Overview

"In 1949, Oxford University Press published ecologist and writer Aldo Leopold's (1887-1948) classic work, A Sand County Almanac. The book, which has sold over two million copies worldwide, develops Leopold's ""land ethic,"" calling for a responsible relationship between people and the land they inhabit. It remains a touchstone text for the American conservation movement, and has been little less than foundational to the fields of environmentalism and ecology. In this new project, Stories from the Leopold Shack Aldo's daughter Estella B. Leopold offers a window into the development of the land-ethic theory as it unfolded in her father's life and thought. She reveals this organic development through a series of biographical accounts centered on ""the Shack,"" a small barn on 80 acres in south central Wisconsin purchased by Aldo in 1934 and used by the family every weekend. Working the land together, the family built more than a successful farm, habitable family shelter, or pleasant weekend getaway; they established a new way of living and relating to the land. This experiment became one of the earliest efforts in ecological restoration in the United States, and had a profound impact on Aldo Leopold's later work in forest management and conservationism. This autobiographical collection begins with the shack and how it came to be rebuilt, giving readers a glimpse into the lives of the Leopold children as they grew up in it. It goes on to describe the family's efforts from 1935 until 1948 to begin ecological restoration on the property of the old farm, and concludes with a discussion of more recent and sustained restoration from 1948 until 2012, including the development of the Aldo Leopold Foundation and its work. Readers of this collection will certainly come away with not only a better understanding of the genesis of Leopold's ""land ethic,"" but also an intimate portrait of the family that grew within Aldo's hub of restoration and conservation."

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9780190463229

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I was fourteen when I first read Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac for a school assignment. The book affected me so deeply then, and since, that the worn copy still has a prominent place on my bookshelf. Now Leopold's youngest daughter, Estella Jr., offers us all a chance to return to the Shack. Through her memories we witness her father, mother, and siblings, working as a family to restore worn-out farmland along the Wisconsin River. We also learn how the deep regard for the health of the land became a foundation for each of Leopold's children. This book offers moments of their lives in the land that touch the heart. -Lauret Edith Savoy, author of Trace: Memory, Race, and the American Landscape Stories from the Leopold Shack will be a treasure for the many readers inspired by A Sand County Almanac. In an engagingly anecdotal way it relates Aldo Leopold's famous shack to the social and ecological history of its region and conveys its lifelong importance to Leopold's remarkably accomplished and high-spirited offspring. As Estella B. Leopold describes current efforts to perpetuate 'the shack idea' both in Wisconsin and elsewhere, she also offers a hopeful perspective on where environmental research, writing, and activism might go from here. -John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home and co-editor of The Norton Book of Nature Writing The great environmental writer Kenneth Brower once wrote that Leopold's shack 'sits just above a sandy flood channel of the Wisconsin River, at a fork in the evolution of our regard for the land.' This is the beautiful story of how it all happened. Estella Leopold has written the perfect companion to Aldo Leopold's beloved A Sand County Almanac. It's a deeply affecting portrait of a place, a family, and one of the most remarkable people of the 20th century. -James Gustave Speth, author of America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy, former Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies We are welcomed, generously, into a family drama unfolding across generations that involves rocks, soils, waters, atmosphere, plants, and all kinds of other animals-that is, a special piece of land. With wit, modesty, and tenderness that never turns saccharine, Estella Leopold helps us feel the truth of her father's never-more-needed words: 'Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it. And I know many pleasant things it will do to you.' This book will lure you into the clan of land-readers. -Julianne Lutz Warren, author of Aldo Leopold's Odyssey In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold invited us into a 'thinking community, ' inspiring us to develop a land ethic capable of meeting the social and ecological challenges we face. In Stories from the Leopold Shack: Sand County Revisited, Estella Leopold invites us into the life of her remarkable family, letting us laugh, cry-and work-alongside them. Her stories are a gift for those of us long inspired by the Leopold clan, as well as those just getting to know it. -Brooke Hecht, President, Center for Humans and Nature

I was fourteen when I first read Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac for a school assignment. The book affected me so deeply then, and since, that the worn copy still has a prominent place on my bookshelf. Now Leopold's youngest daughter, Estella Jr., offers us all a chance to return to the Shack. Through her memories we witness her father, mother, and siblings, working as a family to restore worn-out farmland along the Wisconsin River. We also learn how the deep regard for the health of the land became a foundation for each of Leopold's children. This book offers moments of their lives in the land that touch the heart. --Lauret Edith Savoy, author of Trace: Memory, Race, and the American Landscape Stories from the Leopold Shack will be a treasure for the many readers inspired by A Sand County Almanac. In an engagingly anecdotal way it relates Aldo Leopold's famous shack to the social and ecological history of its region and conveys its lifelong importance to Leopold's remarkably accomplished and high-spirited offspring. As Estella B. Leopold describes current efforts to perpetuate 'the shack idea' both in Wisconsin and elsewhere, she also offers a hopeful perspective on where environmental research, writing, and activism might go from here. --John Elder, author of Reading the Mountains of Home and co-editor of The Norton Book of Nature Writing The great environmental writer Kenneth Brower once wrote that Leopold's shack 'sits just above a sandy flood channel of the Wisconsin River, at a fork in the evolution of our regard for the land.' This is the beautiful story of how it all happened. Estella Leopold has written the perfect companion to Aldo Leopold's beloved A Sand County Almanac. It's a deeply affecting portrait of a place, a family, and one of the most remarkable people of the 20th century. --James Gustave Speth, author of America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy, former Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies We are welcomed, generously, into a family drama unfolding across generations that involves rocks, soils, waters, atmosphere, plants, and all kinds of other animals-that is, a special piece of land. With wit, modesty, and tenderness that never turns saccharine, Estella Leopold helps us feel the truth of her father's never-more-needed words: 'Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear of what you will do to it, or with it. And I know many pleasant things it will do to you.' This book will lure you into the clan of land-readers. --Julianne Lutz Warren, author of Aldo Leopold's Odyssey In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold invited us into a 'thinking community, ' inspiring us to develop a land ethic capable of meeting the social and ecological challenges we face. In Stories from the Leopold Shack: Sand County Revisited, Estella Leopold invites us into the life of her remarkable family, letting us laugh, cry-and work-alongside them. Her stories are a gift for those of us long inspired by the Leopold clan, as well as those just getting to know it. --Brooke Hecht, President, Center for Humans and Nature [Stories from the Leopold Shack] is a book of rare value, as likeable as it is informative. I love it for the sense it gives of the lived life of Aldo Leopold's familiy, which is probably as fine as accomplishment as his work. --Wendell Berry

Author Information

Estella B. Leopold, the daughter of conservationist and writer Aldo Leopold, is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Washington, Seattle.

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