Synopses & Reviews
Biography of a Place explores and weaves together the social and natural history of one meadow. It digs down into the roots of place. This is a meadow with a surprising and entertaining story and a memorable cast of characters. The storyline flows across overlapping circles of conneciton among people and place. This is a pleasurable, novel way to understand how a social and natural landscape became what it is today. Imagine being at the meadow to witness unfolding before you the larger story of this landscape. Follow Indian peoples through traditional time, early European exploration and commerce, Civil War, and eventual settlement. Meet the persons whose lives touched the meadow. Probe their attitudes toward the natural environment, the interplay between the biotic and human communities. Track the tale to the present day, when the meadow has become a nature preserve.
Review
"With the patience and skill of an expert gardener, Martin Winch has imaginitively cultivated a certain meadow in arid Central Oregon, making it stand forth as both a unique locale, with its own rich natural and human history, and a signifying microcosm of our imperiled Western landscape. His narrative of the creation of the Camp Polk Meadow Preserve, whereby against all odds the meadow is being restored and conserved, is a valuable primer in post-Leopold environmetal activism."--Jarold Ramsey, author of Coyote Was Going There and Reading the Fire
Synopsis
Biography of a Place explores and weaves together the social and natural history of one meadow. It digs down into the roots of place, following Indian peoples through traditional time, early European exploration, settlement, and finally the establishment of a nature preserve.