Carl Sauer on Culture and Landscape

Readings and Commentaries

William M. Denevan, Kent Mathewson

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9780807154694
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

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.

Index

AAG. See Association of American Geographers (AAG)

Abhandlungen zur Erd-und Völkerkunde (Peschel), 355

Aboriginal Population of Northwest Mexico (Sauer), 54

“About Nature and Indians” (Sauer), 273, 292–295

Adams, Henry Brooks, 37, 39

Adelug, Johann Christoph, 31

Afghanistan, 21

Africa: Europeanization of, 246

grain sorghums in, 221

grasslands of South Africa, 284

and Leo Africanus, 225–226

maize in, 194, 195, 220

population of South Africa, 285

Shantz’s research on, 368, 369–370

and slavery, 223–225

vegetation and soils of, 111, 368

“Age and Area of American Cultivated Plants” (Sauer), xi–xii, 189–190, 195, 198–212

Agency. See Human agency

“The Agency of Man on the Earth” (Sauer), xi, xviii

Agricultural hearths, 188, 200–202, 207

Agricultural Origins and Dispersals (Sauer), xvii, 17–19, 39–40, 55, 185, 188, 190, 195

“Agricultural Regions of Africa” (Shantz), 368

Agriculture: in Africa, 194, 195, 220, 368;

and agricultural hearths, 188, 200–202, 207

American cultivated plants, 198–212

in Caribbean, 154–155, 157, 177–182, 191, 201, 207

and chinampas, 199–200

conuco planting system, 154–155, 157, 177–178, 182, 203, 210, 212

Corn Belt farming, 286

decline of American farmer, 404–405

and economic geography, 141

and fertilizers, 258

and hoe culture, 141, 251, 289

of Indians, 198, 202

and irrigation, 256–257, 284

in Mexico, 32, 186, 190, 199–200, 201, 207, 208, 210, 211, 256

milpa system of, 208, 210, 248

and monoculture, 250–251, 258

mound cultivation or “hilling,” 210, 282, 405

in New Guinea, 90

New World crop diversity, 18–19, 185, 188, 194

Old World plant and animal domestication, 18, 20

origins, 45–46, 186–190

and rotation of fields, 248

Sauer on, 17–18

seed agriculture, 189, 190, 198–199, 202, 210–212

slope cultivation, 92

and soil erosion, 243, 250–251

in South America, 18–19, 187–189, 193–194, 199, 206–207, 212, 256

technologic advance in, 289–290

vegetative planting, 189, 190, 198–199, 202–208

and vernalization, 290

and weeds, 39–40, 190, 211, 304. See also Crops; Domestication;Livestock; and specific crops

Agrogeography, 160–161

Aguilera, Francisco, 214

Alabama, 243, 266, 286, 373

Alcohol, 191, 209–210, 211, 333, 413

Alexander, Charles S., 41, 155

All Possible Worlds (Martin), 23n1

Alvarado, Pedro, 330–331

Amaranth, 210, 211

America: naming of, 275, 321. See also United States

“American Agricultural Origins” (Sauer), 186–187

American Council of Learned Scholars, 7

American Geographical Society, 7, 188, 237, 273, 349, 368

American Geographical Society Bulletin, 89

American Historical Society, 365

American History and Its Geographic Conditions (Semple), 361

American Indians. See Indians; and specific tribes

American Nation at Bicentennial, 5

American Philosophical Society, 7, 365

“Ancient Mediterranean Pleasure Gardens” (Semple), 348

Andean Reflections (Sauer), 56

Anderson, Edgar, 187, 192, 193, 216, 227n8, 256

Andes, 189, 201, 205, 207, 211, 212

Animals. See Livestock; and specific animals

Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 12, 15, 35, 44, 49n7, 137, 373

Anschauung (holistic vision), 185

Antevs, Ernst, 111, 112

Anthropogeographie (Ratzel), 137, 165–166, 347, 356–357, 360

Anthropogeography, 127, 245, 249–250, 356–357, 360

Anthropology: and Boas, 17, 23n1

comparative study of primitive cultures, 167

and cultural geography, 140

as important for geographers, 12–13

and material and spiritual elements of culture, 170

Peschel on, 354

professional associations in, 168–169

and Ratzel’s diffusion of culture, 137, 153, 356–357

Saue...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• I. ABOUT CARL SAUER
• II. EARLY EFFORTS
• III. TOWARD MATURITY
• IV. ECONOMY/ECONOMICS
• V. CULTIVATED PLANTS
• VI. MAN IN NATURE
• VII. HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY
• VIII. CARL SAUER ON GEOGRAPHERS AND OTHER SCHOLARS
• IX. INFORMAL REMARKS
• Appendix: Doctoral Dissertations Supervised by Carl Sauer
• Bibliography of Publications by Carl Ortwin Sauer
• Contributors
• Index