TY  - BOOK
AU  - Gourou,Pierre
TI  - The tropical world: its social and economic conditions and its future status
AV  - G515 .G63 1961
U1  - 910.913 
PY  - 1958///
CY  - London
PB  - Longmans, Green & Co
KW  - Economic conditions
KW  - Social conditions
KW  - Tropics
N1  - Includes index
N2  - This book is a translation of Professor Gourou's 'Les pays tropkaux: principes d'une geographie
humaine et economique' which was first published in 1947. 

Issues examined includes: tropical diseases and soils which bring out very clearly that these, and not the direct action of climate and vegetation on man, are the fundamental natural factors which hinder tropical development; the nature and consequences of shifting cultivation (the characteristic and by no means foolish agriculture of the Tropics); the problems of tropical stock-rearing, food supply and industry; tropical Asia and analyses the reasons for the very high densities of population which, in spite of the physical difficulties of the Tropics, are to be found in this highly civilised region. The author stresses the almost ideal nature of wet rice cultivation as a means of overcoming the snags inherent in tropical soils. There are then two final chapters, one on tropical problems due to European intervention.
The consequences, direct and indirect, of this agriculture are then noted, including the problems posed by population growth, the difficulties of stock-raising and of food supplies, and the need for agricultural improvement. According to the author education and hygiene, are more important than methods or processes

ER  -