The late ELIZABETH J. LEPPMAN taught geography at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She also taught in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Ohio, and she taught English in China. She lived and traveled in many countries, including Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, and researched and wrote about culture, especially food, religion, and politics. Leppman served as editor of the Journal of Geography, a publication about teaching geography, and is the author of Teaching Map and Globe Skills: A Handbook (Rand McNally, 1982) and Changing Rice Bowl: Economic Development and Diet in China (Hong Kong University Press, 2005), and co-author of Pennsylvania Dutch Country: A Pictorial History (Pennsylvania Publishers, 1986) and Student Atlas of World Politics, 6th edition (Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2004).
DOUGLAS A. PHILLIPS is a lifetime educator, writer, and consultant who has worked and traveled in more than 160 countries and on all seven continents. During his career, he has worked as a middle school teacher, a curriculum developer, educational television producer, an author, college instructor, and a trainer of educators in many countries around the world. He has served as the president of the National Council for Geographic Education and has received the Outstanding Service Award from the National Council for the Social Studies, along with numerous other awards. He and his two sons now reside in Arizona along with two grandchildren; his daughter and two grandchildren live in Texas. Today he continues to travel the world, writes, and serves as a senior consultant for the Center for Civic Education.
Series editor CHARLES F. ("FRITZ") GRITZNER is distinguished professor emeritus of geography at South Dakota University in Brookings. During a half-century of college teaching, he taught more than 70 different courses spanning the fields of physical, cultural, regional, and historical geography. Gritzner has served as both president and executive director of the National Council for Geographic Education and has received the council's highest honor, the George J. Miller Award for Distinguished Service. He also received the Distinguished Teaching and Gilbert M. Grosvenor Honors for Geographic Education awards from the American Association of Geographers.