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PUBLISHED MATERIALS IN GEOGRAPHY on Western South America show little correlation with the size of each country's academic and scientific community. For example, Ecuador, less than a third the size of Colombia, receives more scholarly attention in this field. International interest in the Andes and adjoining Lowlands remains high; in fact, more than half of the monographs and articles annotated below are generated from outside the region. Mountain Research and Development, a quarterly produced in California but with a worldwide authorship, has emerged over the past decade as a major outlet for highland research, including that on the Andes.
Around a third of the geographically-related publications canvassed for the Andean countries have been annotated. In addition to works by trained geographers, this chapter also includes research by scholars whose work reflects a basic geographical approach but who may identify primarily with other disciplines, since the pigeonholing of knowledge into the traditional disciplines is becoming increasingly arbitrary.
Major items to be highlighted here include two historical-geographical pieces on Colombia (items bi 93013818 and bi 93017428), the perception of the threat from the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador (item bi 93002236), and a splendid government-produced atlas of Peru (item bi 00000000). The compelling interest which cultural geography holds for a serious understanding of Andean land and life, both past and present, is especially manifested in items bi 93017428, bi 94000128, bi 94003957, and bi 95021561.