Bay Country (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "It is winter in Harford County, and, crouched in a blind, I am watching, almost forgetting to breathe as dozens of bald eagles glide silently..." (more)
Key Phrases: larval oysters, soft crabs, bay watermen, Chesapeake Bay, Smith Island, Blue Plains (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Bay Country chronicles changes in the lands and waters of the Chesapeake Bay. During the past century, human influence has decreased the base-line populations of geese, eels, crabs, and trees. As Horton points out, we no longer miss these living things because they have never been abundant in our lifetimes a tragedy of both ecological and human dimensions. His lyrical and understandable prose will convince doubters of the need to consider the diverse consequences of their actions. Horton, a native of the Chesapeake's Eastern Shore, has been an environmental writer for the Baltimore Sun . Highly recommended. James R. Karr, Smithsonian Tropical Research Inst., Balboa, Panama
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Must reading in a city that reinvented itself by seeking its harbor roots." -- Baltimore Magazine

"Mr. Horton -- a Baltimore journalist who has developed a devoted but hitherto local following -- ventures into a small, distinguished circle of nature writers. Fans of Aldo Leopold, John McPhee, and Sigurd Olson won't be disappointed." -- New York Times Book Review

"Sailing down the Chesapeake in this book is bracing, for Horton is knowledgeable, thoughtful, full of wonder about the natural world and outspoken... As Smith Islanders might say, it's a 'right smart' book." -- Washington Post

"This is not merely a book for those who already know the Chesapeake, although they will be enchanted by Tom Horton's vast knowledge, narrative skills and eye for detail. Like the true bay native he is, Mr. Horton uses the Chesapeake as a limitless resource from which to harvest a great bounty of observations about politics, nature, and human beings." -- New York Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (February 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080184875X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801848759
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #240,433 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loving, rounded, view of a complex ecological issue, February 4, 1999

By	Bryce Butler [e-mail] (New Salem (Albany county) New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bay Country (Hardcover)

"Bay Country" does justice to the many legitimate claims on the Chesapeake Bay. Horton loves the bay, its grasses, oysters, crabs, and rockfish; the watermen who live off it and exploit it, and the ways of life and physical artifacts -- bridges, old roads, cabins -- people have built around it. He also knows its lovers, including him, are killing it. He portrays the bay and its life, its tributaries(including a wonderful essey on how hard it is to wring every last pollutant from sewer water) the watermen, their traditional (and tight) communities, and the hard life they make from its resources. He has chapters on wind and energy use by people and animals. Horton poetically evokes the bay's charms, in a book that is part nature writing, part sociology, part ecological economy, and part a gloss on Pogo's famous remark, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Not a particularly hopeful book, but a very realistic one, fair to all sides and to the glorious bay itself.