Arcadian America: the death and life of an environmental tradition

"Perhaps America's best environmental idea was not the national park but the garden cemetery, a use of space that quickly gained popularity in the mid-nineteenth century. Such spaces of repose brought key elements of the countryside into rapidly expanding cities, making nature accessible t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sachs, Aaron (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: New Haven Yale University Press [2013]
Series:New directions in narrative history
Subjects:
Links:https://https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23867
https://https://aaeportal.com/?id=-23867
Summary:"Perhaps America's best environmental idea was not the national park but the garden cemetery, a use of space that quickly gained popularity in the mid-nineteenth century. Such spaces of repose brought key elements of the countryside into rapidly expanding cities, making nature accessible to all and serving to remind visitors of the natural cycles of life. In this unique interdisciplinary blend of historical narrative, cultural criticism, and poignant memoir, Aaron Sachs argues that American cemeteries embody a forgotten landscape tradition that has much to teach us in our current moment of environmental crisis. Until the trauma of the Civil War, many Americans sought to shape society into what they thought of as an Arcadia--not an Eden where fruit simply fell off the tree, but a public garden that depended on an ethic of communal care, and whose sense of beauty and repose related directly to an acknowledgment of mortality and limitation. Sachs explores the notion of Arcadia in the works of nineteenth-century nature writers, novelists, painters, horticulturists, landscape architects, and city planners, and holds up for comparison the twenty-first century's--and his own--tendency toward denial of both death and environmental limits. His far-reaching insights suggest new possibilities for the environmental movement today and new ways of understanding American history."--Jacket
Item Description:Description based on print version record and online resource (A&AePortal, viewed on September 14, 2023)
Physical Description:1 Online-Ressource (xi, 484 Seiten) 54 Illustrationen, Karte, Plan, Porträts
ISBN:0300189052
0300276648
9780300189056
9780300276640