Opening page
This seminal book was first published in 1977, having been written the previous year while the author was on sabbatical from the Foreign Office as a Fellow at the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard University. It was published by the Centre and the University Press of America. The second edition, which represented a substantial revision and update, was published in 1986.
Figure 1: A view of the sphere of the Earth as photographed from the Apollo 17 spacecraft during the final lunar landing mission in NASA's Apollo programme. The photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antartic polar ice cap. Note the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Hemisphere. Almost the entire coastline of the continent of Africa is clearly delineated. The Arabian Peninsula can be seen at the northeastern edge of Africa. The large island off the southeastern coast of Africa is the Malagasy Republic. The Asian mainland is on the horizon toward the northeast.
Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.




