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E.G.B. an appreciation DAVID THOMAS Saint David's University College, Lampeter Rarely does it fall to a man to be honoured during his own life time, in his own country, and by his own people. But that is the happy lot of Emrys George Bowen, Emeritus Professor of Geography and Anthropology in the University of Wales, and it is a proper measure of his scholarly stature. Emrys Bowen was born in Carmarthen in 1900. After a short career as a school teacher, he entered the newly created Department of Geography at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1920 under H. J. Fleure, taking a first class honours degree, a teacher's diploma and Master's degree (with distinction) by 1926. After a brief absence, he returned to Aberystwyth in 1929 as an Assistant Lecturer and remained there as full Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Gregynog Professor until his retirement in 1968. Earlier this year, and in celebration of his 75th birthday on 28th December, 1975, a collection of essays was published under the title Geography, Culture and Habitat (Gomer Press, Llandysul). Unlike many another festschrift, composed of uneven and often incongruous contributions by the Professor's students, this volume contains a series of studies by Emrys Bowen himself, selected and introduced by Professors Harold Carter of Aberystwyth and Wayne Davies of Calgary. The essays are all previously published, although a number are not now readily available and a few have been translated from Welsh by Emrys Bowen. In total, fifteen papers appear, arranged in five sections: Heritage and Development, Rural Settlement, Social and Cultural Geography, Historical Geography, and Regional Studies. Since they are drawn from throughout the period 1925—1975, they illustrate in depth and in breadth the catholic range of Bowen's interests. For those who so desire, the book provides a fitting and representative sample of work by which to judge his contribution to Welsh scholarship and to the discipline of geography. For someone who first read Wales: a study in Geography and History as a schoolboy, and has subsequently studied in his Depart- ment as an undergraduate and a graduate student, it is particularly difficult to arrive at an objective view of his completed work. That may safely be left to posterity. But what is clear from the Carter-