Historical region

Historical regions are delimitations of geographic areas for studying and analysing social development of period-specific cultures without any reference to contemporary political, economic or social organisations. [p.332, Kotlyakov, Komarova (entry 2781)]

The fundamental principle underlying this view is that older political and mental structures exist which exercise greater influence on the spatial-social identity of individuals than is understood by the contemporary world, bound to and often blinded by its own worldview - e.g. the focus on the nation-state. [p.151, Tägil]

There is no universally accepted definition of a region [xiii, Tägil] ,and the word does not differentiate between macroregions such as Europe, territories of traditional states, or smaller microregional areas. A geographic proximity is the often required precondition for emergence of a regional identity. [xiii, Tägil] In Europe the regional identities are often derived from the Migration Period, but for the contemporary perspective are related to the 1918-1920 time of territorial transformation, and another in the post-Cold War period. [p.82. Lehti, Smith]

Some regions are entirely invented, such as the Middle East in 1902 by a military strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan to refer to the area of the Persian Gulf. [p.65, Lewis, Wigen]

References

ources

* Sven Tägil, (ed.), "Regions in Central Europe: The Legacy of History", C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1999
* Marko Lehti, David James Smith, "Post-Cold War Identity Politics: Northern and Baltic Experiences", Routledge, 2003 ISBN 0714654280
* Compiled by V. M. Kotlyakov, A. I. Komarova, "Elsevier's dictionary of geography: in English, Russian, French, Spanish, German", Elsevier, 2006 ISBN 0444510427
* Martin W. Lewis, Kären Wigen, "The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography", University of California Press, 1997 ISBN 0520207432

ee also

*Lists of informal regions