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This Incomparable Lande
Thomas Lyon's splendid anthology offers a powerful synthesis of American ideas on nature, along with a first-rate set of essays of his own on the history of United States naturalism. These essays are alone worth the price of the book; so is Lyon's detailed chronology of events in the natural history of the continent. The anthology proper begins with an excerpt from William Wood's New England's Prospect (1634), a properly awed account of "the kingly lion and the strong-armed bear," moves on to great but little-known naturalist-explorers like William Bartram, John James Audubon, and Thomas Nuttall, and ends with modern giants like Aldo Leopold and Edward Abbey. Lyon's enterprise and unfailing good taste has yielded not only a model of literary selection and commentary, but a book that celebrates the best of the North American continent and what there is to protect.
- GenresNatureNonfiction
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 8, 2017
This book is a compilation of nature essays by a very diverse group of writers. Each is different from all of the others.
Most of the early writers like J.J. Audubon are more essays about their walks and the plants and/or creatures seen. This view of the country long before paved roads paints a picture like and unlike the world of today. It's unlike because so much of what these people saw no longer exists. It's like as the attitudes are the same. I found it interesting that Audubon went out to see the forest birds. He had seen them outside his house. Now he had to take a two day journey. Yet he praises the loggers cutting down the forests where these birds live.
Some of the essays are more about the human psyche than about nature.
So many of the later essays advise changing human attitudes toward the land, its inhabitants and uses. Most people aren't listening, then or now.
I enjoyed most of the essays. The tongue in cheek one by Edward Abbey had an undercurrent of humor. Others described beautiful places. Each essay has a short comment about who the author was.
Most of the early writers like J.J. Audubon are more essays about their walks and the plants and/or creatures seen. This view of the country long before paved roads paints a picture like and unlike the world of today. It's unlike because so much of what these people saw no longer exists. It's like as the attitudes are the same. I found it interesting that Audubon went out to see the forest birds. He had seen them outside his house. Now he had to take a two day journey. Yet he praises the loggers cutting down the forests where these birds live.
Some of the essays are more about the human psyche than about nature.
So many of the later essays advise changing human attitudes toward the land, its inhabitants and uses. Most people aren't listening, then or now.
I enjoyed most of the essays. The tongue in cheek one by Edward Abbey had an undercurrent of humor. Others described beautiful places. Each essay has a short comment about who the author was.
May 20, 2013
It was the right book but the wrong reader. See full review: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blog...
February 8, 2013
The first hundred pages are the reason I bought this anthology - a well written overview of American Nature writing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews