literature review

THOREAU'S COUNTRY Publication info: Kirkus Reviews ; Austin  Iss. 5,  (Mar 1, 1999).

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ABSTRACT Any way you slice Harvard University ecologist Foster's evolutionary portrait of the New England landscape--

psychogeography, an archaeology of place, glimmerings of the swiftness of nature's transformations--his choice of

subject thwarts him: whatever he has to say, it has been better ...

FULL TEXT Category: Nonfiction

Publication Date: 1999-04-01

Publisher: Harvard Univ.

Page Count: 288

Any way you slice Harvard University ecologist Foster's evolutionary portrait of the New England landscape--

psychogeography, an archaeology of place, glimmerings of the swiftness of nature's transformations--his choice of

subject thwarts him: whatever he has to say, it has been better said before Foster's point is clear and sensible:

"Nature can only be understood through an awareness of its history," and if we are to appreciate, conserve, and

manage ecosystems, we must know that history. This used to be called, by its artful purveyors Derwent Whittlesey

and Hugh Raup, sequent occupance, an old and fruitful approach to the reading of landscape that goes uncredited

here. To illustrate this idea, Foster takes New England as an example and uses extensive selections of Thoreau's

journals for their "insightful perspective originating from a pivotal period.' What Thoreau had to say about land use

and the changes in its wake (such as the role of wildfire; the succession of trees in an abandoned field or one

given over to pasturing; those features of the landscape that are now rare or nonexistent, such as field birds,

coppices, meadows) makes fascinating reading. More so, in fact, than the annotated material that Foster appends

to it, though he does provide small clarifications, such as what Thoreau meant by a primitive wood as opposed to a

primitive woodland, and fleshes out some of the social forces Thoreau mentions at work behind the flight from the

farm in the mid-1800s. And while Thoreau's journals give palpability to his country, no coherent contemporary

picture of that country emerges from these pages--despite a slew of intriguing elements, including why bobcats

have appeared where once the bobolink sang--let alone the much more difficult to capture sense of place,

something that John Hanson Mitchell (Walking Towards Walden, 1995) has done with great success for this very

patch. It is a well-worn path through a very public landscape that Foster travels, and he fails to jump the ruts.

Audience: Adult

ISBN: 0-674-88645-3

Price: $27.95

Author: Foster, David R.

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Publication title: Kirkus Reviews; Austin

Issue: 5

Publication year: 1999

Publication date: Mar 1, 1999

Publisher: Kirkus Media LLC

Place of publication: Austin

Country of publication: United States, Austin

Publication subject: Library And Information Sciences, Publishing And Book Trade, Literary And Political

Reviews

ISSN: 19487428

Source type: Trade Journals

Language of publication: English

Document type: Review

ProQuest document ID: 917022594

Document URL: https://search.proquest.com/docview/917022594?accountid=142908

Copyright: Copyright 2012, Kirkus Reviews. All rights reserved.

Last updated: 2017-11-18

Database: ProQuest Central