# Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action - Paperback

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by **George Perkins Marsh** (Author), **David Lowenthal** (Editor), **William Cronon** (Foreword by)

In _Man and Nature_, first published in 1864, polymath scholar and diplomat George Perkins Marsh challenged the general belief that human impact on nature was generally benign or negligible and charged that ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean had brought about their own collapse by their abuse of the environment. By deforesting their hillsides and eroding their soils, they had destroyed the natural fertility that sustained their well-being. Marsh offered his compatriots in the United States a stern warning that the young American republic might repeat these errors of the ancient world if it failed to end its own destructive waste of natural resources. Marsh's ominous warnings inspired conservation and reform. In linking culture with nature, science with history, _Man and Nature_ was the most influential text of its time next to Darwin's _On the Origin of Species_, published just five years earlier.  
  
In his Introduction to this new edition, David Lowenthal places _Man and Nature_ in the context of recent scholarship and evaluates its significance for the environmental movement that has emerged since the latter part of the twentieth century. He also paints a vivid portrait of the book's brilliant, passionate, wide-ranging, and sometimes choleric author.  
  
Although what we know and what we fear about the environment have vastly amplified since Marsh's day, his appraisal of forest cover and erosion remains largely valid, his cautions about watershed control still cognent, and his call for stewardship ever more pertinent. _Man and Nature_ is worth reading not only for having taught lessons crucial in its day, but for teaching them still so well.

### Author Biography

**David Lowenthal** is professor emeritus of geography at University College London. His books include _George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History_, and _The Past Is a Foreign Country._

**Number of Pages:** 512

**Dimensions:** 1.21 x 9 x 6.1 IN

**Publication Date:** April 01, 2003

## Details

- **Price:** 59.85 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

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- Man and Nature: Or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action - Paperback

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