Book excerpt: First Published in 1998. The so-called 'cultural tum' in contemporary geography has brought new ways of thinking about geography and culture, taking cultural geography into exciting new terrain to produce new maps of space and place. Cultural Geography introduces culture from a geographical perspective, focusing on how cultures work in practice and looking at cultures embedded in real-life situations, as locatable, specific phenomena. Definitions of 'culture' are diverse and complex, and Crang examines a wealth of different cases and approaches to explore the experience of place, the relationships of local and global, culture and economy and the dilemmas of knowledge. Considering the role of states, empires and nations, corporations, shops and goods, literature, music and film, Crang examines the cultures of consumption and production, how places develop meaning for people, and struggles over defining who belongs in a place. Cultural Geography presents a concise, up-to-date, interdisciplinary introduction to this lively and complex field. Exploring the diversity and plurality of life in all its variegated richness, drawing on examples from around the world, Crang highlights changes in current societies and the development of a 'pick and mix' relationship to culture.