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Book Review
| Aldo Leopold's Odyssey: Rediscovering the Author of A Sand County Almanac. By Julianne Lutz Newton. Washington, DC, Covelo, and London: Island Press. xvii + 483 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $32.95.
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| Aldo Leopold's Odyssey is not a conventional, cradle-to-the-grave biography. It is an intellectual biography that chronicles how Leopold developed the land ethic over the course of his life. Leopold possessed a singular ability to summarize his ideas in short, memorable phrases. But this has obscured important nuances in his attempt to reconcile the relationship between modern humans and the environment. Newton seeks to reclaim the complexity by a careful and deliberate reexamination of Leopold's experiences, thoughts, and actions. Such an analysis of the land ethic and how Leopold conceived it might yield new insights into the problems we face today. It does tell us more about the 1920s and 1930s, an era that demands more attention from environmental historians. |
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Newton presents Leopold as an intensely curious man with broad intellectual interests. He was able to draw together widely disparate data and squeeze every ounce of meaning from an experience. He was a forester who understood the latest developments in several other fields as well a pioneer in the science of ecology. At the same time he was elegant writer who could present complex scientific ideas to the layman. Finally, his thinking was deeply philosophical, not only about nature, but about humanity. Philosophers such as Jose Ortega y Gasset and Piotr Ouspensky influenced his thinking, as did the operas of Richard Wagner. In short, Leopold's conceptions of nature, humanity, and the development of a land ethic were due to many factors and occurred only because he was capable of synthesizing these diverse experiences. It was his idea, born of his experiences, and it is hard to see how anyone else could have come to the same conclusions. Any slight deviation in his life would have certainly altered the trajectory of his intellectual path and the ultimate intellectual outcome. |
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As clever as he was, Leopold stumbled badly over his own contradictory thoughts concerning politics. He considered the traditional American value of individualism to be outdated and environmentally dangerous. Yet he wanted farmers to break from their neighbors and forefathers to adopt a revolutionary new view of nature. He wrote to influence a popular audience, but comes across as a snobbish elitist fearful of the democratic masses. He preferred cooperative projects but relied a good deal on technocratic, top-down solutions. He had little belief in the wisdom of the people, but his ultimate objective was to inspire them. |
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Newton's writing is clear and concise even when discoursing on scientific subjects. Photographs from Leopold's personal collection are dispersed throughout the book and are arranged to illustrate the author's points in the text. They also depict the human side of Leopold by showing him walking down the railroad tracks hand-in-hand with his wife or warming his feet by the fire. It reminds us that Leopold was not writing about nature, as much as he was writing about us. Aldo Leopold's Odyssey is a book worthy of being on any serious environmental historian's reading list. |
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Gregory J. Dehler teaches at Front Range Community College, Westminster, Colorado, serves as an editor for H-Environment, and is currently working on a biography of William Temple Hornaday. |
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