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Description
In five sharply drawn chapters, Flight Maps charts the ways in which Americans have historically made connections--and missed connections--with nature. Beginning with an extraordinary chapter on the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and the accompanying belligerent early view of nature’s inexhaustibility, Price then moves on to discuss the Audubon Society’s founding campaign in the 1890s against the extravagant use of stuffed birds to decorate women’s hats. At the heart of the book is an improbable and extremely witty history of the plastic pink flamingo, perhaps the totem of Artifice and Kitsch--nevertheless a potent symbol through which to plumb our troublesome yet powerful visions of nature. From here the story of the affluent Baby-Boomers begins. Through an examination of the phenomenal success of The Nature Company, TV series such as Northern Exposure and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and the sport-utility vehicle craze, the author ruminates on our very American, very urbanized and suburbanized needs, discontents, and desires for meaningful, yet artificially constructed connections to nature.Witty, at times even whimsical, Flight Maps is also a sophisticated and meditative archaeology of Americans’ very real and uneasy desire to make nature meaningful in their lives.… (more)
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User reviews
The first chapter about the passenger pigeon was extremely poignant - that people thought they could kill massive amounts of the bird and there not be consequences. The thought that the birds were just over the mountain, or in the country next door is mind boggling. In this day and age of the endangered species act, polar bears starving, and cute giant pandas, its hard to think of a time when species extinction wasn't part the collective conscious.
As a book, the author is knowledgeable, and its well researched. But, I think that book is put together for a different audience, in a different time. The topics covered are still valid, but the focus presented in this volume is outdated.
And most aspects of her thesis do fall apart if one substitutes the word
But Wilderness - now *that* truly is Not-Artifice, and Real, and A Place Apart. Those of us who *don't* go to the mall or watch Dr. Quinn or crave an SUV do indeed draw the line firmly and know when we cross it. We don't need Price to help us feel less anxious and ambivalent about our place in modern America; we can navigate our own path.
If you're not sure how green you are, or if you want to redefine yourself in terms of how you treat Mother Earth, read the introduction and last two pages of this. If you're intrigued, read the rest. Otherwise, just keep on doing the best you can.