Landscapes of FearTo be human is to experience fear, but what is it exactly that makes us fearful? Here is one geographer’s striking exploration of our landscapes of fear as they change throughout our lives and have changed throughout history. Yi-fu Tuan investigates landscapes of the natural environment which are threatening, and landscapes filled with the dark imageries of the mind; fears of drought, flood, famine, and disease, shared by all members of a community, and fears of the particular ghosts which haunt the individual imagination. In this lucidly-written, ground-breaking survey, Professor Tuan delves into many cultures and reaches back into our prehistory to discover what is universal and what is particular in our inheritance of fear. Starting with fear in animals, he raises and explores a variety of questions: What is specifically human about fear? Is there or has there ever been a “fearless” society? Professor Tuan examines the most specific forms fear takes in the mind of the child, among hunters and agriculturists, inside the walls of a medieval Chinese city, among Navaho Indians and American immigrants. He explores the ways in which authorities create landscapes of terror to instill fear in their own populations; and he probes that most basic of all contradictions between the need for human security and the fear of human nature. Professor Tuan particularly emphasizes how, in coping with fears of enemies, strangers, the insane, wolves, wind, witches, mountains, dragons, rain, or the terror that the universe itself might crumble, humans respond adventurously by creating “shelters,” ranging from fairy tales to cosmological myths. We watch as human beings continually draw and redraw their “circles of safety,” never feeling entirely at peace within them. |
Contents
The Childas | |
Fearless Societies | |
Great Hunters and Pioneer Farmers | |
Natural | |
Violence and Fear in the Countryside | |
Fear | |
Fear | |
Fear | |
Fear | |
in the City | |
Public 14 Exile | |
The Open Circle | |
Past and Present | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
adults American ancestors ancient Ancient Rome andthe animals anxiety asthe atthe beasts believed Black Death Bushmen bythe cause Ch’ang-an chaos child Childhood China Chinatown Chinese cholera Clyde Kluckhohn confinement corpses countryside Crime criminals culture dangerous dark dead death demons disaster disease dread eighteenth century England English environment epidemic Eskimos Europe European evil famine fear fearof feel fire forest frightening fromthe ghosts gibbet haunted houses human hunter-gatherers infant inthe isthe John Bowlby Kaguru landscape live London Margaret Mead Mbuti medieval Middle Ages modern mountain nature Navaho night nineteenth century ofthe oftheir one’s onthe parents Paris peasants people’s period person physical poor population prison punishment Pygmies ritual rural Saint Sturm Semang sense sick social society spirits strangers streets supernatural Tasaday thatthe threat threatened tobe tothe town Tyburn University Press urban village violence wild Witchcraft witches Wolfram Eberhard York