I just started reading this book -- cannot believe it's taken me so long to get to it -- and plan on reading it slowly. It's by Aldo Leopold, who advocated for setting aside Wilderness so that wild things could stay wild and apart from us.
Here's the first quote that jumped out at me, from the Introduction. Seemed to fit our current world situation so well. I think we have collectively bought into the idea that running faster on the treadmill is the only way to be well.
"But wherever the truth may lie, this much is crystal-clear: our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy."
July 2, 2002 update - Lark asked if the book has many illustrations like the one on the cover, and the answer is yes. Charles W. Schwartz was the illustrator, and the book is peppered with lovely, detailed drawings like the one below.
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| Upland plover (sandpiper) from the May entry, illustration by Charles W. Schwartz |
Love the cover! Are there illustrations like that all the way through it?
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely illustrations like this throughout, which I love.
DeleteHadn't heard of this book, but adding it to my list now!
ReplyDeleteI started (but never finished) the Last of the Mohicans by James Fenmoore Cooper which was published in 1826 and was startled to find that Cooper was already then lamenting the loss of the natural world. To paraphrase Sting, one day future generations will hopefully forgive us our collective greed.
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