段义孚认为：“对一个地方生动或逼真的描述，也许就是人文主义地理学的最高成就。”
段义孚的人文主义地理学并不研究客观的地形、地貌等自然现象，而是以人之生存为核心,研究人与地理环境的关系，把研究重点置于人直接经验的生活世界和环境的社会建构，强调人性、人情、意义、价值和目的，关注人的终极命运，进而发现人类在生态整体中的定位以及人类与环境的本质关系。
《人文主义地理学》是他作为地理学家所认识和经历的一切的见证,书中他反思了之前所有作品的内容，并将其重新呈现。

"The Last Launch is a treasure trove of personal visions of wisdom and faith that demonstrate the connections we all have with one another. Tuan's concluding section of 'favorites' alone holds abundant gems from a master scholar who now shares, for the last time in an illustrious career, a lifetime of erudition and teaching. Tuan's work welcomes readers to gather their own religious and ethical/philosophical foundations that can serve as building-blocks for their own faith and direction, especially in relation to the communities and larger world in which they live, learn, and grow. By entering Tuan's stories, young readers, especially, are challenged to become more aware of who they are and who they want to become."
" For more than fifty years and twenty-two books later, Yi-Fu Tuan has been a leading voice in helping us make sense of the world and our place in it. The Last Launch demonstrates that Tuan's insights remain as relevant as ever. Written with the verve and global embrace of personal experience that readers have come to expect from this intellectual maverick, each chapter is a gift and, indeed, like a message in the bottle: pages clipped from the mind of geography's most creative thinker, carefully encased in elegant prose, and then cast away in search of people who are curious and interested in seeing and knowing the world in a detailed, subtle, and wondrous light."