Walter Isard

It is difficult, if not impossible, to establish the point of time at which a new field of study starts to emerge. While the date of formal organization of a society asso­ ciated with the field can be precisely stated, such timing says little about when and where the seeds for a field's development were planted. Also, such timing says little about the essential "why" for the development of a field and provides little understanding of the path that it traced. It is clear that the emergence of the field of regional science, like many other fields, was dependent on a particular setting as well as the pattern of events and interaction of diverse personalities who became involved. As best I can, I shall attempt in this Part I of the History to unravel the where, when and why questions in the development of Regional Science and the Regional Science Association International. Further, in the last section of this essay, I shall briefly point up some potentialities for analytical advances in the field of regional science. Also, I shall note the opportunity for leadership by regional scientists in attacking global and regional development problems, thereby to help formulate relevant policy. In this way, I hope to expose the potential for fruitful research by young scholars interested in entering the field.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to establish the point of time at which a new field of study starts to emerge. While the date of formal organization of a society asso­ ciated with the field can be precisely stated, such timing says little about when and where the seeds for a field's development were planted. Also, such timing says little about the essential "why" for the development of a field and provides little understanding of the path that it traced. It is clear that the emergence of the field of regional science, like many other fields, was dependent on a particular setting as well as the pattern of events and interaction of diverse personalities who became involved. As best I can, I shall attempt in this Part I of the History to unravel the where, when and why questions in the development of Regional Science and the Regional Science Association International. Further, in the last section of this essay, I shall briefly point up some potentialities for analytical advances in the field of regional science. Also, I shall note the opportunity for leadership by regional scientists in attacking global and regional development problems, thereby to help formulate relevant policy. In this way, I hope to expose the potential for fruitful research by young scholars interested in entering the field.

This landmark textbook introduces students to the principles of regional science and focuses on the key methods used in regional analysis, including regional and interregional input-output analysis, econometrics (regional and spatial), programming and industrial and urban complex analysis, gravity and spatial interaction models, SAM and social accounting (welfare) analysis and applied general interregional equilibrium models. The coherent development of the materials contained in the set of chapters provides students with a comprehensive background and understanding of how to investigate key regional problems. For the research scholar, this publication constitutes an up-to-date source book of the basic elements of each major regional science technique. More significant, it points to new directions for future research and ways interregional and regional analytic approaches can be fused to realise much more probing attacks on regional and spatial problems - a contribution far beyond what is available in the literature.

Demonstrating the ways in which work in a broad range of fields can be pulled together in the analysis of conflict, this book provides the reader with a general introduction to the principles of conflict analysis and lays a methodological foundation for the further development of the interdisciplinary field of peace science. The text begins with an extensive survey of arms race models, from the classic Richardson model to models exploring the effects of factors such as the domestic and international economic environment, public opinion and party politics, and weapons technology and information development. The processes of individual and group problem-solving, in both crisis and non-crisis conditions, are examined, drawing on work in economics, operations research, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. Building on this diverse body of work, the author moves on to develop a framework for conflict management with which to approach a variety of conflict situations and applies this procedure to the United States-Soviet arms control conflict. Walter Isard is cited by Mark Blaug as one of the Great Economists Since Keynes (CUP, 1989 paper edition).