Dr. Karl W. Butzer: Recipient of 2002 Preston E. James Eminent Latin Americanist Career Award

In 1984, when Karl Butzer left the University of Chicago to take an endowed Chair position at the University of Texas at Austin, he was one of the world’s pre-eminent historical cultural ecologists working in the Old World. The academic move facilitated a new research agenda: the study of the impact of Spain on Mexico. Traveling to Mexico for the first time in the Fall of 1985, Karl could see that he had made an exciting decision. Word has it that by the time Karl saw the Cathedral and plaza in Querétaro he was completely hooked. The rest is history and, of course, a whole lot of geography that runs the gamut from Holocene climatic change, landscape reconstruction and biological transfer, to cultural adaptation, religious syncretism and cross-cultural cartographies. Without question Karl’s research in Mexico over the last 18 years has and continues to influence renowned stalwarts and fledgling students alike. By now most geographers are familiar with the life and career of Professor Butzer.2 The rise of Nazism coincided with Karl’s birth in Rhineland, Germany in 1934, and inspired his Catholic family to flee the country. The trauma of migration, family separation, persecution in England, incidents of prejudice in Canada, and an uncertain fate of family members left behind, are all experiences that have influenced Karl’s outlook on life as well as his contemporary teaching and research agenda. After finishing his Master’s degree in Meteorology at McGill University, Karl returned to Germany and completed a doctorate in Physical Geography at the University of Bonn in 1957. As if finishing a doctorate by the age of 23 was not enough, Karl celebrated his graduation by publishing six articles in that same year. The pace of research has hardly slowed since, as some 12 monographs and 240 odd articles and book chapters surely attest. The multidisciplinary influence of Karl’s work can be gauged by the honors he has accrued over the last four decades. These include accolades from the Royal Geographical Society, the Society for American Archaeology, the Geological Society of America, the Archaeological Institute of America, and many others. Karl is also a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation (1976), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1984), the American Geographical Society (1985), and the National Academy of Sciences (1996). In 1997, Karl won CLAG’s Carl O. Sauer award and, in 1999, the Cultural Ecology Specialty Group gave Karl its Robert McC. Netting award.