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Ways of Nature
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- GenresNatureNonfiction
112 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 1989
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About the author
John Burroughs
928 books175 followersIn 1837, naturalist John Burroughs was born on a farm in the Catskills. After teaching, and clerking in government, Burroughs returned to the Catskills, and devoted his life to writing and gardening. He knew Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir and Walt Whitman, writing the first biography of Whitman. Most of his 22 books are collected essays on nature and philosophy. In In The Light of Day (1900) he wrote about his views on religion: "If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go." "When I look up at the starry heavens at night and reflect upon what is it that I really see there, I am constrained to say, 'There is no God' . . . " In his journal dated Feb. 18, 1910, he wrote: "Joy in the universe, and keen curiosity about it all—that has been my religion." He died on his 83rd birthday. The John Burroughs Sanctuary can be found near West Park, N.Y., and his rustic cabin, Slabsides, has been preserved. D. 1921.
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
According to biographers at the American Memory project at the Library of Congress, John Burroughs was the most important practitioner after Henry David Thoreau of that especially American literary genre, the nature essay. By the turn of the 20th century he had become a virtual cultural institution[peacock term] in his own right: the Grand Old Man of Nature at a time when the American romance with the idea of nature, and the American conservation movement, had come fully into their own. His extraordinary popularity and popular visibility were sustained by a prolific stream of essay collections, beginning with Wake-Robin in 1871.
In the words of his biographer Edward Renehan, Burroughs' special identity was less that of a scientific naturalist than that of "a literary naturalist with a duty to record his own unique perceptions of the natural world." The result was a body of work whose perfect resonance with the tone of its cultural moment perhaps explains both its enormous popularity at that time, and its relative obscurity since.
Since his death in 1921, John Burroughs has been commemorated by the John Burroughs Association. The association maintains the John Burroughs Sanctuary in Esopus, New York, a 170 acre plot of land surrounding Slabsides, and awards a medal each year to "the author of a distinguished book of natural history".
Twelve U.S. schools have been named after Burroughs, including public elementary schools in Washington, DC and Minneapolis, Minnesota, public middle schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Los Angeles, California, a public high school in Burbank, California, and a private secondary school, John Burroughs School, in St. Louis, Missouri. Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier National Park is named in his honor.There was a medal named after John Burroughs and the John Burroughs Association publicly recognizes well-written and illustrated natural history publications. Each year the Burroughs medal is awarded to the author of a distinguished book of natural history, with the presentation made during the Association's annual meeting on the first Monday of April.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bur...
http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 9, 2019
This book was interesting as a look into the history of popular science writing. The author around the turn of the last century was a famous naturalist. His friends included Teddy Roosevelt.
In this book he writes about nature but also talks about how society writes about nature. He pushed for science writers to be careful about accuracy. He notes that much nature writing was fanciful, like including talking animals. He says naturalists should write books that are evidence based and use the rigor that scientist use when writing. This reflects the change in how science was being done in the late 1800’s and how society was changing due to scientific and technological advances.
In this book he writes about nature but also talks about how society writes about nature. He pushed for science writers to be careful about accuracy. He notes that much nature writing was fanciful, like including talking animals. He says naturalists should write books that are evidence based and use the rigor that scientist use when writing. This reflects the change in how science was being done in the late 1800’s and how society was changing due to scientific and technological advances.
April 14, 2020
Great book. Just too repetitive. Burroughs' purpose for this book is to fight the idea that animals reason the same as man. He believes animals are far more instinct based than reason based. There is no "school of nature". Animals mostly act via instinct modified through several generations of stimuli.
April 30, 2024
This was a rough introduction to Burroughs. It's a bit of a screed and one in which the claims and conclusions don't hold up particularly well to modern scientific scrutiny.
Additionally, Burroughs' sexism and racism are on full display at several points in this work.
In short, it is a critique of the state of natural science writing of its time (the start of the 20th century), and one in which Burroughs takes great umbrage at any claims that non-human animals have a particularly rich cognitive life. He confesses that animals likely do experience base emotions, but fervently argues that they do not think, calculate, consider, or substantially remember anything. They are, to Burroughs, entities of pure instinct.
I appreciate his drive toward skepticism, as I think this is generally a healthy approach to novel scientific questions, but find that he proclaims a state of certainty about his position that he chides his opponents for wielding themselves. Burroughs claims to know the minds of animals while arguing that writers that differ from his position are wrong to make similar kinds of claims.
Of course, in his day, the technology didn't exist to deeply research the kinds of questions that Burroughs is debating here. But modern research finds that he has erred in his level of certitude and the minds and lives of wild animals are varied and complex, even while we still have many questions about just how deep the thinking of many creatures can be.
Interesting little bit of history here, but not a particularly engaging or informative read more than a century after its time.
Additionally, Burroughs' sexism and racism are on full display at several points in this work.
In short, it is a critique of the state of natural science writing of its time (the start of the 20th century), and one in which Burroughs takes great umbrage at any claims that non-human animals have a particularly rich cognitive life. He confesses that animals likely do experience base emotions, but fervently argues that they do not think, calculate, consider, or substantially remember anything. They are, to Burroughs, entities of pure instinct.
I appreciate his drive toward skepticism, as I think this is generally a healthy approach to novel scientific questions, but find that he proclaims a state of certainty about his position that he chides his opponents for wielding themselves. Burroughs claims to know the minds of animals while arguing that writers that differ from his position are wrong to make similar kinds of claims.
Of course, in his day, the technology didn't exist to deeply research the kinds of questions that Burroughs is debating here. But modern research finds that he has erred in his level of certitude and the minds and lives of wild animals are varied and complex, even while we still have many questions about just how deep the thinking of many creatures can be.
Interesting little bit of history here, but not a particularly engaging or informative read more than a century after its time.
February 23, 2020
This book, written in 1905, builds on a famous essay Burroughs wrote for "The Atlantic Monthly" in 1903, "Real and Sham Natural History." Burroughs, a respected naturalist, took exception with what he saw as the romanticisation of animals in literature, and the tendency to endow them with human characteristics. As he writes at the end of Chapter six of "Ways of Nature": "The tendency to sentimentalise nature has, in our time, largely taken the place of the old tendency to demonise and spiritise it. It is anthropomorphism in another form, less fraught with evil to us, but equally in the way of a clear understanding of the life about us." In this observation he was probably spot on, noting a profound historical shift in the West's views of animals and wildlife. Historians such as Keith Thomas have since pursued this thread and enriched our understanding of cultural and intellectual history in the process. The broad animal rights and aligned movements have their historic roots in this romantic take on nature that Burroughs rallied against, which makes his writing of interest to anyone interested in this field. I have given it a three because of the uneven quality of Burroughs' prose, and his often cantankerous approach.
May 9, 2018
This was quite a slog, but I read it as part of a challenge to learn more about Teddy Roosevelt, who was a contemporary with Burroughs.
Lots of interesting discussion of reason versus instinct and some discussion of whether traits are adaptive (Burroughs is not quick to call things so).
But some pretty racists stuff and also gender issues and really the whole thing could have been perhaps a quarter the length as it is pretty damn redundant.
Lots of interesting discussion of reason versus instinct and some discussion of whether traits are adaptive (Burroughs is not quick to call things so).
But some pretty racists stuff and also gender issues and really the whole thing could have been perhaps a quarter the length as it is pretty damn redundant.
October 9, 2020
1 star. I did not enjoy this book at all, which was disappointing, because my first Burroughs book I loved. However, it was very dull for the most part, and I didn’t even agree with most of his ideas/statements, especially on evolution.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews