Curiosity, Inquiry, and the Geographical Imagination

Curiosity may have killed the proverbial cat, but for Gade (emeritus, geography, U. of Vermont) it is the driving phenomena behind scholarly research, particularly in his own field of cultural-historical geography. In this work, he presents 12 essays, written over the course of the past 40 years, exploring the importance of curiosity (or the pursuit of knowledge) to the scholarly endeavor. The essays explore the question of curiosity in general, historical, exemplary, and archetypal terms; examine curiosity in the field of cultural-historical geography, drawing on Gade's own scholarly pursuits as well as the careers of scholarly exemplars such as Carl O. Sauer; and discuss how Gade has transmitted his own "exuberant" curiosity into the scholarly process. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Daniel W. Gade has an expansive curiosity about an intricate and diverse world that has led him to pursue fieldwork on four continents over four decades. Four books and more than a hundred articles and chapters have resulted from efforts to ferret out the many kinds of connections that tie humans, in their cultural and temporal settings, to the earth and its resources. His wide-ranging research interests have fallen under several rubrics: cultural-historical geography, environmental history, ethnobiology, cultural ecology, and biogeography. His PhD in geography is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and research support has come from the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, two senior Fulbright research awards, and a Spanish government grant. In 1999 Gade was named University Scholar at the University of Vermont, where he is currently Emeritus Professor of Geography.