Author: Patrick Chura
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813041476
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "--Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, coeditor of More Day to Dawn: Thoreau's Walden for the Twenty-first Century "Chura's thorough understanding of the cultural import and physical practice of 19th-century surveying provides a fresh and interesting perspective on Thoreau's life and works. . . . .He combines a spry writing style with meticulous research in this delightful book, which introduces readers to another side of Thoreau's life and thought. Highly recommended." --G. D. MacDonald, Virginia State University "Most books about Henry David Thoreau focus on his writing, philosophy, or literary vision, paying little attention to how he made a living while engaged in such transcendentalist pursuits. In Thoreau the Land Surveyor, Patrick Chura corrects this oversight." --Lorianne DiSabato, The New England Quarterly "A scholarly book that's as beautiful as it is unput-downable. . . Not only is Chura a fine writer here, he is one heck of a historian. He enriches every page with carefully considered research. . . .I loved this book from start to finish." --Mike Tidwell, author of The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn. "An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "This book on the significance of land surveying to Henry Thoreau's writing is one that we have long needed. Chura's practical experience as a surveyor combined with his literary scholarship makes him the perfect person to write it."--Richard J. Schneider, editor ofHenry David Thoreau: A Documentary Volume Henry David Thoreau, one of America's most prominent environmental writers, supported himself as a land surveyor for much of his life, parceling land that would be sold off to loggers. In the only study of its kind, Patrick Chura analyzes this seeming contradiction to show how the best surveyor in Concord combined civil engineering with civil disobedience. Placing Thoreau's surveying in historical context, Thoreau the Land Surveyor explains the cultural and ideological implications of surveying work in the mid-nineteenth century. Chura explains the ways that Thoreau's environmentalist disposition and philosophical convictions asserted themselves even as he reduced the land to measurable terms and acted as an agent for bringing it under proprietary control. He also describes in detail Thoreau's 1846 survey of Walden Pond. By identifying the origins of Walden in--of all places--surveying data, Chura re-creates a previously lost supporting manuscript of this American classic.
Thoreau the Land Surveyor
Author: Patrick Chura
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813041476
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "--Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, coeditor of More Day to Dawn: Thoreau's Walden for the Twenty-first Century "Chura's thorough understanding of the cultural import and physical practice of 19th-century surveying provides a fresh and interesting perspective on Thoreau's life and works. . . . .He combines a spry writing style with meticulous research in this delightful book, which introduces readers to another side of Thoreau's life and thought. Highly recommended." --G. D. MacDonald, Virginia State University "Most books about Henry David Thoreau focus on his writing, philosophy, or literary vision, paying little attention to how he made a living while engaged in such transcendentalist pursuits. In Thoreau the Land Surveyor, Patrick Chura corrects this oversight." --Lorianne DiSabato, The New England Quarterly "A scholarly book that's as beautiful as it is unput-downable. . . Not only is Chura a fine writer here, he is one heck of a historian. He enriches every page with carefully considered research. . . .I loved this book from start to finish." --Mike Tidwell, author of The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn. "An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "This book on the significance of land surveying to Henry Thoreau's writing is one that we have long needed. Chura's practical experience as a surveyor combined with his literary scholarship makes him the perfect person to write it."--Richard J. Schneider, editor ofHenry David Thoreau: A Documentary Volume Henry David Thoreau, one of America's most prominent environmental writers, supported himself as a land surveyor for much of his life, parceling land that would be sold off to loggers. In the only study of its kind, Patrick Chura analyzes this seeming contradiction to show how the best surveyor in Concord combined civil engineering with civil disobedience. Placing Thoreau's surveying in historical context, Thoreau the Land Surveyor explains the cultural and ideological implications of surveying work in the mid-nineteenth century. Chura explains the ways that Thoreau's environmentalist disposition and philosophical convictions asserted themselves even as he reduced the land to measurable terms and acted as an agent for bringing it under proprietary control. He also describes in detail Thoreau's 1846 survey of Walden Pond. By identifying the origins of Walden in--of all places--surveying data, Chura re-creates a previously lost supporting manuscript of this American classic.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813041476
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "--Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, coeditor of More Day to Dawn: Thoreau's Walden for the Twenty-first Century "Chura's thorough understanding of the cultural import and physical practice of 19th-century surveying provides a fresh and interesting perspective on Thoreau's life and works. . . . .He combines a spry writing style with meticulous research in this delightful book, which introduces readers to another side of Thoreau's life and thought. Highly recommended." --G. D. MacDonald, Virginia State University "Most books about Henry David Thoreau focus on his writing, philosophy, or literary vision, paying little attention to how he made a living while engaged in such transcendentalist pursuits. In Thoreau the Land Surveyor, Patrick Chura corrects this oversight." --Lorianne DiSabato, The New England Quarterly "A scholarly book that's as beautiful as it is unput-downable. . . Not only is Chura a fine writer here, he is one heck of a historian. He enriches every page with carefully considered research. . . .I loved this book from start to finish." --Mike Tidwell, author of The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn. "An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "This book on the significance of land surveying to Henry Thoreau's writing is one that we have long needed. Chura's practical experience as a surveyor combined with his literary scholarship makes him the perfect person to write it."--Richard J. Schneider, editor ofHenry David Thoreau: A Documentary Volume Henry David Thoreau, one of America's most prominent environmental writers, supported himself as a land surveyor for much of his life, parceling land that would be sold off to loggers. In the only study of its kind, Patrick Chura analyzes this seeming contradiction to show how the best surveyor in Concord combined civil engineering with civil disobedience. Placing Thoreau's surveying in historical context, Thoreau the Land Surveyor explains the cultural and ideological implications of surveying work in the mid-nineteenth century. Chura explains the ways that Thoreau's environmentalist disposition and philosophical convictions asserted themselves even as he reduced the land to measurable terms and acted as an agent for bringing it under proprietary control. He also describes in detail Thoreau's 1846 survey of Walden Pond. By identifying the origins of Walden in--of all places--surveying data, Chura re-creates a previously lost supporting manuscript of this American classic.
Thoreau the Land Surveyor
Author: Patrick Chura
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813034935
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "--Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, coeditor of More Day to Dawn: Thoreau's Walden for the Twenty-first Century "Chura's thorough understanding of the cultural import and physical practice of 19th-century surveying provides a fresh and interesting perspective on Thoreau's life and works. . . . .He combines a spry writing style with meticulous research in this delightful book, which introduces readers to another side of Thoreau's life and thought. Highly recommended." --G. D. MacDonald, Virginia State University "Most books about Henry David Thoreau focus on his writing, philosophy, or literary vision, paying little attention to how he made a living while engaged in such transcendentalist pursuits. In Thoreau the Land Surveyor, Patrick Chura corrects this oversight." --Lorianne DiSabato, The New England Quarterly "A scholarly book that's as beautiful as it is unput-downable. . . Not only is Chura a fine writer here, he is one heck of a historian. He enriches every page with carefully considered research. . . .I loved this book from start to finish." --Mike Tidwell, author of The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn. "An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "This book on the significance of land surveying to Henry Thoreau's writing is one that we have long needed. Chura's practical experience as a surveyor combined with his literary scholarship makes him the perfect person to write it."--Richard J. Schneider, editor of Henry David Thoreau: A Documentary Volume Henry David Thoreau, one of America's most prominent environmental writers, supported himself as a land surveyor for much of his life, parceling land that would be sold off to loggers. In the only study of its kind, Patrick Chura analyzes this seeming contradiction to show how the best surveyor in Concord combined civil engineering with civil disobedience. Placing Thoreau's surveying in historical context, Thoreau the Land Surveyor explains the cultural and ideological implications of surveying work in the mid-nineteenth century. Chura explains the ways that Thoreau's environmentalist disposition and philosophical convictions asserted themselves even as he reduced the land to measurable terms and acted as an agent for bringing it under proprietary control. He also describes in detail Thoreau's 1846 survey of Walden Pond. By identifying the origins of Walden in--of all places--surveying data, Chura re-creates a previously lost supporting manuscript of this American classic.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813034935
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "--Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, coeditor of More Day to Dawn: Thoreau's Walden for the Twenty-first Century "Chura's thorough understanding of the cultural import and physical practice of 19th-century surveying provides a fresh and interesting perspective on Thoreau's life and works. . . . .He combines a spry writing style with meticulous research in this delightful book, which introduces readers to another side of Thoreau's life and thought. Highly recommended." --G. D. MacDonald, Virginia State University "Most books about Henry David Thoreau focus on his writing, philosophy, or literary vision, paying little attention to how he made a living while engaged in such transcendentalist pursuits. In Thoreau the Land Surveyor, Patrick Chura corrects this oversight." --Lorianne DiSabato, The New England Quarterly "A scholarly book that's as beautiful as it is unput-downable. . . Not only is Chura a fine writer here, he is one heck of a historian. He enriches every page with carefully considered research. . . .I loved this book from start to finish." --Mike Tidwell, author of The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn. "An insightful study of how Thoreau's profession as a surveyor impacts his environmental sensibility and informs his literary works; further, Chura shows that the manuscript surveys and corresponding field notes are themselves worthy of literary analysis. "This book on the significance of land surveying to Henry Thoreau's writing is one that we have long needed. Chura's practical experience as a surveyor combined with his literary scholarship makes him the perfect person to write it."--Richard J. Schneider, editor of Henry David Thoreau: A Documentary Volume Henry David Thoreau, one of America's most prominent environmental writers, supported himself as a land surveyor for much of his life, parceling land that would be sold off to loggers. In the only study of its kind, Patrick Chura analyzes this seeming contradiction to show how the best surveyor in Concord combined civil engineering with civil disobedience. Placing Thoreau's surveying in historical context, Thoreau the Land Surveyor explains the cultural and ideological implications of surveying work in the mid-nineteenth century. Chura explains the ways that Thoreau's environmentalist disposition and philosophical convictions asserted themselves even as he reduced the land to measurable terms and acted as an agent for bringing it under proprietary control. He also describes in detail Thoreau's 1846 survey of Walden Pond. By identifying the origins of Walden in--of all places--surveying data, Chura re-creates a previously lost supporting manuscript of this American classic.
Thoreau on Land
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395953853
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
The Spirit of Thoreau series is a fresh new collection of Thoreau's best writing and thinking on various themes, drawn from both unpublished and published sources. THOREAU ON LAND NATURE'S CANVAS Edited by Joseph Valentine This elegant volume chronicles Thoreau's fascination with nature, from his well-known reflections on Walden to an unexpected meeting with loggers in the woods: "No doubt our employment is more alike than we suspect, and we are each serving the great Master's needs more than our own." He shows a Thoreau much broader in his interests and sympathies than most of us imagine.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395953853
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
The Spirit of Thoreau series is a fresh new collection of Thoreau's best writing and thinking on various themes, drawn from both unpublished and published sources. THOREAU ON LAND NATURE'S CANVAS Edited by Joseph Valentine This elegant volume chronicles Thoreau's fascination with nature, from his well-known reflections on Walden to an unexpected meeting with loggers in the woods: "No doubt our employment is more alike than we suspect, and we are each serving the great Master's needs more than our own." He shows a Thoreau much broader in his interests and sympathies than most of us imagine.
The Adventures of Henry Thoreau
Author: Michael Sims
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408838230
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
From Mahatma Gandhi and John F. Kennedy to Martin Luther King and Leo Tolstoy, the works of Henry David Thoreau – author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, surveyor, schoolteacher, engineer – have long been an inspiration to many. But who was the unsophisticated young man who in 1837 became a protégé of Ralph Waldo Emerson? The Adventures of Henry Thoreau tells the colourful story of a complex man seeking a meaningful life in a tempestuous era. In rich, evocative prose Michael Sims brings to life the insecure, youthful Henry, as he embarks on the path to becoming the literary icon Thoreau. Using the letters and diaries of Thoreau's family, friends and students, Michael Sims charts his coming of age within a family struggling to rise above poverty in 1830s America. From skating and boating with Nathaniel Hawthorne, to travels with his brother, John Thoreau, and the launching of their progressive school, Sims paints a vivid portrait of the young writer struggling to find his voice through communing with nature, whether mountain climbing in Maine or building his life-changing cabin at Walden Pond. He explores Thoreau's infatuation with the beautiful young woman who rejected his proposal of marriage, the influence of his mother and sisters – who were passionate abolitionists – and that of the powerful cultural currents of the day. With emotion and texture, The Adventures of Henry Thoreau sheds fresh light on one of the most iconic figures in American history.
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408838230
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 405
Book Description
From Mahatma Gandhi and John F. Kennedy to Martin Luther King and Leo Tolstoy, the works of Henry David Thoreau – author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, surveyor, schoolteacher, engineer – have long been an inspiration to many. But who was the unsophisticated young man who in 1837 became a protégé of Ralph Waldo Emerson? The Adventures of Henry Thoreau tells the colourful story of a complex man seeking a meaningful life in a tempestuous era. In rich, evocative prose Michael Sims brings to life the insecure, youthful Henry, as he embarks on the path to becoming the literary icon Thoreau. Using the letters and diaries of Thoreau's family, friends and students, Michael Sims charts his coming of age within a family struggling to rise above poverty in 1830s America. From skating and boating with Nathaniel Hawthorne, to travels with his brother, John Thoreau, and the launching of their progressive school, Sims paints a vivid portrait of the young writer struggling to find his voice through communing with nature, whether mountain climbing in Maine or building his life-changing cabin at Walden Pond. He explores Thoreau's infatuation with the beautiful young woman who rejected his proposal of marriage, the influence of his mother and sisters – who were passionate abolitionists – and that of the powerful cultural currents of the day. With emotion and texture, The Adventures of Henry Thoreau sheds fresh light on one of the most iconic figures in American history.
Where I Lived, and What I Lived For
Author: Henry Thoreau
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141964294
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 78
Book Description
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141964294
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 78
Book Description
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are. Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement - a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.
Walden
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American essays
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience: This is Thoreau's classic protest against government's interference with individual liberty. One of the most famous essays ever written, it came to the attention of Gandhi and formed the basis for his passive resistance movement.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American essays
Languages : en
Pages : 298
Book Description
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience: This is Thoreau's classic protest against government's interference with individual liberty. One of the most famous essays ever written, it came to the attention of Gandhi and formed the basis for his passive resistance movement.
Henry David Thoreau
Author: Laura Dassow Walls
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022634469X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 668
Book Description
"[The author] traces the full arc of Thoreau’s life, from his early days in the intellectual hothouse of Concord, when the American experiment still felt fresh and precarious, and 'America was a family affair, earned by one generation and about to pass to the next.' By the time he died in 1862, at only forty-four years of age, Thoreau had witnessed the transformation of his world from a community of farmers and artisans into a bustling, interconnected commercial nation. What did that portend for the contemplative individual and abundant, wild nature that Thoreau celebrated? Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, [the author] presents a Thoreau vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him."--
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022634469X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 668
Book Description
"[The author] traces the full arc of Thoreau’s life, from his early days in the intellectual hothouse of Concord, when the American experiment still felt fresh and precarious, and 'America was a family affair, earned by one generation and about to pass to the next.' By the time he died in 1862, at only forty-four years of age, Thoreau had witnessed the transformation of his world from a community of farmers and artisans into a bustling, interconnected commercial nation. What did that portend for the contemplative individual and abundant, wild nature that Thoreau celebrated? Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, [the author] presents a Thoreau vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him."--
Walden
Elevating Ourselves
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395947999
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 134
Book Description
Describes how Blanche Douglas Leathers studied the Mississippi River and passed the test to become a steamboat captain in 1894.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780395947999
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 134
Book Description
Describes how Blanche Douglas Leathers studied the Mississippi River and passed the test to become a steamboat captain in 1894.
Thoreau's Country
Author: David R. Foster
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674037154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
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 forested landscape around him was from the one Thoreau described more than a century earlier. The sights and sounds that Thoreau experienced on his daily walks through nineteenth-century Concord were those of rolling farmland, small woodlands, and farmers endlessly working the land. As Foster explored the New England landscape, he discovered ancient ruins of cellar holes, stone walls, and abandoned cartways--all remnants of this earlier land now largely covered by forest. How had Thoreau's open countryside, shaped by ax and plough, divided by fences and laneways, become a forested landscape? Part ecological and historical puzzle, this book brings a vanished countryside to life in all its dimensions, human and natural, offering a rich record of human imprint upon the land. Extensive excerpts from the journals show us, through the vividly recorded details of daily life, a Thoreau intimately acquainted with the ways in which he and his neighbors were changing and remaking the New England landscape. Foster adds the perspective of a modern forest ecologist and landscape historian, using the journals to trace themes of historical and social change. Thoreau's journals evoke not a wilderness retreat but the emotions and natural history that come from an old and humanized landscape. It is with a new understanding of the human role in shaping that landscape, Foster argues, that we can best prepare ourselves to appreciate and conserve it today. From the journal: "I have collected and split up now quite a pile of driftwood--rails and riders and stems and stumps of trees--perhaps half or three quarters of a tree...Each stick I deal with has a history, and I read it as I am handling it, and, last of all, I remember my adventures in getting it, while it is burning in the winter evening. That is the most interesting part of its history. It has made part of a fence or a bridge, perchance, or has been rooted out of a clearing and bears the marks of fire on it...Thus one half of the value of my wood is enjoyed before it is housed, and the other half is equal to the whole value of an equal quantity of the wood which I buy." --October 20, 1855
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674037154
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288
Book Description
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 forested landscape around him was from the one Thoreau described more than a century earlier. The sights and sounds that Thoreau experienced on his daily walks through nineteenth-century Concord were those of rolling farmland, small woodlands, and farmers endlessly working the land. As Foster explored the New England landscape, he discovered ancient ruins of cellar holes, stone walls, and abandoned cartways--all remnants of this earlier land now largely covered by forest. How had Thoreau's open countryside, shaped by ax and plough, divided by fences and laneways, become a forested landscape? Part ecological and historical puzzle, this book brings a vanished countryside to life in all its dimensions, human and natural, offering a rich record of human imprint upon the land. Extensive excerpts from the journals show us, through the vividly recorded details of daily life, a Thoreau intimately acquainted with the ways in which he and his neighbors were changing and remaking the New England landscape. Foster adds the perspective of a modern forest ecologist and landscape historian, using the journals to trace themes of historical and social change. Thoreau's journals evoke not a wilderness retreat but the emotions and natural history that come from an old and humanized landscape. It is with a new understanding of the human role in shaping that landscape, Foster argues, that we can best prepare ourselves to appreciate and conserve it today. From the journal: "I have collected and split up now quite a pile of driftwood--rails and riders and stems and stumps of trees--perhaps half or three quarters of a tree...Each stick I deal with has a history, and I read it as I am handling it, and, last of all, I remember my adventures in getting it, while it is burning in the winter evening. That is the most interesting part of its history. It has made part of a fence or a bridge, perchance, or has been rooted out of a clearing and bears the marks of fire on it...Thus one half of the value of my wood is enjoyed before it is housed, and the other half is equal to the whole value of an equal quantity of the wood which I buy." --October 20, 1855