READING the ROOTS 2004 Michael P. Branch

Reading the Roots is an unprecedented anthology of outstanding early writings about American nature — a rich, influential, yet critically underappreciated body of work. Rather than begin with Henry David Thoreau, who is often identified as the progenitor of American nature writing, editor Michael P. Branch instead surveys the long tradition that prefigures and anticipates Thoreau and his literary descendants.

The selections in Reading the Roots describe a diversity of landscapes, wildlife, and natural phenomena, and their authors represent many different nationalities, cultural affiliations, religious views, and ideological perspectives. The writings gathered here also range widely in terms of subject, rhetorical form, and disciplinary approach—from promotional tracts and European narratives of contact with Native Americans to examples of scientific theology and romantic nature writing.

The volume also includes a critical introduction, headnotes, and a substantial bibliography of primal)' and secondary sources in the field. Reading the Roots at last makes early American landscapes—and a range of literary responses to them — accessible to scholars, students, and general readers.Michael P. Branch is a professor of literature and environment at the University of Nevada, Reno, lie is editor of John Muir's Last Journey and coeditor of The ISLE Reader (Georgia), Reading the Earth, and The Height of Our Mountains.