ABSTRACT
I n this book we argue that Americans’ understanding of nature and the natural changed in the years between 1945 and 1975 and that these changes sustained the environmental movement. In the late 1940s a fast-paced urban society looked to its hinterland for a sense of freedom, authenticity, and permanence gained through communion with nature and folk in a rural setting. This world of simple country homes and neatly tilled fields, set in a context of forest, mountain, and meadow, served as a repository for the values Americans left behind in their stormy passage to the modern age. Nature and folk formed a unified whole, and contemplating this union promised a sense of freedom and authenticity.
