Article Review
James R. Gibson is a distinguished Canadian historical geographer at York University. He specializes in Russian geography, ethnology and history research.1 In the article, Gibson demonstrated and expounded the true factors of Russia’s absence in the North Pacific discovery and exploration. He offers a detailed study in both of the Russian histories and geography. Throughout the article, he clearly identified with two main points that Russia was “lack of opportunity and lack of necessity”2 to be a sea power. Gibson provides new insights on many aspects of the absence. He approaches his piece along with questions which leads readers not only in reading but also thinking. Providing a basic background of Russia, which helps general …show more content…
He effectively uses numbers to support his arguments; not just simply represents the number of Russian frigates, repositories, sailors and time period. Gibson provides numbers as the distance from St Petersburg to the Pacific coast which is “7,000 miles - at least one-third of the way around the world at those high latitudes”. 12 The numbers are solid evidence that readers can imagine and comprehend. By proving how continental nature was Russia, Gibson compares Russia, France and British Isles with the ratio of the territory versus coastal lines. The sentence, “every mile of coastline… [in Russia] were 800 square miles of territory”13, definitely stands out and catch readers’ eyes. With actual numbers, the readers could convincingly recognize Russia as a land power not maritime enterprise. The using of number is able to strengthen Gibson’s argument. These well-placed numbers are very helpful in convincing the readers of the validity of Gibson’s …show more content…
A clear and direct narrating is more powerful which creates a smooth flow. For example, I would split sentence which contains more than 30 words into two sentences. Russia faltered the strong commercial competition and the stout resistance of the northwest coast Indians (the Indians offered stiffer opposition than did the Siberian Natives). As a result, Russia withdrew in 1867.14 Russian final action is the key information. Therefore, I would make the sentence short to stand out. Another suggestion is the figure of Port Dick15 in the text is somehow unrelated to the content. As Gibson analyzes that Russia was “lack of opportunity”16, I would advise him to provide a map of Russia Empire at the time. In Gibson’s explanation of Russian disadvantages on sea exploration, he elaborates the limited ocean accesses in detail of the physical geography from north to east. If there could have a map, I believe the readers could combine the illustration and text to understand the constrained reasons in depth. I have provided figure one as a sample which could presents the contemporary Russia in the seventeenth century. This legible version which is readable for general readers. The map has an overview of the Northern Ocean which not only covers the Russian Empire but also the North
James R. Gibson is a distinguished Canadian historical geographer at York University. He specializes in Russian geography, ethnology and history research.1 In the article, Gibson demonstrated and expounded the true factors of Russia’s absence in the North Pacific discovery and exploration. He offers a detailed study in both of the Russian histories and geography. Throughout the article, he clearly identified with two main points that Russia was “lack of opportunity and lack of necessity”2 to be a sea power. Gibson provides new insights on many aspects of the absence. He approaches his piece along with questions which leads readers not only in reading but also thinking. Providing a basic background of Russia, which helps general …show more content…
He effectively uses numbers to support his arguments; not just simply represents the number of Russian frigates, repositories, sailors and time period. Gibson provides numbers as the distance from St Petersburg to the Pacific coast which is “7,000 miles - at least one-third of the way around the world at those high latitudes”. 12 The numbers are solid evidence that readers can imagine and comprehend. By proving how continental nature was Russia, Gibson compares Russia, France and British Isles with the ratio of the territory versus coastal lines. The sentence, “every mile of coastline… [in Russia] were 800 square miles of territory”13, definitely stands out and catch readers’ eyes. With actual numbers, the readers could convincingly recognize Russia as a land power not maritime enterprise. The using of number is able to strengthen Gibson’s argument. These well-placed numbers are very helpful in convincing the readers of the validity of Gibson’s …show more content…
A clear and direct narrating is more powerful which creates a smooth flow. For example, I would split sentence which contains more than 30 words into two sentences. Russia faltered the strong commercial competition and the stout resistance of the northwest coast Indians (the Indians offered stiffer opposition than did the Siberian Natives). As a result, Russia withdrew in 1867.14 Russian final action is the key information. Therefore, I would make the sentence short to stand out. Another suggestion is the figure of Port Dick15 in the text is somehow unrelated to the content. As Gibson analyzes that Russia was “lack of opportunity”16, I would advise him to provide a map of Russia Empire at the time. In Gibson’s explanation of Russian disadvantages on sea exploration, he elaborates the limited ocean accesses in detail of the physical geography from north to east. If there could have a map, I believe the readers could combine the illustration and text to understand the constrained reasons in depth. I have provided figure one as a sample which could presents the contemporary Russia in the seventeenth century. This legible version which is readable for general readers. The map has an overview of the Northern Ocean which not only covers the Russian Empire but also the North