In ESSENTIALS OF WORLD REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY, 4th Edition, Kit Salter and Joe Hobbs build the story of each region using contemporary concerns, global issues, and historical themes to create a complete picture of our ever-changing planet and its people. The authors help students understand what aspects of a place give it identity and personality by detailing what features make it newsworthy now and what features might make it critical in the 21st century. ESSENTIALS OF WORLD REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY, 4th Edition, is a market leading text with a unique chapter layout that allows for flexibility of topic coverage. "Profile Chapters" introduce a region in global terms by discussing the overall physiographic, economic, historical, economic, and cultural attributes that characterize a large world region (such as Europe or Monsoon Asia). Subsequent chapters then elaborate at a more local level (i.e., subregions and countries) about the finer-scale details, e.g. what geographical factors have made Germany a very different place from France. The advantages of this approach are that the profile chapters allow an instructor a great amount of latitude in how to cover a region. In a one-semester course, for example, many professors might choose to focus on covering only the profile chapters for many of the regions. In that way, the book lends itself very well to semester- or even quarter-length courses. Coverage of global themes is given strong focus and is integrated within a traditional regional organization. Another key strength of the book is its pedagogical structure, accented by a number of boxed elements: "Definitions and Insights", "Regional Perspectives", "Problem Landscapes", "Landscape in Literature", and "Perspectives from the Field" (see description below). These boxed elements combine to identify common themes across regional boundaries, as well as to clarify terms of common usage that may nevertheless be less than familiar to today' s students.