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A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation

A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation

List Price: $35.00
Your Price: $24.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I Really Enjoyed This Book!
Review: Sand County Almanac has always been one of my favorite environmental books, but this new edition is by far the best. Sewell's photos match Leopold's writing so perfectly that you feel like you're right there on the farm. The new introduction by Kenneth Brower gives lots of interesting information about how this edition was created. The design is clean and makes for easy reading. I would highly recommend this book, especially for those new to Leopold's writing and those who appreciate beautiful visuals!

Rating: 5 stars
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!

Rating: 5 stars
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.

Rating: 4 stars
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.

Rating: 5 stars
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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Danger To Nature Is Our Nonparticipation
Review: There are few books on conservation, wildlife and nature that haven't been quickly obsoleted, are hoplessly 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 notions of wildlife and land "management," and the realistic acceptance of the human role as a predator within 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 its severe detriment.

This trend, to him, is leading us to environmental carelessness, colossal misuse and waste of natural resources, and, worst of all, gives rise to an aberrant social ideology reveling 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 prattle of government bureaucrats, pop conservationists and so-called animal rights activists, it seems Leopold is indeed a prophet for our times

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This book may change your life
Review: This book is as original as its author. The format is one that follows the seasons of a year, and is driven by a collection of essays that implore the reader to look within for that deep connection to the land that shaped us as a species.

Aldo Leopold may have influenced the modern environmental movement, but what he really gave birth to was the common man conservation movement. An avid hunter and student of the land, he believed that the key to any successful conservation movement depended on the cooperation of the small landowner.

His "land ethic" philosophy branched out to many other relevant topics; such as his argument that wilderness was a valuable cultural resource, as well as being vital to scientific study. At one point, he asks, "Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?"

The most striking thing about Aldo Leopold to me is that his words only become more relevant and more pressing as time goes on. This man has some important things to say. Please listen.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The book that changed my life
Review: This book will open your eyes to what is going on in the world around us. Whether you agree with Mr. Leopold or not, this book sould be a necessity to live an informed life. No modern naturalist has topped it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Sand County Almanac
Review: This is a beautifully written and insightful book. Loepold shows his reader his life and views. This is a MUST READ for anyone who loves the natural world though it may be a little too "hard core" for the average metropolitan citizen.
The only thing I really have to say is that I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Required reading
Review: This is a magnificent book. If you didn't give 2 hoots about nature and the world around you before reading Sand County Almanac, take it from me, you will and you will wonder why you didn't before. Aldo Leopold was a valuable man, one whose like we don't see today in the overwrought world of tree-spiking and "monkey wrenching" by so-called "environmentalists (trouble makers is more like it). Read this book, read every word carefully and lovingly and let it transform you from an organism merely taking up space to a human being alive with the wonders of nature and our place in it. Unforgettable.


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