This is the fiftieth volume of the Southeastern Geographer, the first having been published in 1961 under the editorship of James A. Shear. And what a year that was; along with the birth of the Southeastern Geographer there were other momentous events. Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space followed a month later by Alan Shepard. The space race was heating up and the pursuit for the moon began with President Kennedy setting the goal of a landing a man on our satellite before the end of the decade; so taking geography from its ‘‘geo’’earth bound status to lunar and planetary surfaces. Roger Maris hit 61 home runs controversially beating Babe Ruth’s record; the Beatles perform in the Cavern Club, and that classic sit-com, Mr. Ed, premiers on television! At the same time, the films Breakfast at Tiffany’s and West Side Story showed two distinctly different faces of the same city. In the same city, Celia Cruz and Bob Dylan came on the scene and Robert Rauschenberg produced Rigger. The times, they were a-changing.

In 1961 our global geography was also changing, at least from a political perspective, as the old colonial powers were compelled to adjust to a new world order, one where emerging nations increasingly exerted their rights to sovereignty and independence. In country after country, the dominance of European hegemony in Af-