, and case studiesfrom several contexts. The introductory chapterby the editors outlines how human understandingof the determinants of health has developed,establishes the scale of interest for this volume asindividuals rather than populations, and reviewsthe development of the small literature exploringlinks between sense of place and health. In thefollowing chapters DeMiglio and Williamsreview how the concept of sense of place devel-oped and its multidisciplinarity, and Relph chartsan agenda for rediscovery of place as integralboth to being and well-being.

Sense of place is likened by some of thebook’s contributors to human senses of smell,taste and touch in that it is something that peo-ple intuitively understand but find difficult toexpress. This highlights the value of the book’smethodological contributions. The first by Eylesexamines qualitative approaches that have beenused in sense of place and health studies. Itserves as a useful guide for students on thevalue, limitations and cautions of qualitativeapproaches. And it shows that there has beenvery little such research that directly addressesthe relationship between sense of place andhealth. Williams et al. directly take up theimplicit challenge of quantitative assessment ofsense of place. They describe a facet designprocess undertaken systematically as the firststage in developing a questionnaire survey tomeasure people’s sense of place. Development ofsuch an instrument is particularly important toestablishing relationships between sense of placeand biomedical assessments of health, as Burgesset al. (2008) have shown in recent analogousresearch on the relationship between Aboriginalcaring for country and health.

Much of the book does not hit the mark it setsfor itself. The studies reviewed or reportedaddress questions such as how physical or socialenvironment quality affects a sense of place orhealth; how people in particular places conceiveof health or experience risks to health; or howsense of place affects the responsibilities that

people exercise to look after or improve thequality of their local environment. Some con-tributors have reinterpreted research results tobring out ‘sense of place’ issues from studieswhere they were not explicitly considered atdesign stage. However the contributions mostlyby-pass the question of how the nature andstrength of people’s relationships to place(s)might in and of themselves impact directly onthose people’s health.

These limitations largely reflect the embryonicstate of research into sense of place and health.Several of the contributions are nevertheless veryvaluable. In particular Krevs’ review of researchon quality of life in post-socialist Eastern Europemakes a significant body of work more acces-sible outside that region. Further, in the closingchapter, the editors present a research agendafor sense of place-health studies which holdspromise, ultimately, for significantly improvedunderstanding of the relationship that they drawattention to with this volume, and application toenhance health. Researchers and students inter-ested in these important questions will find thebook provides a sound, practical and policy rel-evant guide to the state of the science and art ofsense of place.

REFERENCEBurgess, C.P., Berry, H.L., Gunthorpe, W. and Bailie, R.S.,

2008: Development and preliminary validation of the‘Caring for Country’ questionnaire: measurement of anIndigenous Australian health determinant. InternationalJournal for Equity in Health 7(26), doi:10.1186/1475-9276-7-26.

Jocelyn DaviesCSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems

Alice Springs

Griffith Taylor: Visionary, Environmentalist,ExplorerCarolyn Strange and Alison Bashford, NationalLibrary of Australia, Canberra, 2008, 283 pp,ISBN 9780642276681 (paperback), A$39.95.

While people reading the biographies of scien-tists may or may not gain an understanding oftheir scientific work, they can learn about scien-tists and the passion behind their work (Gordon,2005). Nye (2006, 322) notes ‘While historiansof science often use biography as a vehicle toanalyze scientific processes and scientificculture, the most compelling scientific biogra-phies are ones that portray the ambitions, pas-

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sions, disappointments, and moral choices thatcharacterize a scientist’s life.’

Australia’s first academic geographer, GriffithTaylor, is an excellent subject for a scientificbiography. Taylor led what Soderqvist (2003)termed a ‘biographical life’, saving a wealth ofpersonal and professional records. As Strangeand Bashford note, ‘Taylor was the sort of personwho never stood still, and never stopped talkingabout it. As one of the twentieth century’sleading geographers, his scientific travels tookhim to every continent . . . Everything he sawand reckoned along the way he poured into hisdiaries, field notes, lectures, scholarly articles,books, newspaper columns and magazine fea-tures’ (p. 1). As they go on to say, ‘Of the manytopics Taylor studied, his favourite subject washimself. . . . From boyhood to 1963, the year hedied, he constructed a record of his life andobservations, supplemented by the letters hekept, including those he received and copies ofthose he sent’ (p. 3). Most of the 530 footnotesand 106 illustrations in the book are derived fromTaylor’s collection.

Griffith Taylor, the first of five children,was born in 1880 in England. Taylor began hisdiary-writing habit – ‘a self-conscious record ofobservations and ideas’ in 1893 when his familymigrated to Australia (p. 18). In many respects,Taylor followed in the footsteps of his fatherwho had bootstrapped himself from workingclass poverty in the English midlands to theposition of ‘an international mining engineerand consultant’ (p. 8). Taylor earned a BSc ingeology and physics from the University ofSydney in 1904 and a second bachelor’s degreein mining engineering in 1905. He found his keymentor, geology professor Edgeworth David,while completing his first degree. Taylor actedas a demonstrator for David in 1905, learningfrom David’s scientific expertise, oratory, teach-ing and fieldwork (p. 22). With David’s assis-tance, Taylor won a scholarship at CambridgeUniversity to undertake research on coral reefsin 1907.

Taylor’s networking efforts in England led toan alpine tour with Harvard Professor WilliamDavis in 1908 and to a scientific role (meteorol-ogy and geology) in the British Antarctic Expe-dition led by Captain Robert Scott in 1910. Thetrip to Antarctica was a key point in Taylor’sdevelopment in two ways – it helped to establishhis academic career (it was the basis of a doctoraldegree conferred in 1916 and set him up as apublic figure) and led to his marriage to Doris

Priestley, the younger sister of one his expedi-tionary colleagues in 1914.

Taylor spent seven years in bureaucraticpurgatory, labouring as a ‘senile desk resear-cher’ (p. 88) for the Bureau of Meteorology inMelbourne before he successfully negotiated anappointment as the foundation lecturer in geo-graphy in a separate department at the Universityof Sydney in November 1920 (p. 123). WhileTaylor expected rapid academic advancement, hewas a highly controversial public intellectual whocondemned many of the development schemes ofthe time as foolish and wasteful. While correct onphysiographic grounds, his views were risky in a‘period of fanatical nationalism’. He further mar-ginalised himself by being one of the few scholarsto oppose the White Australia Policy (p. 5).

With the University of Sydney unlikely topromote him beyond the position of associateprofessor, Taylor decamped to the University ofChicago where he took up a chair in geographyin 1929. In doing so, Taylor moved from a smallperipheral academic community to ‘a highlysociable community of professors’ in one of the‘largest and most dynamic universities’ in theUnited States (p. 138). Although he was workingat an academic core, Taylor’s deterministicapproach kept him on the periphery of the disci-pline and it was difficult for him to stand outfrom such a crowd of luminaries. Consequentlyhe happily moved to the University of Torontoin 1935 to establish a department of geography(pp. 143, 144).

Taylor retired from the University of Torontoat the end of 1950 at the age of 70, returning tosuburban life in Sydney. Taylor continued hisacademic involvement in his retirement, becom-ing president of the geography section ofANZAAS in 1952, and recycling his old lec-tures and maps in a course on Australianresources at the University of Technology(p. 219). Taylor completed the draft of his auto-biography Journeyman Taylor: The Educationof a Scientist in 1952. However the 5 kg manu-script was somewhat overlong and was sub-jected to considerable hard-nosed editing beforeit was published in 1958 (p. 221). Taylor’s 1959presidential address to the Institute of AustralianGeographers (‘a 9,000 word review of his life’swork’ titled ‘Geographers and world peace’,p. 181) fared similarly at the hands of editors.Initially rejected by the editor of AustralianGeographical Studies and subsequently rejectedby other journals over several years, a heavilyabridged version was published by AGS in

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1963, the year of Taylor’s death at the age of 83.In recognition of the contribution made byTaylor, the Griffith Taylor Medal is now themost prestigious award offered by the Instituteof Australian Geographers.

Overall, Strange and Bashford present Tayloras ‘an Enlightenment-style polymath . . . and avisionary interdisciplinarian . . . He linked the“antiquity of man” to climate, languages toecology, the evolution of races to the ice ages:Taylor thought big, unlimited by scale, by disci-pline, and sometimes by evidence’ (p. 6). Theauthors document the variable quality of Taylor’sresearch. While his initial geological and meteo-rological research was based on very carefullycollected data, much of his later data collectionwas less precise, being based on whistle-stopfield tours and academic forays into disciplinaryareas (such as anthropology and eugenics) thathe had little grounding in.

Taylor was oriented towards achievement andrecognition. He surrounded himself with sup-porters in the form of ‘mentors, colleagues,friends, students and family members – able andwilling to offer affirmation’ (p. 8). ‘There was nogreater publicist for Taylor than Taylor himself,who drew attention in every talk and publicationto his remarkable achievements’ (p. 12). Forexample, an inspection of Taylor’s (1932) papertitled ‘The Geographer’s aid in nation-planning’contains 174 self-references in 15 pages oftext. Conversely, Taylor didn’t react construc-tively to criticism, frequently ignoring contraryadvice. In particular, he did not appreciate criti-cism from people he regarded as being junior tohimself.

Taylor had a combative personality and is bestremembered for his fight with the optimists of hisera over the development potential of Australia.While Taylor liked to present himself as a lonevoice crying in the wilderness, Powell (1978)notes that he did in fact receive support frompoliticians, bureaucrats, businessmen and aca-demics. Overall, Taylor provides a useful exam-ple of a pioneering geographer. His capacity tobe an effective communicator, combining lan-guage and graphical skills contributed to hispopularity as a lecturer and journalist. In particu-lar, he was an excellent cartographer and a sourceof effective metaphors.

In summary, Griffith Taylor: Visionary, Envi-ronmentalist, Explorer is a very intensivelyresearched historical review of Taylor’s life. It isneither an iconoclastic review nor a myth-building biography, nor does it offer a systematic

analysis of Taylor’s theories and the historicaldevelopment of geography in Australia. Rather itcharts Taylor’s development as a person and asan academic, and it focuses on his attitudes andactions. It is a book worth reading by Australiangeographers as well as social scientists interestedin the development of academia in the earlytwentieth century, and it should grace the libraryshelves of all tertiary campuses where geographyis taught.

REFERENCESGordon, K., 2005: From a Scientist’s Life, Art’s Cautionary

Tales. New York Times (Late Edition (East Coast)), NewYork, N.Y., 12 Oct, E.4.

Nye, M.J., 2006: Scientific Biography: History of Science byAnother Means? Isis 97, 322–329.

Powell, J., 1978: Griffith Taylor Emigrates from Australia.Geography Bulletin (March), 5–12.

Soderqvist, T., 2003: Science as Autobiography: TheTroubled Life of Niels Jerne, trans. David Mel Paul (YaleUniversity Press, New Haven, CT), cited in Nye (2006).

Taylor, G., 1932: The Geographer’s Aid In Nation-Planning.The Scottish Geographical Magazine 48(1), 1–20.

Laurence KnightUniversity of Tasmania

Australia

GentrificationLoretta Lees, Tom Slater and Elvin Wyly, Rout-ledge, New York and London, 2008, xxviii + 310pp, ISBN 9780415950374 (paperback), US$35.96.

The form, causes and effects of gentrificationhave been a mainstay of urban geographicinquiry for at least two decades. It is surprising,then, that the work of Lees, Slater and Wylyrepresents the first textbook devoted to the topicof gentrification. However, there is also a time-liness to this contribution. Gentrification is con-tinuing to diffuse and take on new forms, andis increasingly promoted through neoliberalpolicy instruments (which often employ weaselwords such as ‘regeneration’, ‘revitalization’ or‘renewal’, rather than the politically-loaded‘gentrification’). The authors address theseongoing developments, as well as more estab-lished themes, via a sustained engagement withthe literature, and insights from their ownresearch.

The stated intention of this book is toprovide a ‘comprehensive, accessible, intro-ductory volume (complete with case studies)’that is ‘theoretically informed and empirically

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