Thoreau's Country; Journey through a Transformed Landscape. (Reviews).

Thoreau's Country; Journey through a Transformed Landscape by David R. Foster.

$29.50. Harvard University Press, 1999.

David Foster, director of the Harvard Forest, draws on his personal experiences in the woodlands of New England and his skills as an ecologist and landscape historian to offer new interpretations of Henry David Thoreau's writings. His insights are remarkable both in revealing an intimate understanding of Thoreau and his times and in showing the relevance of his writings to the present.

Foster's primary sources were the 39 volumes of Thoreau's journals, an almost daily record of his observations from 1837 until his death in 1862. Foster assembled excerpts by themes to reflect Thoreau's insights into the culture and landscapes of his day. Accounts of the daily life of farmers, stone walls, wildfires, and hunting are a few topics Foster explores to explain Thoreau's remarkable understanding of humans' role in shaping the landscape. The result is a captivating story of a time when seasons set the schedule of life, all was local, and details were important. A dozen or so line drawings enhance the text.

Anyone who has been inspired by Thoreau's Walden will be thrilled by Thoreau's Country. Thoreau's descriptions of fires caused by the burning wadding from hunters' muzzle-loaders, the cultural impacts of chestnut blight, and the abundance of Indian artifacts everywhere in New England tell of a long-forgotten time.

But more so than new insights and fascinating details from the past, Foster stresses that a "dominant lesson that emerges from Thoreau's observations is that historical factors and past land-use activities determine current conditions" and he emphasizes the importance of studying these past records to better understand the present.

Thoreau recognized that the familiar landscapes he loved most were cultural landscapes shaped by constant change--ecological succession inextricably linked to human influence. That shows him to be more than simply the wilderness preservationist he is often tagged as today. Rather, Foster proposes that "an overall conviction of Thoreau's and a basis for his life and writing.... is that wilderness and perhaps all possible experiences in life can be found inside oneself."

This book reaches well beyond the debates over wilderness or New England landscapes. Thoreau, as presented by Foster, is a man for all seasons.