Product Description
Since first emerging as an issue of concern in the late 1960s, fear of crime has become one of the most researched topics in contemporary criminology and receives considerable attention in a range of other disciplines including social ecology, social psychology and geography. Researchers looking the subject have consistently uncovered alarming characteristics, primarily relating to the behavioural responses that people adopt in relation to their fear of crime. This book reports on research conducted over the past eight years, in which efforts have been made to pioneer the combination of techniques from behavioural geography with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in order to map the fear of crime. The first part of the book outlines the history of research into fear of crime, with an emphasis on the many approaches that have been used to investigate the problem and the need for a spatially-explicit approach. The second part provides a technical break down of the GIS-based techniques used to map fear of crime and summarises key findings from two separate study sites.The authors describe collective avoidance behaviour in relation to disorder decline models such as the Broken Windows Thesis, the potential to integrate fear mapping with police-community partnerships and emerging avenues for further research. Issues discussed include fear of crime in relation to housing prices and disorder, the use of fear mapping as a means with which to monitor the impact of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) and fear mapping in transit environments. ... Read more

Product Description
Explores how medical and social maps helped shape modern perceptions of space. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

3.5 Stars for a Multi-Pictured Potpourri of Paleontology
I read the 2000 German edition of the original 1999 British edition.

I bought this family coffee table book for the plate tectonics and because it was offered as a bargain. It is divided into three sections: Plate tectonics (35 pages) of the last 620 million years. Considering that Earth is more than 4 billion years old, that's roughly 1/7 of plates movement only... In my edition there's always a small picture of the entire earth in the right upper corner and two pictures of the respective halves of our planet. So I am not quite sure, what one reviewer is referring to some parts missing. Though the perspectives of the big pictures naturally distort important sections on the edges. All in all, this is a good introductory into plate tectonics. However, if you attempt to gain some knowledge on how today's, say Mediterranean formed: get another book! I COULD use this one, however in addition to two textbooks only. (German books, so I don't bother mentioning them here.)

The second part (110 pages) is about the evolution of life according to geography. The pictures use more space than the text and the snapshots of Earth are repeated. Of course, it is very interesting and a lot of things I didn't know before. However, the choices of inclusion feel rather arbitrary. And a bit superficial at that. Writing in 2008 I have to say that some parts aren't that incredibly up to date. Especially the double page on the evolution of humans.

The last section (35 pages) is on two centuries of the sciences of earth, which curiously has a reversed proportion of text to images, which are monochrome now. It may have made more sense to get elaborative in the other sections instead...

Even though, for the time of publishing, this book dared to mention back then controversial theories like snowball earth, tyranno saurus rex being a scavenger and the bonobos being closer related to us than the common chimpanzees are. Nevertheless, I advise getting a more recent book if possible. And/or more specific books on respective topics, e.g. The Mediterranean Was a Desert: A Voyage of the Glomar Challenger, Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment (Helix Books) and so on.

Good, but not good enough
This book is actually pretty hard to find these days.When I did finally get a used copy, I found the illustrations and information to be only OK as a reference point for continental drift and prehistory.I also found that the info on prehistoric animals barely touchs on each prehistoric period.
I purchased the book for its continental drift information and maps.In this area, I am a little disappointed.The maps provided do not show the complete landmass of each period.Each map only shows half of the Earth, and the other half is never shown in a separate map.Not being able to see the whole landmass for each period is a little annoying given that this is the main purpose for the book.
The book provides very general and unnecessarily incomplete information on prehistoric Earth's many ages.

Atlas of the Prehistoric World
Atlas of the Prehistoric World written by Douglas Palmer is a Discovery Channel book that is colorfully, highly illustrated book that takes us on a short 4.6 billion year tour of the earth and is life forms.From the earliest time when the earth had nothing on it to today where man is the dominant species living.

Reading this book you'll find out how mountain ranges form, how volcaoes erupt, how the continents splits apart, how meteorites crashed into the earth and how life was affected.There is a lot of information inside these pages and it is easily assimilated.

The book is divided into three major sections making each time period distinctive in its own right.First is "The Changing Globe" where we see how the earth changed throughout time.The shifting topography is highly illustrative as we see the geology change with time.Taking us from Vendian Times to the Quaternary Times though all times with colorful computer generated snapshots.

Next the section of "Ancient Worlds" takes us from Aquatic Microbes: Life begins to the end of the ice age.This is where you'll find out about not only dinosaurs but early mammals to humans.The next section is the "Earth Fact File" where you'll find out how the people who look into the past find and get their information about the past and bring it to life for us to read about.

This book has some excellent short biographies of the people in history who started putting this information together, also there is a listing of websites to visit, making this book a good sourse for futher information.There is a further reading list so you can extend your reading about the information in this book and of course there is a glossary that explains the terminology used within the text of the book.

This is an excellent book to learn about earth's past and it is worthy of your reference library.

Excellent informative reference
This book has it all:the physical history of the earth as the continents moved about the planet and the evolution of life (the rise and fall of all sorts of species of animals).It's up to date and has copious (and beautiful) illustrations and diagrams.

Geology and palentology buffs will enjoy owning it.

An unparalleled view into deep time
For anyone with an interest in paleontology, this book is very good.For anyone with an interest in paleogeography, the book is indispensible and a treasure.
The 50 pages of maps, while assuredly based in some part on learned conjecture, provide an unmatchable sense of the history of drifting continents and where these may have been located at various points in deep time.For example, one can view the formations in the Colorado Plateau, and read innumerable treatises on them, but only when this book illustrates where North America was during the Triassic and Jurassic periods does the arrangement and appearance of rock beds in such places as Zion and Capitol Reef National Parks make easy sense.Even absent any other reason, if you are reading this review, you owe it to yourself to buy this book. ... Read more