Martin W. Lewis

{{Short description|American historical geographer}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix = [[Professor Emeritus]] | name = Martin W. Lewis | honorific_suffix = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1956}} | birth_place = [[Coos Bay, Oregon]] | nationality =  | occupation = Historical geographer, author, academic | period = 1987–present | known_for = | title = Professor Emeritus | spouse = [[Kären Wigen]] | education = BA, MA, Ph.D. (1987) | alma_mater = [[University of California, Berkeley]]  | thesis_title = <wbr/>''Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital, and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, 1900–1986''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://entitled-opinions.com/2011/11/08/martin-lewis-on-geography/|title=Martin Lewis on Geography|date=November 9, 2011|website=Entitled Opinions}}</ref> | thesis_url = | thesis_year = 1987{{efn|His thesis was the basis of a book of the title that was published later in 1992}} | school_tradition = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | influences =  | era = | discipline = Geography | sub_discipline = [[Historical geography]], [[Metageography]] | workplaces = [[Stanford University]] | main_interests = [[Historical geography]], [[Metageography]] | notable_works = {{hlist|[[The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography]] (1997)|Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism (1992)}} | notable_ideas = | website = [https://web.stanford.edu/~mwlewis/ web.stanford.edu/~mwlewis/] }}

'''Martin W. Lewis''' (born 1956 in [[Coos Bay, Oregon]]) is an American historical geographer, author, and academic. He is a senior lecturer emeritus in History at Stanford University.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Martin Lewis {{!}} Department of History |url=https://history.stanford.edu/people/martin-lewis |access-date=2024-01-07 |website=history.stanford.edu |language=en}}</ref><ref name="auto">{{Cite web |title=Martin W. Lewis |url=https://thebreakthrough.org/people/martin-lewis1 |access-date=2024-01-07 |website=The Breakthrough Institute |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Martin Lewis: Understanding Current Events Through Geography & Maps |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8h9fPZWOyk |access-date=2024-01-07 |language=en}}</ref>

==Early life and education== Lewis was born in 1956 in Coos Bay, Oregon. He graduated from Calaveras High School<ref>{{Cite web |title=Martin Lewis |url=https://www.geocurrents.info/martinlewis/ |access-date=2024-01-07 |language=en-US}}</ref> in [[San Andreas, California]] in 1975 and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from the [[University of California, Santa Cruz]] in 1979, followed by a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy in Geography from the [[University of California, Berkeley]] in 1985 and 1987, respectively.

==Career== Lewis' early academic focus was on the interplay between economic development, [[environmental degradation]], and cultural change in the highlands of northern Luzon in the Philippines, explored in his dissertation and first book. He also wrote on environmental philosophy. His 1992 book ''Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism'' is often seen as a forerunner of [[Ecomodernism|the ecomodernist movement]]. As of 2024, Lewis is a senior scholar at the Breakthrough Institute.<ref name="auto"/>

Later, in collaboration with [[Kären Wigen]], Lewis critically examined metageography in [[The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography]] (University of California Press, 1997). Lewis co-authored a world geography textbook, ''Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development'' ([[Pearson plc|Pearson]]),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development |url=https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/diversity-amid-globalization-world-regions-environment-development/P200000006994/9780134857220 |access-date=2024-01-07 |website=www.pearson.com}}</ref> and served as the former associate editor of The Geographical Review. After teaching at [[George Washington University]] and [[Duke University]], Lewis joined Stanford in 2002, studying and writing mostly about global geography. His interest in historical geography led to work on historical linguistics, culminating in the publication of ''The Indo-European Controversy'' (with linguist [[Asya Pereltsvaig]])<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Pereltsvaig |first1=Asya |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/indoeuropean-controversy/402E7F136F427F2192AB157EF0F954F6 |title=The Indo-European Controversy: Facts and Fallacies in Historical Linguistics |last2=Lewis |first2=Martin W. |date=2015 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-05453-0 |location=Cambridge}}</ref> in 2015. Lewis publishes a blog called GeoCurrents that examines a wide variety of geographical and historical topics and includes many original maps.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=About The Author Martin W. Lewis GeoCurrents.info |url=https://www.geocurrents.info/about/martin-lewis/ |access-date=2024-01-07 |website=GeoCurrents |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Views on metageography and postmodernism== In a 2010 interview he gave to Leonhardt van Efferink from Exploring Geopolitics, Lewis defined [[metageography]] as the often overlooked spatial frameworks through which knowledge is organized in social sciences and humanities. He criticized metageographies for oversimplifying the world and transforming specific places into cultural essences. Lewis argued that metageographical constructs are inherently ideological and influenced by different ideological systems. While acknowledging metageographies as intellectual constructs, he rejected the notion that they are merely social constructs. Regarding postmodernism, Lewis appreciated its questioning of received categories but criticized its tendency to erase its own position and indulge in too much theory. He noted the fallacy of unit comparability, challenging the practice of portraying all countries as comparable units, and advocated for a cosmopolitan perspective that pays attention to all parts of the world and organizes information based on size and population.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Efferink |first=Leonhardt van |date=2010-08-05 |title=Martin Lewis: Metageographies, postmodernism and fallacy of unit comparability |url=https://exploringgeopolitics.org/interview_lewis_martin_metageographies_postmodernism_fallacy_of_unit_comparability_historical_spatial_ideological_development_constructs_taxonomy_ideas_systems/ |access-date=2024-01-07 |website=Exploring Geopolitics |language=en-US}}</ref>{{additional citation needed|date=May 2025}}

==Bibliography== ===Books=== * Indo-European Languages: Facts and Fallacies in their Origin And History (with [[Asya Pereltsvaig]]). * Diversity Amid Globalization: World Regions, Environment, Development (6th Edition){{efn| A textbook}} * [[The Myth of Continents: A Critique of Metageography]] (1997) * Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism (1994) * [[Wagering the Land|Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital, and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, 1900–1986]] (1992)<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/215265 | jstor=215265 | last1=Goss | first1=Jon | title=Reviewed work: Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital, and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, Martin W. Lewis | journal=Geographical Review | date=1993 | volume=83 | issue=2 | pages=217–219 | doi=10.2307/215265 | url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-southeast-asian-studies/article/abs/philippines-wagering-the-land-ritual-capital-and-environmental-degradation-in-the-cordillera-of-northern-luzon-19001986-by-martin-w-lewis-berkeley-los-angeles-oxford-university-of-california-press-1992-pp-xii-280-illustrations-notes-bibliography-index/D5D8CB6AD2220BF60C167CAF21187E93|title=Philippines – Wagering the Land: Ritual, Capital and Environmental Degradation in the Cordillera of Northern Luzon, 1900–1986. By Martin W. Lewis. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xii, 280. Illustrations, Notes, Bibliography, Index.|first=Lars|last=Kjaerholm|date=March 7, 1993|journal=Journal of Southeast Asian Studies|volume=24|issue=1|pages=197–198|via=Cambridge University Press|doi=10.1017/S0022463400001776|s2cid=242727827 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> ===Book chapters and editing=== * The Promise of—and the Threats to—Historical Linguistics as a Complement of Bentleyan World History (2017) * Where is Asia? What is the Pacific?: The Politics and Practice of Global Division (2010) * • The Flight from Science and Reason (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences). 1997. (Co-edited with Norman Levitt and Paul R. Gross.) ===Articles=== * Lewis, M. W. (1999). Is There a Third World?. Current History, 98(631), 355–358. * Lewis, M. W. (1999). Dividing the ocean sea. Geographical review, 89(2), 188–214. * Lewis, M. W., & Wigen, K. (1999). A maritime response to the crisis in area studies. Geographical Review, 89(2), 161–168. * Price, M., & Lewis, M. (1993). The reinvention of cultural geography. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 83(1), 1–17. * Lewis, M. W. (1991). Elusive Societies: A Regional Cartographical Approach to the Study of Human Relatedness. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 81(4), 605–626. * Lewis, M. W. (1989). Commercialization and community life: The geography of market exchange in a small‐scale Philippine society. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 79(3), 390–410.

==Personal life== Lewis is married to [[Karen Wigen]]. They have two children Evan and Eleanor.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Martin W. Lewis |url=https://web.stanford.edu/~mwlewis/personal.html |access-date=2024-01-07 |website=web.stanford.edu |quote=I live in a condominium on the Stanford campus with my wife, Karen Wigen (Professor of Japanese History), our children, Evan and Eleanor, my elderly mother, Nell Lewis, and our two cats, Midnight and Sunshine.}}</ref>

==References== <references /> {{Portal|Biography|Geography|History|United States}} ==Footnotes== {{notelist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Martin W.}} [[Category:21st-century American geographers]] [[Category:Historical geographers]] [[Category:Stanford University people]] [[Category:1956 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni]] [[Category:21st-century American historians]] [[Category:Historians from Oregon]] [[Category:People from Coos Bay, Oregon]]