Passing of David Lowenthal

The geographical community has lost a titan. David Lowenthal brought literary flourish and profound humanity to scholarship on the history of environmental ideas (George Perkins Marsh: Versatile Vermonter(1958); George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation(2000)) and on modern society’s complex and sometimes delusional relationship with its own past (The Past Is a Foreign Country(1985); The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History(1997); The Past Is a Foreign Country – Revisited(2015)). He studied under Carl Sauer at Berkeley before moving to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for his doctoral work and was on the staff at University College London from 1972, translating to Emeritus in 1985. Hugh Clout has affectionately evoked David’s life and work in a piece for the Guardian,
​ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/sep/27/david-lowenthal-obituary.

By Gerry Kearns, Professor of Human Geography, Member Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, Maynooth University

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