Land & Life: A Selection from the Writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer

Geography and anthropology are fields which have often profited from loose boundaries; their ablest scholars have been those with vision broad enough to encompass a science of man, under whatever name. Carl Sauer has been the outstanding thinker in geography in this vital sense. He has always been concerned with man's role in changing, intentionally or not, the face of the earth. Sauer's thought is above all ecological, and thus intricate in dealing with the forces that relate human life to the web of plant and animal life sustaining it. But it is also humane, concrete, and direct, with an appeal to both laymen and his fellow geographers.

The papers and extracts in this volume range from Sauer's early studies of pioneers to his later inquiries into human prehistory.