The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays

Readers of outdoor ethics and conservation philosophy have likely seen collections of Aldo Leopold's essays elsewhere, but I doubt you will find a more diverse and wide-ranging collection than this. Browse the brief chronologic summary of his life and then skip the lengthy introduction (for now), and you will get to the meat of this book. It starts with an essay written by Aldo Leopold as a high school student. From there, the path of essays winds its way like a river through his life, with many stops along the way. The reader can see how Mr. Leopold's outlook matured and changed over time; from such things as a letter to a newspaper editor, to my favorite: an introductory lecture from the first college course he taught. What I would give to go back in time and be a student in that classroom! Aldo Leopold may be gone, but his body of work remains. His written work has proven to be prophetic. We still face many of the same conservation problems that we faced in the early 1900s; some of these problems have worsened. As a society, we have to realize that we cannot go on repeating our past mistakes. There are solutions to these problems. And the words of Aldo Leopold hold some of the answers.

"Sand County Almanac" presents Leopold's thoughts and impressions concerning nature and conservation. This book shows Leopold in a far wider context. Leopold held many jobs and had many hobbies in his full life: forest ranger, administrator, hunter, game manager, laboratory director, wilderness traveler, professor. Every time he encountered a new situation he thought about it deeply and creatively, and recorded his thoughts in vivid, non-technical essays, many of which are collected in this book.I was particulaly impressed by Leopold's thoughtfullness -- that he reached his conclusions not by following the majority nor by catering to the powerful nor by jerking his knee, but by deep and clear thinking. Reading these essays renders vivid the fact that current public discourse is dominated by power play and snide insults rather than by civil, reasoned debate.