Ben Orlove, Ellen Wiegandt and Brian H. Luckman (eds), Darkening Peaks. Glacier Retreat, Science, and Society

An interestring scientific symposium took place in Wengen (CH) in October 2004. Many specialists of various disciplines and from various regions of the world gathered for one of the very few international meetings willing to adopt an general analysis of glaciers, with both natural and social scopes. This book is released 4 years later with many presentations given there. The book contains very different contributions. One can find factual information on glaciers at the world scale; since the ..

Foreword

The political culture of Switzerland has two particularly original features that sometimes combine in a surprising way. Firstly, Swiss citizens are allowed to vote on legal and constitutional modifications provided that there are a sufficient number of them to request such a vote. Proposed changes must also meet with certain formal requirements and, most importantly, comply with international law. Secondly, for more then a century, national imagination has attributed special importance to mou..

Rugged Nation. Mountains and the making of Modern Italy

This is a book about mountains and Italianess. This association may sound strange to foreign ears for, as Armiero says in the introduction, mountains “seem to lack the typical ingredients of Italianess” (p. 1) for people who are not so familiar with Italian history and culture. Yet, in less than 200 pages, Armiero proves the centrality of the Alps and the Apennines in the narratives of the nation and its territory from the very beginning of the process of unification, and also in the concepti..

Rugged Nation. Mountains and the making of Modern Italy

This is a book about mountains and Italianess. This association may sound strange to foreign ears for, as Armiero says in the introduction, mountains “seem to lack the typical ingredients of Italianess” (p. 1) for people who are not so familiar with Italian history and culture. Yet, in less than 200 pages, Armiero proves the centrality of the Alps and the Apennines in the narratives of the nation and its territory from the very beginning of the process of unification, and also in the concepti..

Linking mountain identities throughout the world: the experience of Swiss communities

This article analyses transnational partnerships set up between Swiss mountain municipalities and other mountain communities throughout the world. It seeks to evaluate the role of this kind of horizontal cooperation in a world which is increasingly dominated by global flux and complex interactions between multilevel stakeholders. A review of these partnerships shows the quantitative importance of partnerships built upon the celebration of attributes and values associated with mountains. Beyond the very great diversity in the types of partnership and their objectives, the partnerships are surprisingly capable of combining cultural, political and economic objectives, and of bringing together local objectives, national imagination, federal policies and intergovernmental priorities

Le mont Royal. Forme naturelle, paysages et territorialités urbaines.

La question du lieu en géographie est redevenue d'actualité depuis quelque temps. Cela tient notamment au fait qu'elle permet d'approfondir la réflexion sur la relation qui existe entre les caractères génériques et les caractères spécifiques de chacun des lieux. Cet article propose une voie d'interprétation de cette relation en analysant, à partir de l'exemple du mont Royal, l'articulation entre la forme géographique et ses significations symboliques et mythiques.Using the example of the mount Royal, in Montreal, this paper analyses the way the significances of the "Mountain" are combined in different ways through history. It shows that this kind of association may integrate generic and specific meanings, symbolic models and mythic values

Preface

Mountain areas: a framework and referent for collective action In 2002, the journal “Geopolitics” devoted an entire issue to a subject that was both unusual and unavoidable. Instead of asking yet again the question that has been addressed in countless ways since the American and French revolutions (What is a nation?), the director for the issue solicited contributions from several authors on the following question: When is a nation? Adopting this change of perspective, the different contribut..

Rugged Nation. Mountains and the making of Modern Italy

Voici un livre qui traite de montagnes et d’italianité. Cette association peut sembler étranger à des oreilles étrangères puisque, comme le dit Marco Armiero dès l’introduction de l’ouvrage, les montagnes « semblent manquer des ingrédients typiques de l’italianité » (p. 1) pour ceux qui ne sont pas très familiers avec l’histoire et la culture italienne. Toutefois, Armiero parvient à prouver, en moins de 200 pages, la centralité des Alpes et des Apennins dans les récits de la nation et de son ..

History of the Alps (1500-1900): environment, development and society

S'il est devenu assez commun de parler des Alpes en général, les analyses académiques qui affrontent avec sérieux, ambition et profondeur l'échelle alpine restent rares. Le livre de Jon Mathieu est de celle-ci. Mathieu est un disciple de Jean-François Bergier qui appelait de ses vœux une histoire alpine, il y a déjà plus de 30 ans. Historien de formation, il y a œuvré quelques années en tant que premier directeur de l'Institut pour l'Histoire des Alpes de l'Université de Lugano, avant de deve..