American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau

by McKibben, Bill

• ISBN13: 9781598530209
• ISBN10: 1598530208
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-17
• Publisher: PENGUIN

Summary

As America and the world grapple with the consequences of global environmental change, writer and activist Bill McKibben offers this unprecedented, provocative, and timely anthology, gathering the best and most significant American environmental writing from the last two centuries. Classics of the environmental imagination—the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac; Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—are set against the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered reports of pioneering campaigns for conservation, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches. Here are some of America’s greatest and most impassioned writers, taking a turn toward nature and recognizing the fragility of our situation on earth and the urgency of the search for a sustainable way of life. Thought-provoking essays on overpopulation, consumerism, energy policy, and the nature of nature” join ecologists’ memoirs and intimate sketches of the habitats of endangered species. The anthology includes a detailed chronology of the environmental movement and American environmental history, as well as an 80-page color portfolio of illustrations.

Author Biography

BILL MCKIBBEN, editor, is the author of many books including The End of Nature (1989), the first account of global warming for a general audience, and most recently Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future (2007). Since 2006, he has organized the largest demonstrations against the causes of global warming in American history. He is scholar in residence at Middlebury College.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction
from Journals	p. 2
from Walden; or, Life in the Woods	p. 9
from Huckleberries	p. 26
from Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians	p. 37
Fallen Forests	p. 46
from Rural Hours	p. 48
Table Rock Album	p. 59
from Leaves of Grass: This Compost	p. 62
Song of the Redwood-Tree	p. 65
from Man and Nature	p. 71
from The Humbugs of the World	p. 81
from A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf	p. 85
A Wind-Storm in the Forests	p. 89
from My First Summer in the Sierra	p. 98
Hetch Hetchy Valley	p. 104
from Adventures in the Wilderness	p. 113
from A Review of Recent Changes, and Changes Which Have Been Projected, in the Plans of the Central Park	p. 120
About Trees	p. 126
To Frank Michler Chapman	p. 130
To John Burroughs	p. 131
Speech at Grand Canyon, Arizona, May 6, 1903	p. 132
The Scavengers	p. 134
from Man and the Earth	p. 140
The Art of Seeing Things	p. 146
The Grist of the Gods	p. 159
Nature Near Home	p. 168
Prosperity	p. 173
The Bird Tragedy on Laysan Island	p. 181
A Certain Oil Refinery	p. 186
The Last Passenger Pigeon	p. 192
Orion Rises on the Dunes	p. 205
The Indigenous and the Metropolitan	p. 209
"What a few more seasons will do to the ducks"	p. 224
from Wintertrip into New Country	p. 225
what the ants are saying	p. 235
Letter from the Dust Bowl	p. 239
Birds That Are New Yorkers	p. 245
The Answer	p. 251
Carmel Point	p. 252
from The Grapes of Wrath	p. 254
This Land Is Your Land	p. 258
from The Everglades: River of Grass	p. 260
from A Sand County Almanac	p. 266
The Fog	p. 295
The Longest Day	p. 313
from Living the Good Life	p. 318
Northern Lights	p. 323
Sootfall and Fallout	p. 327
How Flowers Changed the World	p. 337
from My Wilderness: The Pacific West	p. 348
Dissentin Sierra Club v. Morton	p. 355
from The Death and Life of Great America Cities	p. 359
from Silent Spring	p. 366
The Great Paver	p. 377
The Living Canyon	p. 380
from The Wilderness Act of 1964	p. 392
Remarks at the Signing of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965	p. 395
from The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth	p. 399
On the Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis	p. 405
Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks	p. 413
from The Population Bomb	p. 434
from The Tragedy of the Commons	p. 438
from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?	p. 451
A Sample Day in the Kitchen	p. 454
Spaceship Earth	p. 464
Mills College Valedictory Address	p. 469
Smokey the Bear Sutra	p. 473
Covers the Ground	p. 477
The Beginning	p. 480
Millions Join Earth Day Observances Across the Nation	p. 484
Big Yellow Taxi	p. 490
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)	p. 491
from Encounters with the Archdruid	p. 493
from Only One Earth	p. 500
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front	p. 505
The Making of a Marginal Farm	p. 507
Preserving Wildness	p. 516
Fecundity	p. 531
The World's Biggest Membrane	p. 550
The Third Planet: Operating Instructions	p. 555
from Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?	p. 559
A First American Views His Land	p. 570
from Ceremony	p. 582
A Short History of America	p. 591
Outside the Solar Village: One Utopian Farm	p. 595
from Love Canal: My Story	p. 609
from The Fate of the Earth	p. 622
Seasons of Want and Plenty	p. 632
Everything Is a Human Being	p. 659
Bernhardsdorp	p. 671
Wrath of Grapes Boycott Speech	p. 690
A Presentation of Whales	p. 696
Place	p. 716
from The End of Nature	p. 718
from Dumping in Dixie	p. 725
The Summer Day	p. 737
from Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place	p. 739
from The Ninemile Wolves	p. 760
The Dubious Rewards of Consumption	p. 770
After the Flood	p. 781
from The Last Panda	p. 790
The Flora and Fauna of Las Vegas	p. 793
Dwellings	p. 809
from The Ecology of Magic	p. 815
The Song of the White Pelican	p. 835
A Multicultural Approach to Ecopsychology	p. 849
Speech at the Kyoto Climate Change Conference	p. 855
from Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America	p. 860
Planet of Weeds	p. 874
from Ecology of a Cracker Childhood	p. 898
from The Legacy of Luna	p. 907
from Inspirations for Sustaining Life on Earth: Greeting Friends in Their Andean Gardens	p. 920
from Having Faith	p. 929
Knowing Our Place	p. 939
from The Omnivore's Dilemma	p. 948
from Blessed Unrest	p. 961
The Thoreau Problem	p. 971
Chronology	p. 997
Note on the Illustrations	p. 1005
Sources and Acknowledgments	p. 1015
Index	p. 1025
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