New England Nature - David K. Leff

Since its founding four hundred years ago, New England has been a vital source of nature writing. Maybe it’s the diversity of landscapes huddled so close together, or the marriage of nature and culture in a relatively small, six-state region. Maybe it’s the regenerative powers of the ecosystem in a place of repeated exploitations. Or maybe we have simply been thinking about our relationship with the natural world longer than everyone else.

If all successive nature writing is a footnote to Thoreau, then New England has a strong claim to being the birthplace of the genre. But there are, as the 60 entries in this anthology demonstrate, many other regional voices that extol the wonders and beauty of the outdoors, explore local ecology, and call for environmental sustainability. Anyone wanting to understand our relationship with nature must start here.