Back to Nature : The Arcadian Myth in Urban America
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Many of us go "back to nature" to get away from civilization. But as often as not, our expectations and actions are shaped by idealized notions of natural order, purity, and even neatness that are in fact impositions of civilization on nature. This is a highly insightful, sometimes ironic study of the influence of such paradoxes in the early 20th-century love affair with nature: anthropomorphized animal stories, summer camps, wildlife protection, landscaped cemeteries, wilderness novels and scenic turnoffs that imposed an industrial ethic of order, neatness, and regularity on natural systems. Recommended.
Review
"The subject has needed detailed treatment for years, and I always expected the definitive study would be accomplished by a naturalist. But Peter Schmitt is a historian, and it's probably better that way after all. I guess this book is the one I've been looking for." -- John Eastman, Natural History
Back to Nature : The Arcadian Myth in Urban America
Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America,Peter J. Schmitt,The Johns Hopkins University Press,0801840139,1865-1918,Civilization,Effect of environment on,General,History,History: American,Human Ecology,Human beings,Landscape,Landscape assessment,Nature,Nature in literature,United States,United States - General,American history,History / Ancient / General,Landscape art & architecture,The Americas
Discount Books:
Recommended Books