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TITLE: Bill McKibben Speaks on "American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau"
SPEAKER: Bill McKibben
EVENT DATE: 04/29/2008
RUNNING TIME: 54 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Each advance in environmental practice in our nation's history "was preceded by a great book," says writer, activist and editor Bill McKibben in his introduction to "American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau," an anthology of American environmental writing. McKibben discussed the book, which he edited, in a program sponsored by the Library's Center for the Book.
"American Earth" is an unprecedented, provocative and timely anthology that brings together much of the best that has been thought and said about the interconnectedness of the natural world, our place in it and our responsibility to it. The forward is by Al Gore. In the volume, readers will find touchstones of the environmental imagination-the essays of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir and John Burroughs; Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac"; and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." They are set alongside the inspiring story of an emerging activist movement, as revealed by newly uncovered narratives of pioneering campaigns for wilderness conservations, passages from landmark legal opinions and legislation, and searing protest speeches.
Speaker Biography: Bill McKibben is the author of many books, including "The End of Nature" (1989), the first account of global warming for a general audience, and most recently "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future." Since 2006, he has organized and led many demonstrations on behalf of environmental causes. He is a scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College.
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SERIES: Books & Beyond