Professor emeritus Bill Denevan recently co-authored a biography of Carl O. Sauer. This is the first book-length biography of the famous geographer and influential scholar. To Pass on a Good Earth: The Life and Work of Carl O. Sauer, by Michael Williams, with David Lowenthal and William M. Denevan, University of Virginia Press, 2014.

Bill wrote to us about the connections to the UW-Madison Geography Department: The late Michael Williams, Oxford University, was a visiting professor in the department in the 1980s; Lowenthal, professor emeritus at University College London, did graduate work and was a T.A. in geography, and received his Ph.D. in History at UW in 1954; and Sauer was a visiting professor in 1969.

Bill Denevan is the Carl O. Sauer Professor Emeritus of our department. He was on the faculty from 1963 to 1994. He previously coedited Carl O. Sauer on Culture and Landscape: Readings and Commentaries (2009).