Rediscovering the Maine Woods: Thoreau's Legacy in an Unsettled Land

The Maine Woods, vast and largely unsettled, are often described as unchanged since Henry David Thoreau's journeys across the backcountry, in spite of the realities of Indian dispossession and the visible signs of logging, settlement, tourism, and real estate development. In the summer of 2014 scholars, activists, members of the Penobscot Nation, and other individuals retraced Thoreau's route.

Inspired partly by this expedition, the accessible and engaging essays here offer valuable new perspectives on conservation, the cultural ties that connect Native communities to the land, and the profound influence the geography of the Maine Woods had on Thoreau and writers and activists who followed in his wake. Together, these essays offer a rich and multifaceted look at this special place and the ways in which Thoreau's Maine experiences continue to shape understandings of the environment a century and a half later.

Contributors include the volume editor, Kathryn Dolan, James S. Finley, James Francis, Richard W. Judd, Dale Potts, Melissa Sexton, Chris Sockalexis, Stan Tag, Robert M. Thorson, and Laura Dassow Walls.

Author: John J. Kucich
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
Published: 05/07/2019
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.10w x 0.70d
ISBN13: 9781625344175
ISBN10: 1625344171
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Books & Reading
- History | United States | State & Local | New England (CT, MA, ME, NH,
- Literary Criticism | American | Regional

About the Author
JOHN J. KUCICH is professor of English and coordinator for the Center for Sustainability at Bridgewater State University. He is author of Ghostly Communion: Cross-Cultural Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature.