Perhaps America's best environmental idea was not the national park but the garden cemetery, a use of space that quickly gained popularity in the mid-nineteenth century. Such spaces of repose brought key elements of the countryside into rapidly expanding cities, making nature accessible to all and serving to remind visitors of the natural cycles of life. In this unique interdisciplinary blend of historical narrative, cultural criticism, and poignant memoir, Aaron Sachs argues that American cemeteries embody a forgotten landscape tradition that has much to teach us in our current moment of environmental crisis. Until the trauma of the Civil War, many Americans sought to shape society into what they thought of as an Arcadia?not an Eden where fruit simply fell off the tree, but a public garden that depended on an ethic of communal care, and whose sense of beauty and repose related directly to an acknowledgement of mortality and limitation. Sachs explores the notion of Arcadia in the works of nineteenth-century nature writers, novelists, painters, horticulturists, landscape architects, and city planners, and holds up for comparison the twenty-first century's?and his own?tendency toward denial of both death and environmental limits. His far-reaching insights suggest new possibilities for the environmental movement today and new ways of understanding American history.
Product Identifiers
Publisher
Yale University Press
ISBN-13
9780300176407
eBay Product ID (ePID)
138836464
Product Key Features
Author
Aaron Sachs
Publication Name
Arcadian America: the Death and Life of an Environmental Tradition
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Subject
History
Publication Year
2013
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
496 Pages
Dimensions
Item Height
230mm
Item Width
184mm
Item Weight
948g
Additional Product Features
Title_Author
Aaron Sachs
Series Title
New Directions in Narrative History
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States
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