Finding Thoreau
The Meaning of Nature in the Making of an Environmental Icon
University of Massachusetts Press
In his 1862 eulogy for Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflected that his friend "dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields, hills, and waters of his native town, that he made them known and interesting to all reading Americans, and to people over the sea." Finding Thoreau traces the reception of Thoreau's work from the time of his death to his ascendancy as an environmental icon in the 1970s, revealing insights into American culture's conception of the environment.
Moving decade by decade through this period, Richard W. Judd unveils a cache of commentary from intellectuals, critics, and journalists to demonstrate the dynamism in the idea of nature, as Americans defined and redefined the organic world around them amidst shifting intellectual, creative, and political forces. This book tells the captivating story of one writer's rise from obscurity to fame through a cultural reappraisal of the work he left behind.
Moving decade by decade through this period, Richard W. Judd unveils a cache of commentary from intellectuals, critics, and journalists to demonstrate the dynamism in the idea of nature, as Americans defined and redefined the organic world around them amidst shifting intellectual, creative, and political forces. This book tells the captivating story of one writer's rise from obscurity to fame through a cultural reappraisal of the work he left behind.
Extremely well written and well researched, Finding Thoreau is a valuable sourcebook for scholars of Thoreau in particular and for scholars of American literature and culture more generally.'—Stephanie Foote, cofounder of Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities
'Finding Thoreau is copiously documented, drawing on a myriad of authors and works in environmental and intellectual history.'—Priscilla Coit Murphy, author of What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of 'Silent Spring'
'Finding Thoreau [is] an excellent, highly readable survey of how [Thoreau's] reception was shaped by, but also helped to shape, successive understandings of 'nature' in American culture from the late 1860s to the present.'—The New England Quarterly
'Judd has done excellent research to uncover so many lost dialogues about nature and Thoreau, and he shapes this immense and diverse literature into a meaningful, narrative framework.'—Environmental History
'Everyone tries to find the 'real' Henry David Thoreau. Rather than arguing for a real Thoreau, Judd details the many studies of the transcendentalist.'—American Literature
'Henry David Thoreau has been read in many ways over the years. In this helpful new study, Richard W. Judd aims to explain 'the dynamics of Thoreau's reputation' in American history . . . Judd does a great service in helping us understand how Thoreau has spoken to different generations of Americans.'—Journal of American History
Richard W. Judd is professor of history at the University of Maine and author of numerous books, including Second Nature: An Environmental History of New England.
