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Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie [Paperback]

Richard Manning
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)

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Book Description

July 1, 1997
More than forty percent of our country was once open prairie, grassland that extended from Missouri to Montana. Taking a critical look at this little-understood biome, award-winning journalist Richard Manning urges the reclamation of this land, showing how the grass is not only our last connection to the natural world, but also a vital link to our own prehistoric roots, our history, and our culture.

Framing his book with the story of the remarkable elk, whose mysterious wanderings seem to reclaim his ancestral plains, Manning traces the expansion of America into what was then viewed as the American desert and considers our attempts over the last two hundred years to control unpredictable land through plowing, grazing, and landscaping. He introduces botanists and biologists who are restoring native grasses, literally follows the first herd of buffalo restored to the wild prairie, and even visits Ted Turner's progressive--and controversial--Montana ranch. In an exploration of the grasslands that is both sweeping and intimate, Manning shows us how we can successfully inhabit this and all landscapes.


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Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics and Promise of the American Prairie + Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In an exploration of the grasslands of North America that is both sweeping and intimate, Manning makes interesting connections between economics, botany, farming, and democracy. His discussion of the impact of romantic ideals of landscapes upon this biome is insightful, and his travels with botanists, biologists, buffalo and a visit to Ted Turner's ranch put faces and feet on the story. The message: by a careful reading of nature's design, we can more successfully inhabit this and all landscapes. Recommended.

From Publishers Weekly

Our culture's disrespect for grasslands has produced an environmental catastrophe, charges the author. By allowing overgrazing on public lands, our government is wiping out an ecosystem as vital as the Brazilian rain forests. In this sweeping exploration of the prairie, Manning (A Good House) makes an eloquent plea to restore it. Cattle, loss of habitat, fragmentation, climate change and invasion of exotic species have wrought severe damage. Manning takes us from Ted Turner's bison ranch in Montana to Wes Jackson's Land Institute in Kansas; from the Sandos ranch in Nebraska to the Walnut Creek Preserve in Iowa, which is being restored to native tall-grass prairie. Any restoration, he stresses, must include bison. The author urges that we change grazing practices, arguing that ideally there would be bison grazing on open ranges, with cattle as a second choice-but only on large tracts. He states that we need to match agriculture to conditions, instead of remaking the conditions. A thoughtful and provocative look at prairie ecology.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books (July 1, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0140233881
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140233889
  • Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #696,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
(15)
4.5 out of 5 stars
First and most important, this book will change the way you think about the American prairie. Arthur Digbee  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
The most significant characteristic of the Great Plains is aridity. R. M. Peterson  |  1 reviewer made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I grew up in Iowa and was given this book a few years ago while living in Manhattan, Kansas. I now live near Fresno, California. Manning starts out by saying that he intended to write about science, politics, and journalism, and ended up with a more personal narrative. To which I say, "of course". This book seemed to me to flesh out for me how patterns of rainfall profoundly influenced the ecology, agriculture, and ultimately the societies of the various places I've lived. For one interested in these issues, I would further suggest (in this order) Wallace Stegner's "Beyond the 100th Meridian", Wes Jackson's "New Roots for Agriculture", Judith Soule and Jon Piper's "Farming in Nature's Image: an Ecological Approach to Agriculture", Ian Frazier's "Great Plains", and Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac". But this book is an excellent start.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
First and most important, this book will change the way you think about the American prairie. I live here at the edge of the prairie near Indianapolis, and there are a few spots maintained as native prairie. Manning isn't talking about these little islands but about a huge, free ecosystem and the horrors that we have inflicted upon it and its fauna and flora. I confess that the image of grizzlies chasing elk calves across the grassland is beguiling, and illustrates what we are missing. He makes a persuasive case that we need lots and lots and lots of grassland, maintained as such. Manning has a good story-telling sense, and a good eye for explaining the grassland. You will not look at the prairie in the same way again.

There are some nicely provocative bits. His vision of the prairie rests on bison ranching, with the animals eating native grasses without irrigation, fertilizer, or other capitalist agriculture. As if that's not controversial enough, he makes a serious case that a meat-and-leather prairie economy rests easier on the land than food crops such as wheat or corn. These crops have destroyed the prairie and harm the broader environment because of the extensive irrigation and fertilization required. Obviously, this strategy of making our agriculture conform to the land instead of forcing the land to conform to our agriculture would be a major change for Americans and others around the world..

Manning is not afraid to take the next logical step, and he makes a principled argument against vegetarianism. Eating free-range bison raised on natural grasslands, he argues, would sit more lightly on the ground and would probably use less (petroleum-based) energy. This is not your conventional environmentalist, to say the least.

Despite those strengths, the book is weakened by a modest number of trivial errors of fact. These come in sidebar comments about irrelevant matters and have nothing to do with grassland, so I'd rather not list them here. They did make me question the accuracy of his reporting on grassland, though. I wouldn't rely on this book as your sole source of facts, but Manning's vision and wonderful writing make it an invaluable book nonetheless.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A treatise to save America's overlooked natural wonder September 18, 2001
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I found this book terrific. Manning taught me much about the biology of the great American prairie, or what's left of it, as well some of the ways to save it. Unlike other conservationist writers or thinkers, Manning puts a human angle on the subject, pointing out the personal and societal (political, economic) issues. Importantly, though, he spins this tale with an almost poetic quality that is accessible to all levels of readers. He also challenges some of the conventions of some parts of the environmental movement that is refreshing, uplifting and quite meaningful and relevant to all levels of ecological protection.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Grassland
Richard Manning is a gifted writer who cooks cold facts into poetry. The American prairie is one of our least-understood resources. Manning serves it lovingly and well.
Published 4 months ago by Bob Ruby
4.0 out of 5 stars A "destination" vacation...
Not! The Grasslands are a substantial part of what our bi-coastal "cousins" routinely and rather patronizingly refer to, as "the fly-over zone. Read more
Published 12 months ago by John P. Jones III
4.0 out of 5 stars The Great Plains: ecological destruction and prospects for the future
This can be an exasperating book, but ultimately it is a valuable and rewarding one. Though now seventeen years old, it should be read by everyone interested in, or in any way... Read more
Published 12 months ago by R. M. Peterson
5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you wanted to know about grassland
I grew up across the street from a hardwood forest in Michigan. When my family visited relatives in North Dakota, the vast wide open grasslands seemed so dry, empty, sad. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Richard Reese
5.0 out of 5 stars Grassland book
There's not much to say about a book. It's in a good condition and it's a small handy book.
Published on October 26, 2010 by Patmalico
3.0 out of 5 stars Compelling story, beginning to show its age
3.0 out of 5 stars Compelling story, beginning to show its age, August 13, 2009
By Stacey A Schulte - See all my reviews
I read this book in two sittings, that means it... Read more
Published on August 13, 2009 by Jeff Schulte
4.0 out of 5 stars Audacious, Quirky Proposal - Warrants Serious Consideration
I have encountered few books like Richard Manning's Grassland. Manning's manifesto - reserved for the final chapters - is audacious, even quirky. Read more
Published on September 9, 2005 by Michael Wischmeyer
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely incredible piece of work
This is just a wonderful book on a part of our country that is "foreign" to many.I have recently been preparing a program on photograghy of the Great Plains and it"s as though the... Read more
Published on July 10, 2005 by William A. Davis III
4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, a lot of information, can be slow reading
Part autobiographical (Manning writing about his travels around the nation learning about prarie restoration efforts), part biology textbook (telling about the types of flora &... Read more
Published on June 14, 2005 by A. Burchfield
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, unassuming, deftly woven
I picked up this book on a whim from The Book Thing of Baltimore, where I work as a volunteer shelving donated books so our patrons can find what they want (we give away books for... Read more
Published on March 10, 2004 by A. Hoy
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