A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River

Aldo Leopold

Random House Publishing Group, Dec 12, 1986 - Nature - 320 pages

The environmental classic that redefined the way we think about the natural world—an urgent call for preservation that’s more timely than ever.
 
“We can place this book on the shelf that holds the writings of Thoreau and John Muir.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
These astonishing portraits of the natural world explore the breathtaking diversity of the unspoiled American landscape—the mountains and the prairies, the deserts and the coastlines. Conjuring up one extraordinary vision after another, Aldo Leopold takes readers with him on the road and through the seasons on a fantastic tour of our priceless natural resources, explaining the destructive effects humankind has had on the land and issuing a bold challenge to protect the world we love.

What people are saying

User Review -

personally, I really enjoyed reading this book it was a great reading experience. I read it every night right before getting my back blown out by my boyfriend jacaviontavis. - Robert

User Review -

I am shocked and appalled by the vehemently hateful banter from previous reviewers in the google community. It's both disheartening and impressive at the same time to see how some people can project their own misconceptions into a body of work as benign and unassuming as 'A Sand County Almanac'.
Having come from a Daoist family that escaped communist China, I can assure future readers that there is no hint of Marxism or threat to democracy in this book. Rather, it is simply a reflection of the observations of the famed father of American wilderness conservation whom died honorably as a firefighter.
Mr. Leopold's work is simply as the description describes a nonfiction account of his observations in the balance and harmony of nature over a number of decades. Why haters need to turn it into anything more than that, or even take offense to something this simple, is beyond me. 

Contents

• JANUARY: 3
• MARCH: 11
• APRIL: 21
• AUGUST: 38
• JULY: 44
• SEPTEMBER: 56
• NOVEMBER: 70
• DECEMBER: 83
• WISCONSIN: 101
• ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO: 130
• Chihua HUA AND SONORA: 146
• OREGON AND UTAH: 164
• COUNTRY: 177
• THE ROUND RIVER: 188
• NATURAL HISTORY: 202
• WILDLIFE IN AMERICAN CULTURE: 211
• THE DEER SWATH: 223
• THE LAND ETHIC: 237
• WILDERNESS: 264
• CONSERVATION ESTHETIC: 280

About the author

Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, Iowa, in 1887. Educated at the Lawrenceville School and Yale University, he joined the United States Forest Service in 1909 as a forest assistant in New Mexico and Arizona. One of the founders of the Wilderness Society, he initiated, in 1924, the first Forest Wilderness Area in the United States (which is now the Gila National Forest). Moving to Madison, Wisconsin, he was Associate Director of the Forest Products Laboratory, as well as consulting forester to several states.

Mr. Leopold founded the profession of game management and wrote the first important book on the subject. In 1933, the University of Wisconsin created a Chair of Game Management for him. He died in 1948, while fighting a brush fire on a neighbor’s farm. His death cut short an assignment as an advisor on conservation to the United Nations, and left his book A Sand County Almanac as the last statement of his uncompromising philosophy.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River; A Sierra Club / Ballantine book; A style of life book; Ballantine Books Nature; Ballantine books; Ecological Main Event Series; Outdoor Essays & Reflections
• Author: Aldo Leopold
• Edition: illustrated, reprint, reissue
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 1986
• ISBN: 0345345053, 9780345345059
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Nature / Ecology; Nature / Environmental Conservation & Protection; Nature / Natural Resources