Recovering The Prairie - Hardcover

Sayre, Robert F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0299164608 ISBN 13: 9780299164607

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999

Synopsis

Americans in ever increasing numbers are rediscovering the prairie. This vast inland sea of grasses, buried for a hundred years beneath farms, cities, and suburbs, has endured not only in physical remnants but also in the memories of its settlers and their descendants, the books of prairie authors, and the work of prairie artists. As restoration ecologists and amateur prairie preservationists recover the land, this book recovers the prairie of the American imagination—past, present, and future.

Beautifully illustrated with the work of sixteen contemporary prairie artists, Recovering the Prairie celebrates and examines the perspectives of artists, writers, native peoples, ecologists, and landscape architects—Willa Cather, Aldo Leopold, Jens Jensen, Alexander Gardner, and many others—who recognized the unique beauty of the prairie. And, this volume brings together people from many fields to consider the connections between aesthetics and economics, landscape and culture, politics and ethics, as illustrated by the prairie in American civilization.

Contributors and artists include:

Robert Adams
Lee Allen
Roger Brown
James D. Butler
Pauline Drobney
Fred Easker
Terry Evans
Ed Folsom
Lance M. Foster
Harold L. Gregor
Robert E. Grese
Walter Hatke
Harold D. Holoun
Stan Hurd
Gary Irving
Wes Jackson
Keith Jacobshagen
Joni L. Kinsey
Stuart Klipper
Aldo Leopold
Tom Lutz
Curt Meine
Genie H. Patrick
David Plowden
Rebecca Roberts
Robert F. Sayre
Jane E. Simonson
Shelton Stromquist
James R. Winn

About this title

About the Author:

Robert F. Sayre is professor of English and American literature at the University of Iowa. He is the editor of the anthology American Lives, also published by the University of Wisconsin Press, and of several other books, including Take This Exit: Re-Discovering the Iowa Landscape.

Review:

“Like a prairie’s landscape, these essays, together with the photographs, visual art, and illustrations, present a dense and varied interconnected whole, from roots to flowers to the beings who perceive and inhabit the land.”
—Annick Smith, filmmaker and author of Big Bluestem: Journey into the Tall Grass


“Prairie enthusiasts will be delighted to read how diverse and interesting the human meanings of the prairie have been. Recovering the Prairie is attractive, accessible, and eloquent.”
—Donald Worster, author of Nature’s  Economy

“I do not know of another book that brings together individuals from so many fields to meditate on the prairie landscape, its biota, and its natural and cultural prospects. This impressive and richly illustrated volume will appeal to general readers as well as to scholars interested in literature, history, American studies, art history, geography, landscape, and ecology.”
—Wayne Franklin, author of Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0299164608
• ISBN 13: 9780299164607
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224