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Thoreau's Country: Journey Through a Transformed Landscape
Thoreau's Country Journey Through a Transformed Landscape Author:David R. Foster 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 landscape around him was from the one Thoreau described more than a century earlier. How had Thoreau's open countryside, shaped by ax an... more »d plough, become a forested landscape? Part ecological and historical puzzle, this book brings a vanished countryside to life, offering a rich record of human imprint upon the land. Excerpts from the journals show us a Thoreau intimately acquainted with the ways in which his generation was remaking the New England landscape. Foster adds the perspective of a modern forest ecologist and landscape historian, using the journals to trace historical and social change. "[Foster] is a clear-eyed interpreter of the so-called hermit of Concord...[His] fine book lays the groundwork for a conservation ethic that is realistic, practical and--as it must be--sympathetic to human culture and informed by human history." --Chet Raymo, Boston Globe« less