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Summary: Holy Writ for the Land Manager
Review: If the place and the creature are textbook and teacher, Aldo Leopold is the dean of the college. Leopold never ceases to astound me with his ability to convey a sense of place in his magnificent work. A Sand County Almanac takes the reader on a vivid and thought provoking tour of what was, what is, and what might become in the Sand Counties of Wisconsin. Leopold fills the book with advice and direction to the budding naturalist on how to observe, what to do with observations, and how to properly manage land. It is a very enjoyable story that the reader will return to again and again.
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Summary: Superb and thoughtful writing by a noted conservationist
Review: If you have ever loved a wild place, or a secret place, or a place which calmed and sheltered you from the hustle of modern life, you must read Aldo Leopold's classic "A Sand County Almanac." Leopold, a noted conservationist, puts forth a sort of collection of musings, essays, arguments, and general thoughts on anything and everything having to do with nature. He covers water conservation, the migration of seeds and spores, hunting, the crumbling of a tree into loam from which another tree will eventually grow. At his very best, Leopold raises both the level of discourse and the level of writing to something that can stand with the finest literature:"Within a few weeks now, Draba, the smallest flower that blows, will sprinkle every sandy place with small blooms. He who hopes for spring with upturned eye will never see so small a thing as Draba. He who despairs of spring with downcast eye steps on it, unknowing. He who searches for spring with his knees in the mud finds it, in abundance. Draba asks, and gets, but scant allowance of warmth and comfort; it subsists on the leavings of unwanted time and space. Botany books give it two or three lines, but never a plate or portrait. Sand too poor and sun too weak for bigger, better blooms are good enough for Draba. After all, it is no spring flower, but only a postscript to a hope." When Leopold can describe a tiny nothing of a plant with such delicacy, beauty, and restraint, you know that you are reading the work of a rare and informed writer. I could quote from the book forever, as the gorgeous passages are many, but I urge you to read it yourself instead and discover an enduring voice in defense of the American wilderness.
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Summary: Nature, the best
Review: If you love the steady and incredible look of nature to your eyes, just wait until you read nature in words. Leopolds skill is amazing. You must have some concentration to read this book, but its truley takes the shap of nature, wth levels, images, surprises and lessons..
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Summary: Illuminated Manuscript
Review: Long considered the first book on conservation, this should be read by everyone. The author's love of land, wildlife and nature are fully expressed. Those thoughts are followed by philosophizing on conservation - ethics, practice, economics, etc. Written in the nascent stages of conservation in this country, a time when it was more thought than practice, the issues still resonate today. One sees the difficulties both in expanding environmental conservation as well as the pitfalls and errors made in the area (with all good intent) since the forties when Leopald wrote.
Portions of this were assigned when I was in college. Now, 28 years later, the entirety means much more. It should be required reading for everyone, especially lovers of the outdoors.
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Summary: THE Conservation/outdoors Classic
Review: Long considered the first book on conservation, this should be read by everyone. The author's love of land, wildlife and nature are fully expressed. Those thoughts are followed by philosophizing on conservation - ethics, practice, economics, etc. Written in the nascent stages of conservation in this country, a time when it was more thought than practice, the issues still resonate today. One sees the difficulties both in expanding environmental conservation as well as the pitfalls and errors made in the area (with all good intent) since the forties when Leopald wrote. Interestingly, especially to me as someone who hunts, much is written in the context of hunting. He also has some insightful words about why people do hunt as a connection to nature. As only a hunter can, he identifies the hunter's reverance for the land and nature. Portions of this were assigned when I was in college. Now, 28 years later, the entirety means much more. It should be required reading for everyone, especially lovers of the outdoors.
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Summary: You know the type
Review: Overwrought, pedantic, and embarassingly smug at times. Otherwise, a unique, carefully crafted and historically pertinent piece of work. I recommend prospective naturalists, etc., invest in 'The Norton Book of Nature Writing' instead, to gain a broader view of the genre.
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Summary: The things we have forgotten
Review: The best recommendation I can find for this book comes from another (one star) anti-review - entitled "Nature Lovers Only": "This book has no value to the everyday person" The reviewer is one of those everyday persons, a person who has become utterly disconnected from the land, and the ecosystem from which she has emerged. Leopold's book is about nature as experienced by those who live in it - not by those who see it from a car, or on the Discovery Channel. If you are an every day person, living in a suburban box, enjoying nature in officially sanctioned parks (closed at 11pm of course), fogging the area with Raid so that you can eat your macaroni salad, then you will not enjoy this book. If, like me, you are trapped in this suburban nightmare, and have this feeling that something is TERRIBLY wrong, then this book will help you to understand WHY you feel so miserable: We live on a planet, and share the planet with an enormous, pervasive ecosystem of plants and animals - kept only temporarily at bay by our sheetrock and asphalt barriers. Leopold describes this world with stunning insight derived from a near infinite patience in the observation of the natural world. He goes out on his walks and expeditions into a slightly younger America, and reports back on the world as it is - the world "out there" - in a way that few have done before or since. Read this book and step out of your "every day person" life. No walk in the woods will ever be the same again!
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Summary: A classic only recently read
Review: The short essays in this subtly powerful environmental classic are filled with poetic images and personal perspectives, some of which have become mantras for the ecologically-minded: Thinking Like A Mountain; The Ecological Conscience; and Defenders of Wilderness.
"When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect," Leopold wrote....
May we all see, belong, and love.
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Summary: Most wouldnt understand
Review: The tree in the first part is just one example of the ignorance that most have. To most it would be just a tree, but to Leopold it was a history book. He described the tree as something much more powerful, something that had stood and watched everything silently for almost a century. Most wouldn't have thought twice about cutting it down. It is a real eye opener to the ignorance that people have for nature, and how fragile it really is.
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Summary: The Danger to Nature is Our Nonparticipation
Review: There are few books on conservation, wildlife and nature that haven't been obsoleted by new discoveries, are hopelessly trapped in period pop cultural amber, are fronts for naive political extremism or are simply irrelevant. Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac" is one of those few; composed of illuminating vignettes dealing with practical knowledge of and experience in the North American wilderness, thoughtful critiques of today's accepted concepts of wildlife and land "management," and the implicit acceptance of the human role as a predator embedded in nature's massive food chain. Leopold believed humanity's ever-increasing physical and psychological isolation from full but equal participation in all parts of the natural world's reality--its beauty and wonder as well as its cruelty and danger--has been to our severe detriment as a society and culture. This, to him, is leading us to environmental carelesseness, colossal misuse and waste of natural resources, and, worst of all, a disturbing, aberrant social ideology which revels in the fatuous cartoon fantasy of nature being a big, happy, perpetually peaceful commune if only humans weren't there. After looking at our sad record of pollution, repeated habitat destruction, poaching, overfishing, and listening to the endless, arrogant prattling of government bureaucrats, pop conservationists, and so-called animal rights activists, it seems Leopold is indeed a prophet for our times.
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