Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape - Softcover

Foster, David R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674006682 ISBN 13: 9780674006683

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2001

Synopsis

In 1977 David Foster took to the woods of New England to build a cabin with his own hands. Along with a few tools he brought a copy of the journals of Henry David Thoreau. Foster was struck by how different the forested landscape around him was from the one Thoreau described more than a century earlier. The sights and sounds that Thoreau experienced on his daily walks through 19th-century Concord were those of rolling farmland, small woodlands, and farmers endlessly working the land. As Foster explored the New England landscape, he discovered ancient ruins of cellar holes, stone walls, and abandoned cartways - all remnants of this earlier land now largely covered by forest. Part ecological and historical puzzle, this text brings a vanished countryside to life in all its dimensions, human and natural, offering a rich record of human imprint upon the land. Extensive excerpts from the journals show the reader a Thoreau intimately acquainted with the ways in which he and his neighbours were changing and remaking the New England landscape. Foster adds the perspective of a modern forest ecologist and landscape historian, using the journals to trace themes of historical and social change.

About this title

Product Description:

Journey through a Transformed Landscape

Review:

There is no shortage of editions of and commentaries on Thoreau but what we have here is an ecologist selecting passages from Thoreau and relating them to ecological history, discussing the effects of forest succession on animal populations, the role of fire in the ecology of New England, the history of abandoned farms and the management of forests then and now. This is not simply a piece of ecological commentary using the journal instead of the satellite image but an outworking of (if he will forgive me) the bog in the brain and bowels of David Foster, the director of Harvard Forest. We have interesting and solidly based ecological information here but suffused with the felt flow of the natural world. As such, it is worth its price for both scientist and humanist; furthermore, it is a lovely book to own.--I. G. Simmons "Times Higher Education Supplement "

Foster's book, with its mix of Thoreau himself and thoughts about Thoreau, will repay any visitor who has previously walked a mile in Thoreau's footsteps. Reading it will recall some scenes and it will remind the readers, and perhaps comfort the readers, that we are not alone. We walk behind giants. Not just Henry David, but whoever it was who had the courage even to begin that stone wall that marks the far edge of the field.--M. R. Montgomery "Boston Globe "

By means of annotated abstracts and commentary, Foster contrasts how Thoreau viewed the past, present, and future of his New England landscape with the way Foster himself and others consider it now. In so doing, he points out a number of misconceptions we may have about Thoreau's ideas and the cultural conditions of his time...Anyone interested in the interaction between people and nature in changing the landscape--especially those with an ecological bent--will thoroughly enjoy this book.--A. Donald Caven "Science Books & Films "

Foster's interpretation of Thoreau emphasizes his keen understanding of the interface of human society and the natural environment.--Irmarie Jones "The Greenfield Recorder "

More than an analysis of Thoreau, this is a commentary on change and the role humans play in shaping the landscape. A thoughtful, very readable volume.--William H. Wiese "Library Journal "

Foster--by expertly excerpting from the icon's two million words of journal entries--shows us a thinker who was a brilliant journalist, observant naturalist and eloquent writer. Thoreau's observations alternate with Foster's of the remarkable comeback of the New England forest landscape today. The book's descriptions of 19th-century life and landscape are fascinating. Here is a slowly industrializing New England of dense, intensively managed farms, frequently clear-cut wood lots and vanished wildlife in which Thoreau the nature lover is an eccentric, a minority of one.--William Dietrich "American Scientist "

This attractively composed and bound book is illustrated with beautiful pen-and-ink drawings that enhance the text...A book to be savored and also used as a guide to alert the walker to the historical hints in the present landscape.--A. B. Stewart "Choice "

Henry David Thoreau's lifework was his journals, which were approximately two million words in length, and for years editors have quarried various selections from this mass of prose. Here Foster chooses passages that reveal the actual nature of the terrain he inhabited...What emerges from this compilation is both a fresh awareness of Thoreau as a writer and an account, shaped partly by Foster's elegant interpretation, of how landscapes change and change again.--New Yorker

The Thoreau revealed or brought forward here is a creature not of primeval wilderness but of broadly husbanded landscape, a fellow not of frontiersmen but of farmers--and a more respectful such fellow than emerges from the pages of Walden...Thoreau's Country makes for good browsing, rich grazing, appreciative ruminating.--R. W. Butterfield "American Studies "

Mr. Foster took Thoreau's journals along with him when he went into the Vermont back country to make a home with his own hands. But he wasn't emulating their author. Thoreau's Country makes excellent use of quotations from Thoreau, but the remoteness of Thoreau's world, not its proximity, is what he writes about...Mr. Foster is such a pure and subtle writer that quoting just a few words from his book is not enough to suggest the flavour of his style.--Douglas Fetherling "Ottawa Citizen "

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0674006682
• ISBN 13: 9780674006683
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288