One Writer's Imagination

Download One Writer's Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807128411
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (284 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis One Writer's Imagination by : Suzanne Marrs

Download or read book One Writer's Imagination written by Suzanne Marrs and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In One Writer's Imagination, Suzanne Marrs draws upon nearly twenty years of conversations, interviews, and friendship with Eudora Welty to discuss the intersections between biography and art in the Pulitzer Prize winner's work. Through an engaging chronological and comprehensive reading of the Welty canon, Marrs describes the ways Welty's creative process transformed and transfigured fact to serve the purposes of fiction. She points to the sparks that lit Welty's imagination -- an imagination that thrived on polarities in her personal life and in society at large. Marrs offers new evidence of the role Welty's mother, circle of friends, and community played in her development as a writer and analyzes the manner in which her most heartfelt relationships -- including her romance with John Robinson -- inform her work. She charts the profound and often subtle ways Welty's fiction responded to the crucial historical episodes of her time -- notably the Great Depression, World War II, and the civil rights movement -- and the writer's personal reactions to war, racism, poverty, and the political issues of her day. In doing so, Marrs proves Welty to be a much more political artist than has been conventionally thought. Scrutinizing drafts of Welty's work, Marrs reveals an evolving pattern of revision increasingly significant to the author's thematic concerns and precision of style. Welty's achievement, Marrs explains, confirms theories of creativity even as it transcends them, remaining in its origins somewhat mysterious. Marrs's relationship to Eudora Welty as a friend, scholar, and archivist -- with access to private papers and restricted correspondence -- makes her a unique authority on Welty's forty-year career. The eclectic approach of her study speaks to the exhilarating power of imagination Welty so thoroughly enjoyed in the act of writing.

Forces of Imagination

Download Forces of Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Kelsey Street Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 124 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Forces of Imagination by : Barbara Guest

Download or read book Forces of Imagination written by Barbara Guest and published by Kelsey Street Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural Writing. From one of our most esteemed contemporary poets, a collection of essays about reading and poetics, written over many decades, and touching on many centuries. "We expect poets to give a first-hand account of what poetry is. But some poets, when they write criticism, produce a kind of prose that is itself on the verge of being poetry. Valery, Stevens and Marianne Moore belong to this "visionary company." And so does Barbara Guest, whose writings on poetry, collected here, are among the most inspiring works of their kind. It is a deep pleasure to know that such writing can still exist" --John Ashbery.

The Racial Imaginary

Download The Racial Imaginary PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781934200797
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Racial Imaginary by : Claudia Rankine

Download or read book The Racial Imaginary written by Claudia Rankine and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frank, fearless letters from poets of all colors, genders, classes about the material conditions under which their art is made.

The Republic of Imagination

Download The Republic of Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698170334
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Republic of Imagination by : Azar Nafisi

Download or read book The Republic of Imagination written by Azar Nafisi and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller The author of the beloved #1 New York Times bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran returns with the next chapter of her life in books—a passionate and deeply moving hymn to America Ten years ago, Azar Nafisi electrified readers with her multimillion-copy bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran, which told the story of how, against the backdrop of morality squads and executions, she taught The Great Gatsby and other classics of English and American literature to her eager students in Iran. In this electrifying follow-up, she argues that fiction is just as threatened—and just as invaluable—in America today. Blending memoir and polemic with close readings of her favorite novels, she describes the unexpected journey that led her to become an American citizen after first dreaming of America as a young girl in Tehran and coming to know the country through its fiction. She urges us to rediscover the America of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and challenges us to be truer to the words and spirit of the Founding Fathers, who understood that their democratic experiment would never thrive or survive unless they could foster a democratic imagination. Nafisi invites committed readers everywhere to join her as citizens of what she calls the Republic of Imagination, a country with no borders and few restrictions, where the only passport to entry is a free mind and a willingness to dream.

Why I Write

Download Why I Write PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Renard Press Ltd
ISBN 13 : 1913724263
Total Pages : 15 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (137 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Why I Write by : George Orwell

Download or read book Why I Write written by George Orwell and published by Renard Press Ltd. This book was released on 2021-01-01 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

The Liberal Imagination

Download The Liberal Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : New York Review of Books
ISBN 13 : 1590175514
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Liberal Imagination by : Lionel Trilling

Download or read book The Liberal Imagination written by Lionel Trilling and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2012-07-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Liberal Imagination is one of the most admired and influential works of criticism of the last century, a work that is not only a masterpiece of literary criticism but an important statement about politics and society. Published in 1950, one of the chillier moments of the Cold War, Trilling’s essays examine the promise —and limits—of liberalism, challenging the complacency of a naïve liberal belief in rationality, progress, and the panaceas of economics and other social sciences, and asserting in their stead the irreducible complexity of human motivation and the tragic inevitability of tragedy. Only the imagination, Trilling argues, can give us access and insight into these realms and only the imagination can ground a reflective and considered, rather than programmatic and dogmatic, liberalism. Writing with acute intelligence about classics like Huckleberry Finn and the novels of Henry James and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also on such varied matters as the Kinsey Report and money in the American imagination, Trilling presents a model of the critic as both part of and apart from his society, a defender of the reflective life that, in our ever more rationalized world, seems ever more necessary—and ever more remote.

Maps of the Imagination

Download Maps of the Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Trinity University Press
ISBN 13 : 1595340947
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (953 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Maps of the Imagination by : Peter Turchi

Download or read book Maps of the Imagination written by Peter Turchi and published by Trinity University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maps of the Imagination takes us on a magic carpet ride over terrain both familiar and exotic. Using the map as a metaphor, fiction writer Peter Turchi considers writing as a combination of exploration and presentation, all the while serving as an erudite and charming guide. He compares the way a writer leads a reader though the imaginary world of a story, novel, or poem to the way a mapmaker charts the physical world. "To ask for a map," says Turchi, "is to say, ‘Tell me a story.’ " With intelligence and wit, the author looks at how mapmakers and writers deal with blank space and the blank page; the conventions they use or consciously disregard; the role of geometry in maps and the parallel role of form in writing; how both maps and writing serve to re-create an individual’s view of the world; and the artist’s delicate balance of intuition with intention. A unique combination of history, critical cartography, personal essay, and practical guide to writing, Maps of the Imagination is a book for writers, for readers, and for anyone interested in creativity. Colorful illustrations and Turchi’s insightful observations make his book both beautiful and a joy to read.

Leader of One

Download Leader of One PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781494401368
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (13 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Leader of One by : J. Gerald Suarez, Ph.d.

Download or read book Leader of One written by J. Gerald Suarez, Ph.d. and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complete the following sentences:“I am most energized when . . .”“I have always dreamed of . . .”“I derive joy from . . .”If there is a disconnect between how you completed these statements and the reality of your present situation, then something is getting in the way of you and the future you desire.Most of us actually spend a great deal of time thinking about our future, yet it is something we rarely address in a formal way. Why is it that the very thing we think about so often is something for which we rarely receive guidance? Leader of One: Shaping Your Future through Imagination and Design changes that reality, helping us to envision our future and to take action to make it happen.We have all experienced the widening gap between where we are and where we wish to be. Life, we find, gets in the way. It becomes too easy in this hyper-dynamic world to confuse means with ends, busyness with importance, and activity with progress. We have a living to make after all, or, if we're students, we must prepare to do so. For those of us in mid-career, there appear to be even more obstacles. In time, we discover we have drifted away from whatever it was we were passionate about, unaware that we were forfeiting a future that was ours to claim if only we had known how to unleash the “leader” within.Leader of One tells us how. Through Gerald Suarez's engaging voice, we learn about a process called idealized design, a method first applied in corporations by the renowned Wharton Emeritus Professor Russell Ackoff and his team. Ackoff and Suarez worked together to apply the same methodology in the White House where Suarez served two presidents for over a decade. As an internationally recognized authority on leadership and organizational redesign, Professor Suarez found the process worked as easily in the classroom as it did in the boardroom. What works for large organizations works for individuals as well.The methodology is simple, but the implications are profound. Suarez describes a cycle of activities that begins with the mental creation of an idealized future and ends with its realization. He teaches us how to begin in the future and work backwards to the present, from B to A, so to speak. He has us examine assumptions about who we are and asks us to explore what we value, to “dig deep” for answers. He does not allow us to be passive observers. He requires we learn by doing. It is not enough to dream, we must have the courage to take action. Leader of One is a book to guide us as we move through our days. In one sense it is timeless. Readers will find it invaluable now, but worth revisiting in the years ahead as circumstances change and as new passions take hold.

Goodness and the Literary Imagination

Download Goodness and the Literary Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
ISBN 13 : 0813943639
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (139 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Goodness and the Literary Imagination by : Toni Morrison

Download or read book Goodness and the Literary Imagination written by Toni Morrison and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What exactly is goodness? Where is it found in the literary imagination? Toni Morrison, one of American letters’ greatest voices, pondered these perplexing questions in her celebrated Ingersoll Lecture, delivered at Harvard University in 2012 and published now for the first time in book form. Perhaps because it is overshadowed by the more easily defined evil, goodness often escapes our attention. Recalling many literary examples, from Ahab to Coetzee’s Michael K, Morrison seeks the essence of goodness and ponders its significant place in her writing. She considers the concept in relation to unforgettable characters from her own works of fiction and arrives at conclusions that are both eloquent and edifying. In a lively interview conducted for this book, Morrison further elaborates on her lecture’s ideas, discussing goodness not only in literature but in society and history—particularly black history, which has responded to centuries of brutality with profound creativity. Morrison’s essay is followed by a series of responses by scholars in the fields of religion, ethics, history, and literature to her thoughts on goodness and evil, mercy and love, racism and self-destruction, language and liberation, together with close examination of literary and theoretical expressions from her works. Each of these contributions, written by a scholar of religion, considers the legacy of slavery and how it continues to shape our memories, our complicities, our outcries, our lives, our communities, our literature, and our faith. In addition, the contributors engage the religious orientation in Morrison’s novels so that readers who encounter her many memorable characters such as Sula, Beloved, or Frank Money will learn and appreciate how Morrison’s notions of goodness and mercy also reflect her understanding of the sacred and the human spirit.

The Christian Imagination

Download The Christian Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300163088
Total Pages : 582 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Christian Imagination by : Willie James Jennings

Download or read book The Christian Imagination written by Willie James Jennings and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-05-25 with total page 582 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity's highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies. A probing study of the cultural fragmentation-social, spatial, and racial-that took root in the Western mind, this book shows how Christianity has consistently forged Christian nations rather than encouraging genuine communion between disparate groups and individuals. Weaving together the stories of Zurara, the royal chronicler of Prince Henry, the Jesuit theologian Jose de Acosta, the famed Anglican Bishop John William Colenso, and the former slave writer Olaudah Equiano, Jennings narrates a tale of loss, forgetfulness, and missed opportunities for the transformation of Christian communities. Touching on issues of slavery, geography, Native American history, Jewish-Christian relations, literacy, and translation, he brilliantly exposes how the loss of land and the supersessionist ideas behind the Christian missionary movement are both deeply implicated in the invention of race. Using his bold, creative, and courageous critique to imagine a truly cosmopolitan citizenship that transcends geopolitical, nationalist, ethnic, and racial boundaries, Jennings charts, with great vision, new ways of imagining ourselves, our communities, and the landscapes we inhabit.

Never Say You Can't Survive

Download Never Say You Can't Survive PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Tordotcom
ISBN 13 : 1250800021
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (58 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Never Say You Can't Survive by : Charlie Jane Anders

Download or read book Never Say You Can't Survive written by Charlie Jane Anders and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2022 HUGO AWARD FOR BEST RELATED WORK From Charlie Jane Anders, the award-winning author of novels such as All the Birds in the Sky and The City in the Middle of the Night, this is one of the most practical guides to storytelling that you will ever read. The world is on fire. So tell your story. Things are scary right now. We’re all being swept along by a tidal wave of history, and it’s easy to feel helpless. But we’re not helpless: we have minds, and imaginations, and the ability to visualize other worlds and valiant struggles. And writing can be an act of resistance that reminds us that other futures and other ways of living are possible. Full of memoir, personal anecdote, and insight about how to flourish during the present emergency, Never Say You Can’t Survive is the perfect manual for creativity in unprecedented times. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper

Download Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
ISBN 13 : 0500778434
Total Pages : 459 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by : Alexandra Harris

Download or read book Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper written by Alexandra Harris and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2010 Guardian First Book Award: a groundbreaking reassessment of English cultural life in the thirties and forties. In the 1930s and 1940s, while the battles for modern art and modern society were being fought in Paris and Spain, it seemed to some a betrayal that John Betjeman and John Piper were in love with a provincial world of old churches and tea shops. Alexandra Harris tells a different story: eclectically, passionately, wittily, urgently, English artists were exploring what it meant to be alive at that moment and in England. They showed that “the modern” need not be at war with the past: constructivists and conservatives could work together, and even the Bauhaus émigré László Moholy-Nagy was beguiled into taking photos for Betjeman’s nostalgic An Oxford University Chest. A rich network of personal and cultural encounters was the backdrop for a modern English renaissance. This great imaginative project was shared by writers, painters, gardeners, architects, critics, and composers. Piper abandoned purist abstracts to make collages on the blustery coast; Virginia Woolf wrote in her last novel about a village pageant on a showery summer day. Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, and the Sitwells are also part of the story, along with Bill Brandt and Graham Sutherland, Eric Ravilious and Cecil Beaton.

The Power of Imagination

Download The Power of Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Destiny Image Publishers
ISBN 13 : 0768488125
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (684 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Power of Imagination by : Kerry Kirkwood

Download or read book The Power of Imagination written by Kerry Kirkwood and published by Destiny Image Publishers. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just imagine! Does God want you to use your imagination? Are Christians to turn off their imaginative, creative side when they become mature believers? The answers may surprise you! The Power of Imagination reveals the part of spiritual life that is often shunned or closeted away because it may seem New Age or too unconventional. On the contrary, when believers use their imaginations to see beyond current circumstances into the realm where God paints pictures in their minds, healings are commonplace, goals are accomplished, dreams come true, and victories are celebrated! But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:14-18). You can develop the ability to see as God sees. You can see the future that He planned for you before you were born. Through the power of your God-given imagination, nothing is impossible—no problem too big, no relationship too broken. This exciting new way of living is thoughtfully and biblically presented in a refreshing and empowering way that will keep you imagining for years to come. Topics include: How to Develop a Godly Imagination Supernatural Vision Living from the Inside Out Discerning Vain Imaginations Seeing the Unseen Deep Calls Unto Deep A special chapter is devoted to healing the orphan spirit that can keep people from becoming all God intended for them—walls are identified and torn down, replaced with a beacon of beauty and light shining throughout the spirit, body, and soul. Just imagine!

Black Regions of the Imagination

Download Black Regions of the Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781439909430
Total Pages : 212 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (94 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Black Regions of the Imagination by : Eve Dunbar

Download or read book Black Regions of the Imagination written by Eve Dunbar and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Establishing an imaginative space for blackness, four mid-century American writers resist literary segregation

Toni Morrison

Download Toni Morrison PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118917693
Total Pages : 183 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (189 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Toni Morrison by : Valerie Smith

Download or read book Toni Morrison written by Valerie Smith and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-09-22 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling study explores the inextricable links between the Nobel laureate’s aesthetic practice and her political vision, through an analysis of the key texts as well as her lesser-studied works, books for children, and most recent novels. Offers provocative new insights and a refreshingly original contribution to the scholarship of one of the most important contemporary American writers Analyzes the celebrated fiction of Morrison in relation to her critical writing about the process of reading and writing literature, the relationship between readers and writers, and the cultural contributions of African-American literature Features extended analyses of Morrison’s lesser-known works, most recent novels, and books for children as well as the key texts

Imagination in Place

Download Imagination in Place PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1582436843
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (824 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Imagination in Place by : Wendell Berry

Download or read book Imagination in Place written by Wendell Berry and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2010-01-10 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Berry's latest collection of essays is the reminiscence of a literary life. It is a book that acknowledges a lifetime of intellectual influences, and in doing so, positions Berry more squarely as a cornerstone of American literature . . . A necessary book. Here, Berry's place as the 'grandfather of slow food' or the 'prophet of rural living' is not questioned. This book ensures we understand the depth and breadth of Berry's art.” —San Francisco Chronicle “[A] stellar collection . . . Foodies, architects, transportation engineers, and other writers are adopting and adapting [Berry’s] concepts, perhaps leading to what he envisions will one day be 'an authentic settlement of our country.'“ —The Oregonian A writer who can imagine the “community belonging to its place” is one who has applied his knowledge and citizenship to achieve the goal to which Wendell Berry has always aspired—to be a native to his own local culture. And for Berry, what is “local, fully imagined, becomes universal,” and the “local” is to know one's place and allow the imagination to inspire and instill “a practical respect for what is there besides ourselves." In Imagination in Place, we travel to the local cultures of several writers important to Berry's life and work, from Wallace Stegner's great West and Ernest Gaines' Louisiana plantation life to Donald Hall's New England, and on to the Western frontier as seen through the Far East lens of Gary Snyder. Berry laments today's dispossessed and displaced, those writers and people with no home and no citizenship, but he argues that there is hope for the establishment of new local cultures in both the practical and literary sense. Rich with Berry's personal experience of life as a Kentucky agrarian, the collection includes portraits of a few of America's most imaginative writers, including James Still, Hayden Carruth, Jane Kenyon, John Haines, and several others.

The Environmental Imagination

Download The Environmental Imagination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674262433
Total Pages : 602 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Environmental Imagination by : Lawrence Buell

Download or read book The Environmental Imagination written by Lawrence Buell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1996-09-01 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the environmental crisis comes a crisis of the imagination, a need to find new ways to understand nature and humanity's relation to it. This is the challenge Lawrence Buell takes up in The Environmental Imagination, the most ambitious study to date of how literature represents the natural environment. With Thoreau's Walden as a touchstone, Buell gives us a far-reaching account of environmental perception, the place of nature in the history of western thought, and the consequences for literary scholarship of attempting to imagine a more "ecocentric" way of being. In doing so, he provides a major new understanding of Thoreau's achievement and, at the same time, a profound rethinking of our literary and cultural reflections on nature. The green tradition in American writing commands Buell's special attention, particularly environmental nonfiction from colonial times to the present. In works by writers from Crevecoeur to Wendell Berry, John Muir to Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson to Leslie Silko, Mary Austin to Edward Abbey, he examines enduring environmental themes such as the dream of relinquishment, the personification of the nonhuman, an attentiveness to environmental cycles, a devotion to place, and a prophetic awareness of possible ecocatastrophe. At the center of this study we find an image of Walden as a quest for greater environmental awareness, an impetus and guide for Buell as he develops a new vision of environmental writing and seeks a new way of conceiving the relation between human imagination and environmental actuality in the age of industrialization. Intricate and challenging in its arguments, yet engagingly and elegantly written, The Environmental Imagination is a major work of scholarship, one that establishes a new basis for reading American nature writing.