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"Remarkable . . . judicious . . . provocative . . .
The Height of Our Mountains collects nearly four centuries of nature writing from one of America's premier national landscapes--the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Beginning with Captain John Smith's eager gaze westward in search of gold and ending with contemporary essayist John Daniel's transformative gaze inward in search of wilderness, The Height of Our Mountains features the work of seventy of the nation's finest writers on nature since 1612. Responding to Thomas Jefferson's claim in Notes on the State of Virginia that "the height of our mountains has not yet been estimated with any degree of exactness," Michael P. Branch and Daniel J. Philippon have gathered a diverse collection of written perspectives on the region in an effort to "measure" the remarkable richness of this landscape through a variety of literary forms and styles. The result is a wide-ranging survey of nature writing that begins with the colonial narratives of Robert Beverley, William Byrd, and George Washington, as well as the natural histories of John Bartram, Mark Catesby, and John James Audubon. Readers will encounter travel narratives by King Louis Philippe of France, James Kirke Paulding, and Caroline Gilman; diaries and memoirs by Cornelia Peake McDonald, Walt Whitman, and John Burroughs; works of fiction by William Gilmore Simms, Ellen Glasgow, and Willa Cather, and speeches by James Madison, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin Roosevelt. Contemporary nature writings from such acclaimed essayists as Donald Culross Peattie, Edwin Way Teale, Roger Tory Peterson, Annie Dillard, and Jake Page round out the collection. In a detailed critical introduction, the editors provide a primer on the character and form of nature writing, the concepts of bioregionalism and sense of place, and the literary natural history of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley. Arguing that nature writing is best defined in terms of its expansive subject--the interaction of nature and culture in a particular place--Branch and Philippon explore the changing ways in which this region's inhabitants and visitors have understood and expressed their relationship to the land over the centuries. Each selection opens with a brief headnote, and twenty-five maps and illustrations appear throughout the volume.
"A convincing demonstration of the cultural richness and power of place over more than three centuries. --Lawrence Buell, author of The Environmental Imagination "An astute and critical collection of writings that shows clearly, across time, how a landscape, and the human perception of it, shares in the creation of a region's literature. This is a valuable book in service of a place." --Rick Bass, author of The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness "This wonderful book is as subtle, varied, and inspiring as the landscape it chronicles. Every page, unfolding the deep changes brought by four hundred years of destruction and rebirth, reveals a new perspective on the mountains and valleys of Virginia. Branch and Philippon weave these words and images together with just the right measure of expertise and passion; we could not ask for better guides." --Edward L. Ayers, author of The Promise of the New South "The Height of Our Mountains will without a doubt be an extraordinary resource for the residents of the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley, but because of its remarkable inclusiveness and the vividness of its selections, it will also be invaluable for the rest of us, who--as teachers, writers, citizens, family members, and naturalists--are striving to identify ourselves more knowingly, joyfully, and faithfully with our own homes in nature." --John Elder, from the foreword
"An amazing collection of nature writings." --Harrisonburg News-Record "This book is a solid contribution to scholarship at the same time that it is accessible and fascinating." --Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star "With its mixture of fiction, personal, and scientific writing, the book has something for everyone." --Blue Ridge Outdoors "All Virginia outdoor enthusiasts . . . with a taste for reading will want to own The Height of Our Mountains." --Old Dominion Sierran "Libraries collecting natural history of Virginia will certainly want to add The Height of Our Mountains to their collections." --Virginia Libraries "This anthology is of real interest to both the naturalist and historian inside all of us. . . . It is fascinating to see the variety of responses to the same small region over nearly four centuries."--Stonecrop: A Natural History Book Catalog "[A]n astonishing series of snapshots that capture the intermingling of human culture and the natural environment over time.... [A] valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of land and people."--Quarterly Review of Biology (Read the complete review.) "Students of regional nature writing and of Appalachian lore alike will find much of interest in this anthology. . . . The collection is expertly edited, annotated, and indexed. . . . The foreword by John Elder and the editors' substantial introduction constitute a deliberate and important contribution to contemporary thinking about nature writing, regionalism, and the environment."--Wild Earth (Read the complete review.) "This collection spreads out a wide and wonderful panorama of essays and passages written about the Blue Ridge and the Shenandoah Valley. At the same time, it uses those works to consider the critical question: What is nature writing and what part can it play in the environmentalist movement today?"--U.Va. Alumni News "[A] compelling book that documents both change and continuity in a region that has figured prominently in the cultural imagination of the United States since the colonial era.... The Height of Our Mountains ... is a lucid and perceptive contribution to current re-thinking about nature writing and an insightful critique of the complex relationship between place and culture."--Appalachian Journal (Read the complete review.) "A strong sense of place is evoked in this impressive anthology of nature writing from the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley. . . . Arranged chronologically, the work documents exploration, growth, development, exploitation, and preservation of the region, providing an invaluable glimpse of the changing landscape and perception of the land." --Library Journal "This volume will be of great interest to those familiar with the region, but it should also interest anyone who would understand Americans' relationships with their land, in whatever region." --ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (Read the complete review.) "[T]his collection is a superb addition to the literature of the Appalachian region. And, as a focused scholarly introduction to the nature writing of a region, it presents an excellent model and exercises it with exemplary rigor." --Appalachian Heritage "Michael P. Branch and Daniel J. Philippon . . . refine and augment the [literature and environment] movement in a manner both important and delightful. . . . Earlier anthologizers chose politically defined regions such as Montana. Following Kirkpatrick Sale and other environmentalists, the editors of this volume aim for greater geological and human-cultural coherence in what they call 'bioregionalism.'" --Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Read the complete review.) "Excerpted from travel journals, diaries, letters, speeches, essays, novels, and government and scientific reports written over four centuries, this remarkable collection of writings contains 70 selections from literary excursions exploring the interaction between man and one of America's most beautiful and natural landscapes. The judicious selections of the editors are enhanced by a provocative introduction, informative background and editorial notes, interesting illustrations, and a useful bibliography, making this a model of regional nature-writing anthologies." --*Virginia Quarterly Review "The consistent quality of the selections, whether from the 17th century or the present, reflects the skill and dedication of the editors. Almost without exception the passages are crisp and engaging. The book is a beautiful volume: The binding and the illustrations are marked by attention to detail. Perhaps the book is too fine to actually toss into a backpack for a day hike. But that is where it belongs. For anyone with an eye toward our mountains and streams, this collection will bring to life the natural and literary landscape of the Blue Ridge." --Roanoke Times (Read the complete review.) Much of The Height of Our Mountains's introduction provides an excellent introduction to environmental writing as a problematic genre, without using obfuscatory rhetoric. . . . The editors suggest that their volume is "part of a larger effort to understand the interaction of literature and environment on an international scale" (p. xxi). I hope that a whole mosaic of contiguous bioregional anthologies such as this can eventually be constructed. --Mississippi Quarterly (Read the complete review.) "The Height of Our Mountains is noteworthy because it has rescued from obscurity the writings of men like [John] Bartram. Indeed, this volume, which includes a scholarly introduction and a thorough bibliography essay, will prove to be invaluable to scholars who wish to study the Blue Ridge region or the history of nature writing in general. But this is not simply a book for academics. It is a must-read for anyone who loves the western part of our state." --Port Folio Weekly (Virginia Beach, Va.) "In a new book, The Height of Our Mountains, ecocritics Mike Branch and Dan Philippon have composed a magnificent literary anthology of our Blue Ridge bioregion. . . . This is a big book, over 400 pages, a beautiful volume, nicely ilustrated with black and white prints. It ought to be the beginning of every Virginian's introduction to the heritage of our co-existence with our region." --Loudoun ART: A Magazine of Art, People, and Community (Lincoln, Va.) "Of all the errors in our rural economy none is perhaps so much to be regretted . . . as the injudicious and excessive destruction of timber and firewood. It seems never to have occurred [to the destroyer] that the fund was not inexhaustible, and that a crop of trees could not be raised as quickly as one of wheat or corn." So wrote the conservationist James Madison (who also happened to be a Founding Father and ex-president) from the estate to which he had retired in Orange County, Va. And he is by no means the only illustrious contributor to this anthology, which also includes work by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Walt Whitman. Among the entries is this encomium to vernal hues, in an essay on Monticello, by the great nature writer Edwin Way Teale: "At no other time of year, except in autumn, is there greater variety of color in a woodland than in spring. A thousand and one subtle shadings of green, lost in summer, characterize the new foliage. Autumn colors are flaunting; they catch the eye. Spring tintings are delicate and often overlooked." --Washington Post Book World
Michael P. Branch is professor of literature and
environment at the University of Nevada, Reno. 0-8018-5632-9 $39.95 hardcover |
