GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALIA AND OCEANIA: “FROM GEOLOGY TO IDEOLOGY”

Abstract

Review of the book “Geography of Australia and Oceania” by Vladimir A. Gorbanyov / Ed. N.V. Galishcheva, B.I. Kochurov, I.B. Mitrofanova, S.V. Zhdanov. Monograph. Moscow: Publ. “MGIMO-University”, 2018. 339 p.The book by professor Vladimir A. Gorbanyov is a solid piece of research work, filling the gap in the regional studies literature in Russia. The main advantage of the book is its complexity: it considers both the physical, and the economic features of Australian and Oceanian geography. The region is very remote from other regions, continents and countries, it is far from the main transport communications, but it has unique natural resources. Despite its uneasy geographic location and the export-resource orientation of the economy, the region is successfully integrated into the world economy. Australia and New Zealand managed to achieve great success in their socio-economic development, and in a short time to reach the leading countries of the world, and in some cases, go ahead of them. For Russia, which is also an export-resource economy, direct borrowing from the Australian experience is hardly possible, except in some special cases. But this does not make it less interesting for us, it simply needs to be used not as a book of recipes, but as a food for thought, motivating bold creative search. The book is written in a good language and, of course, will be of great interest for both geographers and economists.

Keywords

• uniqueness of australia and oceania region
• resource economy
• analogies with siberia
• australian experience
• historical synchronization
• specialization of australia and new zealand
• small highly developed countries