Our Natural History [Paperback]

Daniel B. Botkin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1996

With the long-running bestsellerdom of Stephen Ambrose's Undaunted Courage and the documentary premiering on PBS, interest in the Lewis and Clark expedition is renewed among not only historians but average readers as well. This book, by a distinguished botanist and naturalist, recreates the grand journey--and puts it into a new perspective. With this timely, thought-provoking study, Daniel Botkin captures our imagination with Lewis and Clark's trek from St. Louis to the Pacific, and draws lessons about our environment and our place within it--offering a stunning portrait of the rugged, beautiful, disappearing wilderness of the American West.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Daniel Botkin sets out to cover the same ground Meriwether Lewis and William Clark did in their 1804-1806 survey of the Missouri River. He maintains that their careful observations on the native species, landscapes, and human residents of that great stretch of country should serve as models for avoiding "a glamorized utopian vision of nature" and seeing the landscape for what it really is. "One of the ways our knowledge of nature has changed since the time of Lewis and Clark," he writes, "is that the field of statistics has developed, and we can state our errors quantitatively." Not so much exploring as following old paths, we can also gather data more thoroughly than did our ecologist predecessors, knowing a little better what it is we are looking for. Botkin does just that in long discussions of salmon ecology and the mismanagement of natural resources.

From Publishers Weekly

This intriguing volume begins with Lewis and Clark's search for a pass in the Rocky Mountain wilderness; it ends with the author's search for original prairie in Omaha, Nebraska. Botkin (Discordant Harmony: A New Ecology for the Twenty-first Century) describes the American West as seen by Lewis and Clark in 1804-06 and compares it with today's West as shaped by industrial civilization. It is a unique picture of frontier wilderness, interwoven with Botkin's own perspective on nature. He maintains that our present approach to environmental issues is based on faulty beliefs, mythologies and religious convictions. The records of Lewis and Clark are valuable for helping us understand what nature was like before we changed it. Botkin notes that we rarely approach conservation with the methodical intensity found in the explorers' journals. He has given us a fresh and welcome perspective on that historic expedition. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Perigee Trade (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399522425
• ISBN-13: 978-0399522420
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,366,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our Natural History, May 25, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Our Natural History: The Lessons of Lewis and Clark (Paperback)

Dr. Botkin has a superb ability to ascertain the broad parameters of a topic and then clearly and concisely delineate the details. He has the all-too-rare ability to cut through the complexities of a problem, reducing them to clear,understandable terms. This skill is of inestimable value in identifying ways to cope with, if not solve, seemingly insoluble problems.

His use of baseline information provided by the journals of Lewis and Clark enables a reader to appreciate just how dramatically conditions have changed in the two centuries since the expedition penetrated and then methodically reported on what lay along and beyond the "wide Missouri."

The book is interesting, well written and a valuable resource for those interested in the changes wrought by the the settlement of the Louisiana Purchase.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An innovative look at Lewis and Clark, May 9, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Our Natural History: The Lessons of Lewis and Clark (Paperback)

Unlike the previous reviewer, I find a book to be a fantastic success if it raises new questions and new perspectives for me. In this case, Dr. Botkin provides a very accessible natural history perpective on the Lewis and Clark Trail...greatly needed as popular interest ramps up with the bicentennial upon us. Whether your interest is in the rivers, plants, or animals of the trail, you will find thought-provoking reading here. It might even raise some questions for you!

:->

4.0 out of 5 stars Our Natural History: The Lessons of Lewis and Clark, June 5, 2008

By 

Sam Adams (Minnesota. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Our Natural History: The Lessons of Lewis and Clark (Paperback)

Botkin discusses changes in the ecosystem within the United States, using the detailed observations made during the Lewis and Clark expedition as a reference for what nature had been like before the impact of European settlement. Topics include rivers, grizzly bears, timber wolves, buffalo, salmon, forests, and prairies. The book is as much a compressed summary of the expedition as it is a concerned, scientific look at how choices made in the last 200 years have altered our ecologic environment.