Richard W. Judd

George Perkins Marsh: The Times and their Man

David Lowenthal is correct in suggesting that George Perkins Marsh was Americas most influential mid-nineteenth-century conservationist. Lowenthals biography, however, fails to address Marshs intellectual and social times. This article challenges the premise that Marsh was unique in laying out an ecological justification for conservation. It suggests that these principles were common currency in early American natural history. Drawing on theological and evolu tionary thinking, naturalists searched for patterns of purpose and interrelatedness in nature, and this quest laid the groundwork for ecological consciousness and conservation thinking, well before publication of Marshs Man and Nature.

Common Lands, Common People: The Origins of Conservation in Northern New England.

The rise of the conservation ethic in northern New England is the subject of this book. It shows that the movement that eventually took hold throughout America, had its roots among the communitarian ethics of countrypeople, demonstrating the debates over use of, and access to, forests and water. Though originating in utilitarian terms, they held popular notions of properly ordered landscapes, and common rights to nature. The study reveals a complex set of motives and inspirations behind the mid-19th century drive to conserve natural resources.