Customer Reviews

Seeing New Worlds: Henry David Thoreau and Nineteenth-Century Natural Science (Science & Literature)

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I first heard Laura Walls deliver the concepts contained in this volume at a recent annual meeting of the Thoreau Society. Her presentation was clear and direct, introducing the hearer to the historical personalities that influenced the platform upon which Thoreau based his world view. This book expands the same theme, for it fills in a great deal of minutia that had to be omitted from the ealier presentation. Seeing New Worlds is an important excursion into both the obvious and the subtle influences that shaped the late writings of Thoreau, such as Faith in a Seed, which only recently was made available to students of this enigmatic soul. Congratulations to Walls for a well researched intrusion into a complex mind. Tom Potter

Thisi is a very important and informative book that I continue to go back to since its first publication almost a decade ago. There is much to interest both the Thoreauvian scholar as well as student of natural history. As a practicing scientist and a editor of two books of Thoreau quotations, I found this work of Walls to be very helpful in increasing my own understanding of 19th century natural science/history. Indeed, I make reference to Walls' book in my own Profitably Soaked: Thoreau's Engagement With Water (Green Frigate Books, 2003).

I was so fascinated by Laura Dassow Walls' unique take on Thoreau that I was inspired to complete my own graduate work on Transcendentalism. Any student of Thoreau will appreciate this innovative look at the old master.