Carl Sauer

Carl Sauer on Culture and Landscape

Perhaps one of the most distinctive and studied geographers of the twentieth century, Carl O. Sauer (1889--1975) had influence that extends well beyond the confines of any one discipline. With a focus on historical and cultural geography, Sauer's essays have garnered praise from poets, natural historians, and social scientists alike who continue to explore Sauer's work. In Carl Sauer on Culture and Landscape, editors William M. Denevan and Kent Mathewson have compiled thirty-seven of Sauer's original works, including rare early writings, articles in now largely inaccessible publications, and transcriptions of key oral presentations that remain little known. A student of the relationships between land and life, people and places, Sauer helped establish landscape studies in cultural geography and paved the way for paradigmatic shifts in the scholarly assessment of Native American history. By strongly advocating a land ethic, "a responsible stewardship of the sustaining earth," for his own and for future generations, Carl Sauer supplied an esthetic rationale and a historical perspective to the environmental movement. The volume opens with two extended essays on Sauer's critics and his works. Essays by prominent geographers and other authorities on Sauer introduce each section of the book, adding a contemporary element to the presentation and interpretation of Sauer's life and scholarship in areas such as soil conservation, man in nature, and cultivated plants. A complete bibliography of his publications and an extensive compilation of commentaries on his life and work make this an indispensable reference. Carl Sauer on Culture and Landscape sheds new light on Sauer's contributions to the history of geographic thought, sustainable land use, and the importance of biological and cultural diversity -- all of which remain key issues today.

Land of Life

Geography Inside Out

Taking sharp aim at complacent geography scholars, this irreverent book turns the world of academic geography upside down. The author, a foremost figure in the field, joins forces with his alter ego, the incorrigible Korski, to draw fire from his own personal and professional experience. No one knows better than they the stuffy censorship and skewed logic: that inform the geography establishment and stifle the valiant geographer—and they tell all. With an unsparing eye, Geography Inside Out exposes a discipline soiled by cerebral litter and shamed by intellectual cowardice. Symanski shows no mercy for the pompous, the mediocre, or the hypocritical. And he reveals the devastating truth about a geographer blackballed for life for writing about prostitution and for his intellectual attack of a major figure within the discipline. A shrewd look at high-profile geographers, this book sheds light on how geographers write and think. It also helps explain why geography "has long been seen as the poor and neglected sister of the social sciences." Unprecedented in subject and scope, Geography Inside Out is certain to be as controversial as it is edifying.