Customer Reviews

Walden Pond: A History

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Walden Pond: A History has received positive reviews during its first month of release. Kirkus gave it a coveted ?star.? Also, the ecologist Ed Schofield has written the following five-star review on a national bookstore website: ?AN AMAZING BOOK. I know a good deal about Walden Pond and Walden Woods as a result of many years of personal research. I never thought that anyone would be able to bring together, between the covers of one book, the astonishing amount of information Barksdale Maynard has compiled and integrated in this scrupulously researched and well written book. He has brought together facts from all sorts of sources: newspapers and magazines, books, unpublished letters and diaries, eyewitness interviews, videos, radio broadcasts, maps, and so forth. There are fifty pages of endnotes and bibliography - over 500 of each. I am in awe at what he has been able to do. (Wish I could have done it!) Anyone interested in historic preservation, nature conservation, human nature, grassroots activism, literature, or (most important) Thoreau and Walden itself will enjoy this book. It has lots of information, yet it reads easily and has a good ?story line?: how and why Walden has become the symbol it is and what people have done to protect it. The hero of heroes is Don Henley of The Eagles. There are lots of other people - heroes, villains, oddballs, famous people (Emerson, the Alcotts, John Muir, Walt Whitman, the Kennedys, the Clintons, and many others). I recommend the book highly.?

This is a book that has been over 200 years in the making.
Maynard has done a fabulous job of combining history,environmentalism, science, popular culture and "gossipy stories" in order to paint a highly interesting and balanced history of Walden Pond, before, during and after Henry Thoreau's famous sojourn there.
Thoreauvians will find lots to admire in this book. Maynard has obviously done his research on Thoreau and his times.In particular I was amused by the amazement of some Concordians,in Thoreau's time and after, who just couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about over the so-called hermit of Walden Pond. But more importantly, the book looks above and beyond Thoreau's realationship to the Pond and Maynard goes into exquisite detail about life at Walden after 1847. If dedicted Thoreauvians abhor the so-called commercialism of the place now, be thankful it's not the 1930's, when all vestiges of Walden as a "sacred" spot were practically destoyed. Maynard does well to explain the ups and downs that the Pond has been through the last 150 years.
In particular I was pleased to see the way the author treated Thoreau's contemporaries, particularly Bronson Alcott. All of the Transcendentalists had a special fondness for Walden and their love of the place-and the love that millions have shared over the last 150 years- really comes out. It is obvious that Maynard loves Walden as well.
And, he also does a good job of explaining the many fights to preserve Walden, and the in-fighting and back-stabbing that has, unfortunately, been as much a part of Walden's history as the Transcendentalists. But Maynard's reporting is fair and balanced and he doesn't seem to take sides. Still, I'm sure he will have stepped on somebody's toes with this book!
If anyone is interested in American History,Conservation, Henry Thoreau or just an interesting piece of Americana, "Walden Pond; A Hsitory" is a must read!

Anyone who knows anything about the history of Walden Pond will realize that people, politics, and agendas necessarily occupy an important place in Maynard's book. The messy human element has affected Walden from Thoreau's time on as much as environmental and other forces. It would have been poor scholarship for Maynard not to acknowledge and deal with this. The book is the result of thorough familiarity with the Walden landscape and with the full range of source material. The author's perspective is characterized by a combination of objectivity and tact that together emphatically prevent the final product from descending to the level of gossip. It is a deliberate, thoughtful, handsome book, and a valuable contribution.

How deep is Walden Pond? To that question, Barksdale Maynard would answer, "How deep do you want to go?" His new book-masterwork will take you almost to the bottom, should you choose to follow him. As one who has lived near the edge of Walden Woods for almost forty years, I was delighted to see this astonishing gathering of over two centuries of fact, anecdote, and portraits. I learned a great deal about a memorable place and could detect no appreciable error of fact or tone, even when the book discussed controversial issues. What was particularly remarkable was how Mr. Maynard organized the material into themes, so that the right fact popped up at the most appropriate place. In the book, the pond succeeds in humanizing both its Transcendental visitors and its modern defenders.

Two small comments: this is a rigorous and complete history of a place and its people, and, as such, facts do not always arrange themselves in dramatic sequence---don't expect a novel. My other comment is that I would have liked to have seen more discussion of how Thoreau used, both in his book "Walden" and in his journals, the symbolism of the pond to express his ethical message and a spiritual philosophy. But those comments should not diminish the achievement.

Unlikely as it might seem, the book succeeds as a landmark social, environmental, and intellectual history of ... a pond.

Walden Pond by W. Barksdale Maynard is an excellent history, thoroughly researched and written in the best prose style.

Barksdale Maynard has performed a tour de force in writing WALDEN POND: A HISTORY. As someone who has tried (since the late 1950s) to follow the bewildering barrage of events and swirling controversies surrounding Walden and its use, misuse, and abuse over the decades and centuries, I stand in awe of what Mr. Maynard has been able to do.
Since I know first hand something about the controversies and events the book describes, I can judge (1) the accuracy and (2) the adequacy of what he has written. It's right on the mark, and it evokes exactly what happened. How he did it I do not know! Everything he has written is scrupulously documented with fifty pages of endnotes and bibliography (over 500 endnotes and over 500 entries in the bibliography). He has taken information from an amazing array of sources--popular, scholarly, scientific, and manuscript--as well as from a veritable army of eyewitnesses and specialists--and has melded them into a truly wonderful and accessible narrative. He brings together literature, history, biography, science, and politics in a fascinating and meaningful way. His book is a landmark of scholarship, yet it reads beautifully. There is a lot of human interest in the gripping story he tells. There are humor, suspense, and other qualities that make for a good story. You don't have to be a Thoreau expert to benefit from the book. You'll love it if you're someone who cares about nature (and human nature, as well) and some of the best expressions of American history and ideals. The book helps to explain a lot of what I had formerly felt to be inexplicable. Certainly I personally learned an ENORMOUS amount from reading it.
For people trying to preserve natural areas, open space, and historic sites elsewhere in the US and beyond, the story should hold great interest and encouragement. The book is well worthy of its subjects--Thoreau, Emerson, the Alcotts, Hawthorne, Walden Pond, Walden Woods, the book Walden, and the shining symbol that Walden has become since the book was published a century and a half ago.
The eighty-four illustrations are selected ingeniously (flip through the pages a few times, looking at the illustrations, comparing them with each other and with the text, to see what I mean). The story puts forth for all to see just why and how Walden has been so mistreated over the years--as well as how and why it has been "saved" (and who was responsible for doing so).
There are many "heroes" and "heroines"-and even a martyr or two-in this book (and not a few lovable oddballs), from the venerable nineteenth century champions of Walden, through the redoubtable Gladys Hosmer, Mary Sherwood, Paul Tsongas, and Don Henley. It is a fascinating case study of just how agonizingly difficult it is to DO THE RIGHT THING in this world, what with competing egos, turf battles, obstructionism, cupidity, official opposition, public apathy, and just plain human perversity.
There are villains in the book also (and some of the heroes and heroines have their flaws), most of them actually well meaning, a few of them greedy and truly mean spirited. And there are altogether too many clueless Philistines. One telling episode described in the book has Thomas Blanding sparring transcendentally (and brilliantly) with a developer's bulldog of a lawyer, effectively defanging the latter's searing sarcasm.
In my opinion, Don Henley comes off as the hero of heroes in this saga. The photograph of him walking out of Walden Woods between Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton is the climax of the book. It is altogether fitting that Don Henley gets prominent recognition for his unstinting and unbelievably generous work on behalf of Walden. Had it not been for him the story might never end--or else the ending would be tragic.
Don Henley put a much needed, solid foundation under the often squabbling idealists' heroic campaigns to do right by Walden. We owe him and Barksdale Maynard a lot. Two people who came to the fore at just the right time and did what had to be done!

For years to come, historians and literary scholars will know this book as the definitive history of Walden Pond. But it's also a delightful read. Combining impeccable scholarship with skillful writing, Maynard brings Walden Pond's storied history to life, from Thoreau's first visit as a little boy to today's preservation battles. "Walden Pond: A History" is a brilliant book.

Walden Pond: A History
I neglected reading this book for several years because I thought it
was about the natural history of Walden Pond: a subject I have no
interest in. In the course of my reading about the town of Concord and
its environs, someone suggested this book for its detailed maps of the
area. I purchased the book and soon gained an appreciation for it
beyond the usefulness of its maps.

This book is not really a history of Walden Pond, but a history of how
people use and interact with the pond, from the early 19th century to
the present day (it was published in 2004). It is also a parallel
history of how Thoreau, who was a marginal figure in life, became
canonized in death due to the dedicated work of a few admirers. As his
fame grew, so did that of the pond: the reputation of both
intertwined.

The most interesting aspect of this book is how it reveals how human
beings ascribe meaning and importance to people and places that are
not inherently there: how Thoreau has been appropriated over the years
as new disciples tried to assume his mantle for themselves to achieve
their own idiosyncratic ends (some who even went as far as recreating
his Walden Pond experiment and writing books about their experience),
the battles between people, near and far, who saw Walden Pond as a
sacred, literary shrine worthy of preservation and locals who saw it
merely as a recreation center for swimming, fishing, and eating hot
dogs, ignorant to any of its other associations, and the need for
people to feel important and a part of something bigger than
themselves.

Thoreau wrote that the pond was the "earth's eye; looking into which
the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." This reflective
nature of the pond is what makes this story not merely the history of
a place, but a deeper look into what it means to be a human being.

This is a wonderfully written and carefully documented history, one that will remain definitive for a very long time to come. I have spoken with dozens of readers who have all told me they enjoyed the book a great deal and learned a lot from it. Not a single person I have spoken with has expressed a single reservation about this book.

"Walden Pond: A History" is a wonderful, in-depth guide that provides a wealth a background on the pond and its inspiration on our literature and culture. I found the book to be a fantastic - behing the scenes - guide to not only Thoreau's classic "Walden," but the musings of Emerson and Alcott as well. I have been going to Walden every summer for years (I live close by). This book has greatly enhanced my experiences while visiting the pond, and reinvigorated my interest in its history in general.