Gerard Toal facts for kids
Gerard Toal (Irish: Gearóid Ó Tuathail) was born in 1962 in Ireland. He is a well-known professor who teaches about government and international affairs at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, often called Virginia Tech. He studies how countries interact and how geography plays a role in world events.
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About Gerard Toal's Work
His Education and Early Career
Gerard Toal studied History and Geography at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. He then went on to get more degrees in Geography from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and in Political Geography from Syracuse University in 1989. Political geography looks at how politics and power are connected to land and space.
For ten years, Professor Toal taught Geography at Virginia Tech. Later, he helped start the Government and International Affairs program there. He has also worked as a visiting scholar at places like the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute.
His Books and Research
Professor Toal has written or helped write eight books. Two of his books have won important awards. His book Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and Its Reversal, which he wrote with Dr. Carl Dahlman, won the Julian Minghi Book Prize. Another book, Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus, won the ENMISA Distinguished Book Award in 2019.
He has also helped edit academic journals like Geopolitics and Eurasian Geography and Economics. He is currently on the team that reviews articles for several other journals, including Political Geography.
Professor Toal's research focuses on many interesting topics. These include critical geopolitics, which is about how ideas of geography influence world power. He also studies nationalism (strong feelings of loyalty to one's country), territorial disputes (disagreements over land), and how countries change after communism. He has done research in countries like Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, and Ukraine.
In 2005, Professor Toal spoke to the United States Congress. He shared his knowledge about political changes happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina at that time.
Selected Books by Gerard Toal
Here are some of the books Professor Toal has written or helped to write:
- G. Toal, Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus Oxford University Press, 2017.
- G. Toal, C. Dahlman, Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and its Reversal. Oxford University Press, 2011.
- G. Ó Tuathail, S. Dalby and P. Routledge, The Geopolitics Reader. Second edition. Routledge, 2006.
- J. Agnew, K. Mitchell and G. Toal, eds. A Companion to Political Geography. Blackwell, 2004.
- S. Dalby and G. Ó Tuathail, eds., Rethinking Geopolitics. Routledge, 1998.
- G. Ó Tuathail, S. Dalby and P. Routledge, The Geopolitics Reader. First edition. Routledge, 1998.
- A. Herod, G. Ó Tuathail and S. Roberts, eds. An Unruly World? Geography, Globalization and Governance. Routledge, 1998.
- G. Ó Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics: The Politics of Writing Global Space. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press and London: Routledge, 1996.
