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Chasing Eden: A Book of Seekers
Chasing Eden is about seekers, Americans searching for their Eden, longing for a Promised Land, a utopia somewhere out on the horizon. With his usual deep perception, humor, and grace, Howard Mansfield writes about “a small gathering of Americans” united by longing and devotion in their search for something perfect here on earth, a goal that is ever receding. Mansfield illuminates how this longing—for God, for freedom, for peace—can be found in every era, and gives form and force to our lives in our pursuit of happiness—“the primary occupation of every American.”
- GenresHistory
216 pages, Paperback
Published October 12, 2021
4 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
Howard Mansfield
34 books38 followersHoward Mansfield sifts through the commonplace and the forgotten to discover stories that tell us about ourselves and our place in the world. He writes about history, architecture, and preservation.
He is the author of thirteen books, including In the Memory House, of which The Hungry Mind Review said, “Now and then an idea suddenly bursts into flame, as if by spontaneous combustion. One instance is the recent explosion of American books about the idea of place… But the best of them, the deepest, the widest-ranging, the most provocative and eloquent is Howard Mansfield’s In the Memory House.”
Among his other books are Turn & Jump, The Bones of the Earth and The Same Ax, Twice, which The New York Times said was “filled with insight and eloquence. A memorable, readable, brilliant book on an important subject. It is a book filled with quotable wisdom.”
“Howard Mansfield has never written an uninteresting or dull sentence. All of his books are emotionally and intellectually nourishing,” said the writer and critic Guy Davenport. “He is something like a cultural psychologist along with being a first-class cultural historian. He is humane, witty, bright-minded, and rigorously intelligent. His deep subject is Time: how we deal with it and how it deals with us.”
His most recent book, Chasing Eden: A Book of Seekers, is about Americans seeking their Promised Land, their utopia out on the horizon — which by definition, is ever receding before us.
In Chasing Eden we meet a gathering of Americans – the Shakers in the twilight of their utopia; the Wampanoags confronting the Pilgrims; the God-besotted landscape painters who taught Americans that in wilderness was Eden; and 40,000 Africans newly freed from slavery granted 40 acres and a mule – only to be swiftly dispossessed. These and other seekers were on the road to find out, all united by their longing to find in America “a revolution of the spirit.”
His forthcoming book, I Will Tell No War Stories, is a little different for Mansfield.
Shortly before his father died, he was cleaning out the old family home when he found a small, folded set of pages that had sat in a drawer for 65 years. It was a short journal of the bombing missions he had flown. He had no idea he’d kept this record. Airmen were forbidden to keep diaries.
He quickly read through it, drank it down in a gulp. Some of the missions he flew were harrowing, marked by attacking fighters, anti-aircraft cannon blowing holes in his plane, and wounding crewmen. They had limped back to England flying on three of the four engines with another engine threatening to quit. He’d seen bombers blown out of the sky, exploding into nothing – ten men, eighteen tons of aluminum with tons more of high explosives and fuel: Just gone. And they had to fly on.
His father, like most men of his generation, refused to talk about the war.
I Will Tell No War Stories is about undoing the forgetting in Mansfield's family and in a society that has hidden the horrors and cataclysm of a world at war. Some part of that forgetting was necessary for the veterans, otherwise how could they come home, how could they find peace?
I Will Tell No War Stories is, finally, about learning to live with history, a theme he has explored in some of my earlier books like In the Memory House and The Same Ax, Twice.
Mansfield has contributed to The New York Times, American Heritage, The Washington Post, Historic Preservation, The Threepenny Review, Yankee and other publications.
He is the author of thirteen books, including In the Memory House, of which The Hungry Mind Review said, “Now and then an idea suddenly bursts into flame, as if by spontaneous combustion. One instance is the recent explosion of American books about the idea of place… But the best of them, the deepest, the widest-ranging, the most provocative and eloquent is Howard Mansfield’s In the Memory House.”
Among his other books are Turn & Jump, The Bones of the Earth and The Same Ax, Twice, which The New York Times said was “filled with insight and eloquence. A memorable, readable, brilliant book on an important subject. It is a book filled with quotable wisdom.”
“Howard Mansfield has never written an uninteresting or dull sentence. All of his books are emotionally and intellectually nourishing,” said the writer and critic Guy Davenport. “He is something like a cultural psychologist along with being a first-class cultural historian. He is humane, witty, bright-minded, and rigorously intelligent. His deep subject is Time: how we deal with it and how it deals with us.”
His most recent book, Chasing Eden: A Book of Seekers, is about Americans seeking their Promised Land, their utopia out on the horizon — which by definition, is ever receding before us.
In Chasing Eden we meet a gathering of Americans – the Shakers in the twilight of their utopia; the Wampanoags confronting the Pilgrims; the God-besotted landscape painters who taught Americans that in wilderness was Eden; and 40,000 Africans newly freed from slavery granted 40 acres and a mule – only to be swiftly dispossessed. These and other seekers were on the road to find out, all united by their longing to find in America “a revolution of the spirit.”
His forthcoming book, I Will Tell No War Stories, is a little different for Mansfield.
Shortly before his father died, he was cleaning out the old family home when he found a small, folded set of pages that had sat in a drawer for 65 years. It was a short journal of the bombing missions he had flown. He had no idea he’d kept this record. Airmen were forbidden to keep diaries.
He quickly read through it, drank it down in a gulp. Some of the missions he flew were harrowing, marked by attacking fighters, anti-aircraft cannon blowing holes in his plane, and wounding crewmen. They had limped back to England flying on three of the four engines with another engine threatening to quit. He’d seen bombers blown out of the sky, exploding into nothing – ten men, eighteen tons of aluminum with tons more of high explosives and fuel: Just gone. And they had to fly on.
His father, like most men of his generation, refused to talk about the war.
I Will Tell No War Stories is about undoing the forgetting in Mansfield's family and in a society that has hidden the horrors and cataclysm of a world at war. Some part of that forgetting was necessary for the veterans, otherwise how could they come home, how could they find peace?
I Will Tell No War Stories is, finally, about learning to live with history, a theme he has explored in some of my earlier books like In the Memory House and The Same Ax, Twice.
Mansfield has contributed to The New York Times, American Heritage, The Washington Post, Historic Preservation, The Threepenny Review, Yankee and other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 30, 2022
I wanted to give this book 4 stars in the beginning. Even though I thought the title was completely misplaced and the book was not at all what I expected, I was enjoying the stories immensely. The enjoyment dwindled to 3 stars and the way it ended brought me to two and a half stars. The last
story just ended...no conclusion, no summary, no tying it all in. Just a sad, angry ending. (Since half isn't an option, I can't give it two stars because the stories and the writing were great - just not what I was expected.)
Given the description on the book jacket, I thought I'd be reading about spiritual exploration and unique life experiences. There was some of that for sure, but there most of it was recounting awful moments in history such as slavery and imperialism. Not the type of "seeking" I was expecting.
Nice book; just didn't deliver as promised in my opinion.
story just ended...no conclusion, no summary, no tying it all in. Just a sad, angry ending. (Since half isn't an option, I can't give it two stars because the stories and the writing were great - just not what I was expected.)
Given the description on the book jacket, I thought I'd be reading about spiritual exploration and unique life experiences. There was some of that for sure, but there most of it was recounting awful moments in history such as slavery and imperialism. Not the type of "seeking" I was expecting.
Nice book; just didn't deliver as promised in my opinion.
December 11, 2022
This is another fine collection of essays by Howard Mansfield, this time centered around the idea of seeking: Seeking god(s), autonomy, freedom, peace, and more. My favorite chapter in the book is one that comes out of left-field. In it, Mansfield takes a trip into his own past to show us some scenes from his time as a boy and young man, growing up in a Long Island suburb in Post-WWII America. It is thoughtful, nostalgic, and personal, and for someone like me, who isn’t all that much younger than Mansfield, sounds very familiar. My only quibble with this book is that there is one small section that was lifted verbatim from an earlier Mansfield book, Turn & Jump. Once again, however, I thoroughly enjoyed reading him.
November 17, 2021
An excerpt in Yankee Magazine about the Canterbury Shakers lead me to read this book, and I found much to like and much to ponder, The building of the auto road to the top of Mt. Washington, race and medicine in New Hampshire in the 1950s, betrayal of trust in relation to Native Americans in New England, and in the post Civil War era in the South. Thoughtful, gentle and compassionate in tone, stories most of us have never heard. Glad I stumbled on this.
November 2, 2021
If you are seeking more of the story this a great place to start. Should be read at the high school level to spark conversation and to challege traditional history teachings. There is room for everyone at the table just grab another chair ❤️
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September 11, 2022A book of loosely connected historically focussed essays of seekers — of God, of freedom, of peace. I got to the end and wondered why there was no ending chapter of final thoughts or why there was no attempt to link the various ideas together.
January 31, 2023
Excellent book on the theme of 'living a better life' ... centered on the history of New Hampshire and several periods of history and social, artistic, political, and spiritual issues that come home to roost.
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June 15, 2022Scobie Pond Book Club
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews