Sauer's Cultural Landscape Geography Assignment

Sauer's Cultural Landscape Geography - Assignment Example Under the influence of Carl Sauer, cultural landscape geography developed as the main branch of geography.   â€Å"Sauer was explicitly concerned to counter an environmental determinism which had dominated the American geography of the previous generation, within which human agency was given scant autonomy in the shaping of the visible landscape ».He believed that culture is the main force in shaping all visible features of the physical environment of the earth’s surface and he calls it ‘human cultural activities.’ They provoke action, responses, and adaptation by humans. He touches the cultural traits imposed by Europeans during colonization on various parts of the world and says that this cultural imposition on pre-existing cultures, shaped these new cultures in a different way. â€Å"Culture is the agent, the natural area is the medium, the cultural landscape is the result. Under the influence of a given culture, itself changing through time, the landscap e undergoes development, passing through phases, and probably reaching ultimately the end of its cycle of development. With the introduction of a different – that is an alien – culture, a rejuvenation of the cultural landscape sets in, or a new landscape is superimposed on remnants of an older one,† Sauer (1925), The Morphology of Landscape.† University of California Publications.French regional geography was a model of what Sauer propagated. French seafarers were crowned with initial success and the French school of geography was highly influential. It ‘†¦became known for its descriptive regional monographs presented in a lucid and flowing manner, human and historical geography was its forte.’ Even though there were criticisms that the emphasis has shifted several times between the approaches and viewpoints, all geographers had recognized their interdependence and complimentary importance. There is no denying that French regional geograph y also reflected the historical and military developments of the country. Talking about a hundred years’ war between France and Britain, Sauer says (Northern Mists) that France lost most of her ports and her north and southwest regions were ravaged.