Synopses & Reviews
The careers and ideas of four figures of monumental importance in the history of American conservationGeorge Perkins Marsh, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Wesley Powellare explored in
A Word for Nature. Robert Dorman offers lively portraits of each of these early environmental advocates, who witnessed firsthand the impact of economic expansion and industrial revolution on fragile landscapes from the forests of New England to the mountains of the West.
By examining the nineteenth-century world in which the four men livedits society, economy, politics, and cultureDorman sheds light on the roots of American environmentalism. He provides an overview of the early decades of both resource conservation and wilderness preservation, discussing how Marsh, Thoreau, Muir, and Powell helped define the issues that began changing the nation's attitudes toward its environment by the early twentieth century. Dorman's readings of works including Marsh's Man and Nature, Thoreau's The Maine Woods, Muir's The Mountains of California, and Powell's Report on the Lands of the Arid Region reveal their authors' influence on environmental thought and politics even up to the present day.
Review
Everyone interested in the foundations of the environmental movement should read this carefully researched, unusually stimulating, and gracefully written study.
Journal of American History
Review
"Everyone interested in the foundations of the environmental movement should read this carefully researched, unusually stimulating, and gracefully written study.
Journal of American History"
Review
Dorman helps us to see the value of their original achievements as well as the extent of their influence.
Virginia Quarterly Review
Review
[N]ot only clever, sometimes brilliant textual analysis, but grand synthesis presented with sophistication, irony, and humor.
Jack Temple Kirby, author of Poquosin: A Study of Rural Landscape and Society
Synopsis
Traces the careers and ideas of four of America•s early environmental advocates: George Perkins Marsh, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Wesley Powell.
Synopsis
[An] important addition to the literature of environmentalism.
Western Historical Quarterly Everyone interested in the foundations of the environmental movement should read this carefully researched, unusually stimulating, and gracefully written study.
Journal of American History Dorman helps us to see the value of their original achievements as well as the extent of their influence.
Virginia Quarterly Review An excellent introduction to the development of U.S. environmental attitudes during the period.
Choice [N]ot only clever, sometimes brilliant textual analysis, but grand synthesis presented with sophistication, irony, and humor.
Jack Temple Kirby, author of Poquosin: A Study of Rural Landscape and Society
About the Author
Robert L. Dorman is author of Revolt of the Provinces: The Regionalist Movement in America, 1920-1945.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. George Perkins Marsh
Chapter 2. Henry David Thoreau
Chapter 3. John Muir
Chapter 4. John Wesley Powell
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
George Perkins Marsh
Woodstock, Vermont, from Mt. Tom, late nineteenth century
Woodstock, Vermont, from Mt. Tom, present-day
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau's Cove, Walden Pond, nineteenth-century view
John Muir
John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt at Yosemite Valley
John Wesley Powell
John Wesley Powell near the Grand Canyon