Recovering the Prairie

Americans in ever increasing numbers are rediscovering the prairie. This vast inland sea of grasses, buried for a hundred years beneath farms, cities, and suburbs, has endured not only in physical remnants but also in the memories of its settlers and their descendants, the books of prairie authors, and the work of prairie artists. As restoration ecologists and amateur prairie preservationists recover the land, this book seeks to recover the prairie of the American imagination -- past, present, and future.Beautifully illustrated with the work of sixteen contemporary prairie artists, Recovering the Prairie celebrates and examines the perspectives of past artists, writers, native peoples, ecologists, and landscape architects -- Willa Cather, Aldo Leopold, Jens Jensen, Alexander Gardner, and many others -- who recognized the unique beauty of the prairie. And, this volume brings together people from many fields to consider the connections between aesthetics and economics, landscape and culture, politics and ethics, as illustrated by the prairie in American civilization.