Creating the Countryside

What does it mean to save nature and rural life? Do people know what they are trying to save and what they mean by "save"? As the answers to these questions become more and more unclear, so, too do the concepts of "environment," "wilderness," and "country."

From the abuse of the Amazon rain forest to how Vermont has been marketed as the ideal rural place, this collection looks at what the countryside is, should be, or can be from the perspective of people who are actively involved in such debates. Each contributor examines the underlying tendencies—and subsequent policies—that separate country from city, developed land from wilderness, and human activity from natural processes. The editors argue in their introduction that these dualistic categories limit our ability to think about environmental and rural problems and hamper our ability to formulate practical, realistic, and just solutions.

This book's interpretive approach to the natural world explores why people make artificial distinctions between nature and culture, and how people can create new forms of sustainable development in terms of real problems and real places.