Man and Nature is a book written by George Perkins Marsh in 1864. George Perkins Marsh (March 15, 1801 – July 23, 1882), an American diplomat and philologist, he is considered by some to be Americas first environmentalist. ... 1864 (MDCCCLXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar. ...
It documents the effects of human action on the environment.
Publication
Man and nature; or, Physical geography as modified by human action. (1864)
The Earth as Modified By Human Action. Second edition (1874) ISBN 0-405-02677-3 (1970 reprint)
It was also translated into Italian by Marsh in 1870.
External links
The Earth as Modified by Human Action, available for free via Project Gutenberg.
Library of Congress - text and images of the book.
In Walden, man is not seen as a conqueror of nature nor as a mere part of it, but rather as its gentle and benevolent master who draws his sustenance from it yet maintains a harmonious relationship with it.
Nature proceeds on its course, reaching its destination with very little diversion, he argues, and so should man. He should bypass the distractions of society and the temptations of passing fads until he reaches that "which we can call reality and say, this is, and no mistake" (228).
He is a man who replaced the myth of conquest and rupture, that brings hell in the midst of paradise and that worships at the shrine of these ugly Satanic Mills, by a metaphor of harmony and of gentle conflict, where the human face divine gently reigns in nature without ruining it.
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