KU News Release

Donald E. Worster

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• Department of History

LAWRENCE — A University of Kansas distinguished professor has received Scotland’s Saltire Society homecoming literary award for his biography of John Muir.

Donald E. Worster, author of “A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir,” accepted the award at a Nov. 30 ceremony at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. Worster is the Joyce and Elizabeth Hall Professor of U.S. History at KU and is internationally renowned for his pioneering work in environmental history.

His book is regarded as the most complete account ever written of the Scottish-born conservationist who founded the Sierra Club. “A Passion for Nature” was honored as the book that best celebrates and reflects Scotland’s Year of Homecoming.

In presenting the award, Scotland’s Minister of Culture Michael Russell said, “The awards play a huge part in celebrating Scotland’s literary heritage and the incredible strength of talent displayed by our contemporary writers. It is fitting that we applaud this talent on St. Andrew’s Day — our national day — particularly when this year’s winning entries reflect the rich cultural, natural and intellectual heritage of this nation.”

The Saltire Society works to preserve all that is best in Scottish tradition and to encourage new developments that can strengthen and enrich Scotland’s cultural life.

Published by Oxford University Press in 2008, “A Passion for Nature” has won the Ambassador Book Award from the English-Speaking Union of the United States and KU’s Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award. It was named one of the top 10 biographies for 2009 by Booklist and one of the Washington Post Book World’s best books of 2008.

Worster has been described as “one of the most eminent environmental historians of the West.” His book “A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell” (2001) received a Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award at KU and the 2002 Caughey Western History Association Prize, among others. “Rivers of Empire” (1985) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and “The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History” (1979) won the national Bancroft Prize.

Worster joined KU’s history department in 1989. Born in California, he grew up in Hutchinson and attended KU, where he earned a bachelor’s in 1963 and master’s in 1964. He received a doctorate in American history and literature at Yale University in 1971.