Since his death in 1948, Aldo Leopold has been increasingly recognized as one of the indispensable figures of American environmentalism. A pioneering forester, sportsman, wildlife manager, and ecologist, he was also a gifted writer whose farsighted land ethic is proving increasingly relevant in our own time. Now, Leopold's essential contributions to our literature – some hard-to-find or previously unpublished – are gathered in a single volume for the first time. Here is his classic A Sand County Almanac hailed – with Thoreau's Walden and Carson's Silent Spring – as one of the main literary influences on the modern environmental movement.
Published in 1949, A Sand County Almanac is still astonishing today: a vivid, firsthand, philosophical tour de force. Along with Sand County are more than fifty articles, essays, and lectures exploring the new complexities of ecological science and what we would now call environmental ethics. Leopold's sharp-eyed, often humorous journals are illustrated here for the first time with his original photographs, drawings, and maps.
Also unique to Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation is a selection of over 100 letters, most of them never before published, tracing his personal and professional evolution and his efforts to foster in others the love and sense of responsibility Aldo Leopold felt for the land.
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) began his professional career in 1909 when he joined the U.S. Forest Service. In 1924 he became Associate Director of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, and in 1933 the University of Wisconsin created a chair of game management for him. His travels in Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Oregon, Manitoba, and other destinations are reflected in his writing.
Curt Meine, editor, serves as Director of Conservation Biology and History for the Center for Humans and Nature and Senior Fellow of the Aldo Leopold Foundation. He is the author of Aldo Leopold: His Life and Work--the definitive biography of Leopold--and Correction Lines: Essays on Land, Leopold, and Conservation. He lives in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin.