The previous GeoCurrents post examined critical rankings of the best Bob Dylan songs, which I graphed in terms of Dylan’s age when he wrote the songs in question. In this last of three posts on Dylan, the same technique is used for other rankings of his songs. The first graph depicts Dylan’s song that have […] The post Does Creativity Decline with Age? The Case of Bob Dylan (Part 2) appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

In a recent lecture on declining birthrates, I mentioned pronatalist worries about a corresponding decline in our ability to solve problems and address crises, due mainly to the aging of the population. Creative thinking, according to this argument, is primarily an attribute of youth. Most environmentalists find this thesis unconvincing if not absurd. Creativity, they […] The post Does Creativity Decline with Age? The Case of Bob Dylan appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

The fourth GeoCurrents lecture on global demography has been uploaded on YouTube and can be found here. It examines population issues that arose after the development of agriculture, as well as those following the initiation of horse-based nomadic pastoralism. It first looks at the spread of neolithic farming into Europe, noting that the expanding agricultural […] The post Demography Lecture # 4: Historical Population Patterns and Processes with the Spread of Agriculture and Nomadic Pastoralism appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

The third lecture in the current series on global demography has been recorded and uploaded on the GeoCurrents YouTube channel and can be found here. This lecture covers demographic patterns and processes from the origin of modern humans some 200,000 years ago to the initial development of agriculture around 11,000 years ago. I begin by […] The post Third Global Demography Video Available appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

Watching the superb and sublimely acted recent film A Complete Unknown has inspired me to revisit the songs of Bob Dylan. In doing so, I have once again been impressed with his geographical vision, marked by effective invocations of place. His frequent use of place names in lyrics has even drawn cartographic attention, as can […] The post Highway 61 Revisited Revisited in 2024: Bob Dylan, Geography, and the Blues appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

The second GeoCurrents YouTube video has been posted, which examines the current debate between anti-natalists, who think that the world is severely overpopulated and therefore want to reduce birthrates, and pro-natalist, who are concerned about plunging fertility and therefore want to increase birthrates.   I do not take a side in this debate on this […] The post New Demography Video: Pro-Natalism vs. Anti-Natalism appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

I have posted the first of an estimated 16 illustrated lectures on global population on the GeoCurrents YouTube channel. These lectures are derived from a class that I am currently teaching in Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program (adult education) called “Population Explosion or Birth Dearth? Understanding Global Demography. The course is framed around the contentious […] The post New GeoCurrents Lecture Series on Global Demography appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

A recent GeoCurrents post on Utah’s declining birth rate included maps of the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the U.S. by state in 2008 and 2022. Comparing the state-by-state data from these two years yields a map of total fertility change during this period (posted below). As this map shows, the fertility drop was, in […] The post Declining Human Fertility and Urbanization in the United States appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

I have long been a fan of the political cartography of the New York Times and have often used its maps in my courses and blog posts. But this year I am not so impressed. Consider, for example, the map detail that I have posted below, taken from a full-page cartographic exercise printed in today’s […] The post The New York Times Maps Trump as Having Defeated Biden in 2024 appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more

On the U.S. Total Fertility Rate (TFR) map of 2008, Utah clearly stands out. At the time, the state’s TFR was 2.60, well above the national average of 2.08. Utah’s relatively high birth rate has usually been linked to the demographic dominance of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), colloquially […] The post Utah’s Declining Fertility Rate and the Changing Mormon Church appeared first on GeoCurrents ..read more