Love of the Land

Love of the Land: Essential Farm and Conservation Readings from an American Golden Age, 1880-1920 features an unprecedented collection of historical, interdisciplinary essays that reconstruct for the contemporary reader the dynamic dialogue between agriculturist and ecologist. Reflecting the contemporary convergence of agricultural and environmental histories into a larger, land-centered narrative, the highly readable essays in this nearly five-hundred-page anthology present the pioneering words of the academics and agriculturalists, capitalists and conservationists, ecologists and environmentalists, and policymakers and politicos who labored to bring the disparate fields of conservation and agriculture into organic whole. Love of the Land offers a comprehensive, groundbreaking treatment of ecological themes ideal for students and researchers of agricultural and environmental thought. "Zachary Jack's Love of the Land fills a need. It provides a wide-angle view of early U.S. agricultural and conservation thought, which were major influences on both the economy and ethic of this developing country. Especially impressive are the encompassing array of writers - farm, conservation, political, and literary figures; the selected excerpts - each with a message that resounds; and finally the book's preface - worth reading again after finishing the book's last page." Duane Acker, former Assistant Secretary for science and education, U.S. Department of Agriculture and President Emeritus, Kansas State University "This anthology ambitiously takes you on a mind-stretching adventure into our national past, and our future. It offers, actually, an interdisciplinary short course - a compact curriculum - about the dynamics and varied dimensions of rural development and conservation in America... You may appreciate knowing from the start that you have not been dumped on your own into a loose collection of readings. You realize you are led by a compiler who cares and knows much about this subject, ranged widely and thoughtfully in choosing the readings, adds much to them and is leading you helpfully through them." James F. Evans, Professor Emeritus, Agricultural Communications and Journalism, University of Illinois