Customer Reviews

Correction Lines: Essays on Land, Leopold, and Conservation

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I heard Curt Meine speak at the 2008 "Prairie Festival" at The Land Institute in Salina, KS, and was inspired to buy his book "Correction Lines: Essays on Land, Leopold and Conservation."

It is a thoughtful, if open ended, trace of the conservation movement in America that evinces the fundamental understanding that "In the end, the landscape of America is our portrait of ourselves." That, of course, prompts the conception of many challenges, some of which Meine discusses, particularly the construct of a land ethic, along with big questions that we must resolve about our relationship to the land, the earth, the seas...

A significant chapter, "Inherit the Grid," discusses the grid delineated by the land survey system which structures 70 percent of the U.S. "with complete disregard of terrain." This system, established in the 1790s, allowed orderly population of our Western frontier lands and forever altered our relationship to most of the continent.

Meine writes well and mines Aldo Leopold's life and writings extensively.

This is not so much a book to devour but, rather, one to sip occasionally, allowing the ideas to percolate, lest they prove overwhelming. If you want to approach our world in terms of "green" or "sustainable" or "natural," this book is an important one to read.