‘To Claim the High Ground: Geography for the End of the Century'

It is a particular privilege to give this Ninth Carl Sauer Memorial Lecture for several reasons. First, it is always a privilege to come to Berkeley. I first came here more than twenty years ago, on the way to my first Pacific expedition in the Solomon Islands: I saw something then and have since come to know much more of the unparalleled scholarly resources and surroundings which this university [the University of California at Berkeley] offers. Second, it is a privilege to honour Sauer himself. He was away from Berkeley during my earlier visits, and it was not until 1971 that I tracked him down: I still have the extensive notes I made on that occasion of our conversation. He died, of course, in 1975, and it was a privilege to occupy his old office when I taught in Berkeley in 1980. I make no secret of the fact that, all my life, I have been deeply sympathetic to Sauer’s views: indeed, his Land and life is perhaps the most prominent of a very small group of books that I have turned to over the years to restore one’s faith in the subject we profess. ¹