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Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action
George Perkins Marsh's "Man and Nature" was the first book to attack the American myth of the superabundance and the inexhaustibility of the earth. It was, as Lewis Mumford said, "the fountainhead of the conservation movement," and few books since have had such an influence on the way men view and use land. "It is worth reading after a hundred years," Mr. Lowenthal points out, "not only because it taught important lessons in its day, but also because it still teaches them so well...Historical insight and contemporary passion make "Man and Nature" an enduring classic."
504 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1965
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About the author
George Perkins Marsh
130 books14 followersGeorge Perkins Marsh was an American diplomat and philologist and is considered by some to be America's first environmentalist and the precursor to the sustainability concept, although "conservationist" would be more accurate.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 4, 2019
As soon as multiplying man had filled the open grounds along the margin of the rivers, the lakes, and the sea, and sufficiently peopled the natural meadows and savannas of the interior, where such existed,he could find room for expansion and further growth, only by the removal of a portion of the forest that hemmed him in. The destruction of the woods, then, was man's first geographical conquest, his first violation of the harmonies of inanimate nature.
George Marsh is considered one of our country’s earliest environmentalists. He was born in 1801 in Woodstock Vermont and as he grew up he became troubled by what he saw as Vermont’s forests were first logged and then the landscape was overrun by sheep. He wrote and presumably spoke, with some admiration, of how uncivilized peoples lived for thousands of years while causing very little damage to the environment. Marsh saw civilization, unrestrained populations and masses as a major part of the problem and pointed to what happened to the landscape in Europe indicating that it would happen here in America if measures were not taken.
Marsh completed this science-focused treatise on man’s interaction with nature in 1864. Much of the focus of the book is on impacts to the environment in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. He did serve as Ambassador to Italy and to the Ottoman Empire which explains his prodigious knowledge of those areas.
Marsh speaks of species extinction, water pollution, draining of wetlands, and forest depletion and the need to plant trees. Good early insights into conservation. While Thoreau spoke eloquently of the effect of nature on our collective psyche, Marsh’s writing focuses on historical detail regarding man’s assault on nature with little nostalgia.
Marsh’s home in Vermont is now a National Historic Site run by the National Park Service and I had the opportunity to visit a number of years ago. It is a very large site in the woods that is dedicated to conservation and a kind of pilgrimage for environmentalists. Along with the homestead it is one of the prettiest landmarks that I’ve visited in the Northeast.
4 stars. Well written for the era of 1864. Heavy on facts and admittedly a dry read in portions. The depth of Marsh’s knowledge and his observations make it clear that he saw with great clarity many of the same environmental problems that haunt us today.
George Marsh is considered one of our country’s earliest environmentalists. He was born in 1801 in Woodstock Vermont and as he grew up he became troubled by what he saw as Vermont’s forests were first logged and then the landscape was overrun by sheep. He wrote and presumably spoke, with some admiration, of how uncivilized peoples lived for thousands of years while causing very little damage to the environment. Marsh saw civilization, unrestrained populations and masses as a major part of the problem and pointed to what happened to the landscape in Europe indicating that it would happen here in America if measures were not taken.
Marsh completed this science-focused treatise on man’s interaction with nature in 1864. Much of the focus of the book is on impacts to the environment in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. He did serve as Ambassador to Italy and to the Ottoman Empire which explains his prodigious knowledge of those areas.
Marsh speaks of species extinction, water pollution, draining of wetlands, and forest depletion and the need to plant trees. Good early insights into conservation. While Thoreau spoke eloquently of the effect of nature on our collective psyche, Marsh’s writing focuses on historical detail regarding man’s assault on nature with little nostalgia.
Marsh’s home in Vermont is now a National Historic Site run by the National Park Service and I had the opportunity to visit a number of years ago. It is a very large site in the woods that is dedicated to conservation and a kind of pilgrimage for environmentalists. Along with the homestead it is one of the prettiest landmarks that I’ve visited in the Northeast.
4 stars. Well written for the era of 1864. Heavy on facts and admittedly a dry read in portions. The depth of Marsh’s knowledge and his observations make it clear that he saw with great clarity many of the same environmental problems that haunt us today.
March 23, 2015
In 1864, George Perkins Marsh published Man and Nature, the book that was the granddaddy of the modern ecology movement. Marsh was the U.S. Minister to Italy, and while overseas, he visited the sites of many ancient civilizations. This was a troubling and mind-expanding experience for him.
Wandering through the realms of extinct civilizations, he realized that they were all victims of self-destruction. Marsh saw ancient seaports that were now 30 miles (48 km) from the sea. He saw ancient places where the old streets were buried beneath 30 feet (9 m) of eroded soil. He stood in mainland fields, 15 miles (24 km) from the sea, which used to be islands.
He saw the sites of ancient forests, formerly covered with three to six feet (1-2 m) of soil, where nothing but exposed rock remained. He learned that the removal of protective trees and vegetation led to the loss of topsoil. He learned that irrigation often led to salinization — the soil became so salty that it was rendered infertile.
There wasn’t much left of the formerly healthy ecosystems of the Mediterranean basin or the Fertile Crescent — places that once supported large thriving cities. With few exceptions, the modern population in these ravaged lands was far less than the population two thousand years ago. Most of the big ancient cities were either abandoned ghost towns, or desolate shadows of their former grandeur.
In the realm of the former Roman Empire, more than half of the lands were deserted, desolate, or greatly reduced in productivity. Forests were gone, much topsoil had been lost, springs had dried up, and rivers had shrunk into brooks. Fertile lowlands had become malarial swamps.
One unforgettable section in the book described in rich detail the arrival of farmers and herders in the French Alps. They had been driven into the mountains by population pressure. They whacked down the trees and then turned their livestock loose. The grazing animals stripped the land of all grass, and pulverized the scorched soil with their hooves.
Without forest or grass, the land could retain little water. When the wet season came, the water promptly ran off, taking the soil with it. Tiny creeks turned into roaring torrents, and entire fields and villages were suddenly washed away. Some places were reduced to bare bedrock wastelands.
For example: “The land slip, which overwhelmed, and covered to the depth of seventy feet, the town of Plurs in the valley of the Maira, on the night of the 4th of September, 1618, sparing not a soul of a population of 2,430 inhabitants, is one of the most memorable of these catastrophes, and the fall of the Rossberg or Rufiberg, which destroyed the little town of Goldau in Switzerland, and 450 of its people, on the 2nd of September, 1806, is almost equally celebrated.”
Marsh summed it up: “It is, in general, true, that the intervention of man has hitherto seemed to insure the final exhaustion, ruin, and desolation of every province of nature which he has reduced to his dominion. The instances are few, where a second civilization has flourished upon the ruins of an ancient culture, and lands once rendered uninhabitable by human acts or neglect have generally been forever abandoned as hopelessly irreclaimable.”
Marsh was from Vermont, where ambitious Americans were working furiously to replace forests with farms, and villages with industrial cities. There were still vast numbers of passenger pigeons, “which migrated in flocks so numerous that they were whole days in passing a given point.” He thought that farmers spurred their numbers by providing them with abundant grain to nibble on, and by waging genocide on their natural predators, the hawks. Farmers hated hawks because they often snatched their chickens without paying for them.
He was also amazed by the abundance of salt-water fish. “It does not seem probable that man, with all his rapacity and all his enginery, will succeed in totally extirpating any salt-water fish.” He could not foresee the arrival of industrial fishing, because he could not imagine human foolishness growing to such magnitude.
In Europe, he could observe the ruins of many civilizations, and note that this was how most experiments in agriculture ended. In America, he observed the same process in its infancy. Marsh was painfully aware that all of the worst mistakes made in the Old World were being imported to America, with similar effects.
The destruction of Old World civilizations had taken centuries, but Americans had all the latest technology, and their ability to ruin the land was far more efficient. Loggers were busy harvesting lumber in the mountains of New York. Hunters were busy driving the passenger pigeons to extinction. Farmers were destroying the vast healthy grasslands. It was not difficult to accurately predict the consequences of this madness.
The Western world was out of its mind with Perpetual Growth Fever, and everyone cheered for skyrocketing prosperity — nothing was more wonderful! The fever continues to rage today. Marsh lamented, “The fact that, of all organic beings, man alone is to be regarded as essentially a destructive power….” He realized that he was living in a world gone mad. He could very clearly see a horror show that the rest of society denied and disregarded.
Marsh was a brilliant outside-the-box thinker who was fully present in reality. He cared more about the vitality of the ecosystem than for temporary bursts of prosperity. He had a spiritual connection to life. He radiated intense common sense. He sincerely believed that it would be wise to learn from our mistakes, rather than endlessly repeat them. He thought that it would be wrong to remain on a path that would inevitably transform America into a wasteland.
In 2007, friends in California’s redwood country were hammered by floods. Loggers, who were working upstream, vigorously denied that the floods had anything whatsoever to do with their recent clear-cuts. It was a pure coincidence. Amazingly, the loggers were not seized by angry mobs and lynched for spewing such colossal lies. They got away with their crime because the education system has utterly failed to provide society with a competent understanding of ecology and sustainability.
Marsh did a decent job of providing readers with the ABC’s of ecology. Many years have passed since the first edition of Man and Nature was published. For the most part, his book has survived the test of time, and remains valid and important. But almost no high school (or university) graduates (or their instructors) would recognize Marsh’s name, or be able to intelligently discuss the history of logging, agriculture, topsoil destruction, and the fatal flaws of civilization — essential subjects that every citizen should understand in elementary school.
Wandering through the realms of extinct civilizations, he realized that they were all victims of self-destruction. Marsh saw ancient seaports that were now 30 miles (48 km) from the sea. He saw ancient places where the old streets were buried beneath 30 feet (9 m) of eroded soil. He stood in mainland fields, 15 miles (24 km) from the sea, which used to be islands.
He saw the sites of ancient forests, formerly covered with three to six feet (1-2 m) of soil, where nothing but exposed rock remained. He learned that the removal of protective trees and vegetation led to the loss of topsoil. He learned that irrigation often led to salinization — the soil became so salty that it was rendered infertile.
There wasn’t much left of the formerly healthy ecosystems of the Mediterranean basin or the Fertile Crescent — places that once supported large thriving cities. With few exceptions, the modern population in these ravaged lands was far less than the population two thousand years ago. Most of the big ancient cities were either abandoned ghost towns, or desolate shadows of their former grandeur.
In the realm of the former Roman Empire, more than half of the lands were deserted, desolate, or greatly reduced in productivity. Forests were gone, much topsoil had been lost, springs had dried up, and rivers had shrunk into brooks. Fertile lowlands had become malarial swamps.
One unforgettable section in the book described in rich detail the arrival of farmers and herders in the French Alps. They had been driven into the mountains by population pressure. They whacked down the trees and then turned their livestock loose. The grazing animals stripped the land of all grass, and pulverized the scorched soil with their hooves.
Without forest or grass, the land could retain little water. When the wet season came, the water promptly ran off, taking the soil with it. Tiny creeks turned into roaring torrents, and entire fields and villages were suddenly washed away. Some places were reduced to bare bedrock wastelands.
For example: “The land slip, which overwhelmed, and covered to the depth of seventy feet, the town of Plurs in the valley of the Maira, on the night of the 4th of September, 1618, sparing not a soul of a population of 2,430 inhabitants, is one of the most memorable of these catastrophes, and the fall of the Rossberg or Rufiberg, which destroyed the little town of Goldau in Switzerland, and 450 of its people, on the 2nd of September, 1806, is almost equally celebrated.”
Marsh summed it up: “It is, in general, true, that the intervention of man has hitherto seemed to insure the final exhaustion, ruin, and desolation of every province of nature which he has reduced to his dominion. The instances are few, where a second civilization has flourished upon the ruins of an ancient culture, and lands once rendered uninhabitable by human acts or neglect have generally been forever abandoned as hopelessly irreclaimable.”
Marsh was from Vermont, where ambitious Americans were working furiously to replace forests with farms, and villages with industrial cities. There were still vast numbers of passenger pigeons, “which migrated in flocks so numerous that they were whole days in passing a given point.” He thought that farmers spurred their numbers by providing them with abundant grain to nibble on, and by waging genocide on their natural predators, the hawks. Farmers hated hawks because they often snatched their chickens without paying for them.
He was also amazed by the abundance of salt-water fish. “It does not seem probable that man, with all his rapacity and all his enginery, will succeed in totally extirpating any salt-water fish.” He could not foresee the arrival of industrial fishing, because he could not imagine human foolishness growing to such magnitude.
In Europe, he could observe the ruins of many civilizations, and note that this was how most experiments in agriculture ended. In America, he observed the same process in its infancy. Marsh was painfully aware that all of the worst mistakes made in the Old World were being imported to America, with similar effects.
The destruction of Old World civilizations had taken centuries, but Americans had all the latest technology, and their ability to ruin the land was far more efficient. Loggers were busy harvesting lumber in the mountains of New York. Hunters were busy driving the passenger pigeons to extinction. Farmers were destroying the vast healthy grasslands. It was not difficult to accurately predict the consequences of this madness.
The Western world was out of its mind with Perpetual Growth Fever, and everyone cheered for skyrocketing prosperity — nothing was more wonderful! The fever continues to rage today. Marsh lamented, “The fact that, of all organic beings, man alone is to be regarded as essentially a destructive power….” He realized that he was living in a world gone mad. He could very clearly see a horror show that the rest of society denied and disregarded.
Marsh was a brilliant outside-the-box thinker who was fully present in reality. He cared more about the vitality of the ecosystem than for temporary bursts of prosperity. He had a spiritual connection to life. He radiated intense common sense. He sincerely believed that it would be wise to learn from our mistakes, rather than endlessly repeat them. He thought that it would be wrong to remain on a path that would inevitably transform America into a wasteland.
In 2007, friends in California’s redwood country were hammered by floods. Loggers, who were working upstream, vigorously denied that the floods had anything whatsoever to do with their recent clear-cuts. It was a pure coincidence. Amazingly, the loggers were not seized by angry mobs and lynched for spewing such colossal lies. They got away with their crime because the education system has utterly failed to provide society with a competent understanding of ecology and sustainability.
Marsh did a decent job of providing readers with the ABC’s of ecology. Many years have passed since the first edition of Man and Nature was published. For the most part, his book has survived the test of time, and remains valid and important. But almost no high school (or university) graduates (or their instructors) would recognize Marsh’s name, or be able to intelligently discuss the history of logging, agriculture, topsoil destruction, and the fatal flaws of civilization — essential subjects that every citizen should understand in elementary school.
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January 23, 2025george perkins marsh is a very well educated man. he has many very interesting things to say. i fear he may have said too many of them.
August 1, 2017
This guy was talking about the dangers of global warming and deforestation in 1864. Boy, are we slow to catch on....
January 16, 2015
Man and Nature was first published in 1864, so some of its ecological ideas are understandably dated. Yet Marsh’s prose is enjoyable (especially the footnotes) and his concern with “the extent of the changes produced by human action in the physical conditions of the globe we inhabit” (3) was prescient.
December 16, 2020
“When a Parisian manufacturer invented the silk hat, which soon came into universal use, the demand for beaver’s fur fell off.” Thus, Parisian fashion affected geography on a distant continent. “Birds accompanied ships on long voyages, for the sake of the offal which is thrown overboard, and, in such cases, it might often happen that they would breed and become naturalized in countries they had not known before.” The yew became the favored wood for the English archer because the closeness and fineness of grain gave it the best elasticity. A U.S. sugar maple two feet in diameter will produce 20 gallons of sap each sugar season. George Marsh’s ink he wrote this book with came from a gallnut produced by a Syrian oak. Iron gall ink was the standard ink formulation used in Europe for the fourteen-hundred-year period between the 5th and 19th centuries, remained in widespread use well into the 20th century, and is still sold today. Gallotannic acid used to make it was usually extracted from oak galls or galls of other trees, hence the name.
Books critical of civilization and the development of agriculture often mention George P.Marsh as somehow a forerunner of the field so I thought I’d take a look at his writings. This book doesn’t really explain why George is a polymath and his comments don’t sound particularly radical or anti-civ. The strongest comment I found was “I have spoken of the needs of agriculture as a principal cause of the destruction of the forest…” Not exactly the firebrand rhetoric that would jumpstart the environmental movement; this book I would categorize as the writings of an ardent naturalist.
Instead of this book, I would far higher recommend the terrific “Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England” by William Cronon.
Books critical of civilization and the development of agriculture often mention George P.Marsh as somehow a forerunner of the field so I thought I’d take a look at his writings. This book doesn’t really explain why George is a polymath and his comments don’t sound particularly radical or anti-civ. The strongest comment I found was “I have spoken of the needs of agriculture as a principal cause of the destruction of the forest…” Not exactly the firebrand rhetoric that would jumpstart the environmental movement; this book I would categorize as the writings of an ardent naturalist.
Instead of this book, I would far higher recommend the terrific “Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England” by William Cronon.
August 27, 2009
I'm still reading this, but I think I'm going to have to buy it because it is taking too long as a library book. Good insights already into humanity's intent on altering landscapes and the environment for our own gain.
April 27, 2020
I found this book quite interesting, yet it was not the easiest one to finish. Marsh's writing style is very rich and some sentences seem to go on forever. The central ideas of the book are however quite clearly stated. While some theories mentioned in the book (and belonging to the general knowledge of the time) are obviously outdated, it still contains many valuable ideas, observations, and hypotheses. This is a well documented book to say the least.
I would recommend Man and Nature because Marsh paints a timeless picture about human intervention in nature and its consequences. Our encroachments upon nature continue in the same improvident way as they always have, therefore the message in this book may be as relevant today as it was back in the day it was written.
I would recommend Man and Nature because Marsh paints a timeless picture about human intervention in nature and its consequences. Our encroachments upon nature continue in the same improvident way as they always have, therefore the message in this book may be as relevant today as it was back in the day it was written.
April 1, 2018
Vermont native gives a prescient explanation and analysis of the natural world and the physical, ecological and philosophical effects of man's civilization on its health and continued vitality. Way ahead of his time.
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December 10, 2007If anyone finds this book, please let me know! The liberry dunna have it!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews