Synopses & Reviews
Located in the heart of England’s Lake District, the placid waters of Thirlmere seem to be the embodiment of pastoral beauty. But under their calm surface lurks the legacy of a nineteenth-century conflict that pitted industrial progress against natural conservation—and helped launch the environmental movement as we know it. Purchased by the city of Manchester in the 1870s, Thirlmere was dammed and converted into a reservoir, its water piped one hundred miles south to the burgeoning industrial city and its workforce. This feat of civil engineering—and of natural resource diversion—inspired one of the first environmental struggles of modern times. The Dawn of Green re-creates the battle for Thirlmere and the clashes between conservationists who wished to preserve the lake and developers eager to supply the needs of a growing urban population. Bringing to vivid life the colorful and strong-minded characters who populated both sides of the debate, noted historian Harriet Ritvo revisits notions of the natural promulgated by romantic poets, recreationists, resource managers, and industrial developers to establish Thirlmere as the template for subsequent—and continuing—environmental struggles.
Synopsis
From Henry David Thoreau to Bill McKibben, critics and philosophers have sought to demonstrate how a life without constant growth might still be rich and satisfying. Yet one crucial episode in the history of sustainability has been largely forgotten.
Green Victorians recovers the story of a small circle of men and women led by political economist and art critic John Ruskin.
Green Victorians explores how Ruskinandrsquo;s most enthusiastic followers turned his theory into practice in a series of ambitious local projects ranging from painting, hand-weaving, and wood-working to gardening, archaeology, story-telling, and childrenandrsquo;s education. This is a lively yet unsettling story, for while those in Ruskinandrsquo;s experimental community established a thriving handicraft industry and protected the Lake District from over-development, they paid a price. Richly illustrated,
Green Victorians breaks new ground by connecting the ideas and practices of Ruskinandrsquo;s utopian community to the problems of ethical consumption then and now.
About the Author
Harriet Ritvo is the Arthur J. Conner Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of The Platypus and the Mermaid, and Other Figments of the Classifying Imagination; The Animal Estate: The English and Other Creatures in the Victorian Age; and Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras: Essays on Animals and History.
Table of Contents
Introduction
One The Unspoiled Lake
Two The Dynamic City
Three The Struggle for Possession
Four The Cup and the Lip
Five The Harvest of Thirlmere
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Illustration Credits Index