Blog
Save
Email
Print
SharePublished in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published.
See also:
Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's pages.
In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, "in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes....
I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters' paradise.
But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." Leopold's road-to-Damascus change of view would find its fruit some years later in his so-called land ethic, in which he held that nothing that disturbs the balance of nature is right.
Much of Almanac elaborates on this basic premise, as well as on Leopold's view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species.
Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today.
For more information about the title A Sand County Almanac (Outdoor Essays & Reflections), read the full description at Amazon.com, or see the following related books:
A Sand County Almanac — First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as "a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite," A Sand County Almanac combines ... > read more
The Diversity of Life (Penguin Press Science) — Humans, the Harvard University entomologist Edward O. Wilson has observed, have an innate--or at least extremely ancient--connection to the natural ... > read more
Never Cry Wolf : Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves — More than a half-century ago the Canadian Wildlife Service assigned the naturalist Farley Mowat to investigate why wolves were killing arctic ... > read more
Young Men and Fire — On August 5, 1949, lightning came crashing down in the vast spruce forest above Seeley Lake, Montana, and touched off a roaring blaze. As every ... > read moreRecommend this page on Facebook, Twitter,
and Google +1:
Other bookmarking and sharing tools:
more 