A Land (Concord Library) - Softcover

Hawkes, Jacquetta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807085111 ISBN 13: 9780807085110

Publisher: Beacon Press, 1991

Synopsis

A pioneering work of modern nature writing; a natural history of the author's beloved British Isles that inhabits a lush territory somewhere between science and poetry.

About this title

About the Author

Jacquetta Hawkes (1910-1996), English-born writer, anthropologist and archaeologist, was best known for her documentation of the beautiful British Isles in A Land. She attended Newnham College and traveled on archeology expeditions to various locations, including Palestine and other parts of England. Her other publications include A Woman as Great as the World, Journey Down a Rainbow, The First Great Civilizations: Life in Mesopotamia, and A Quest for Love.

From Publishers Weekly

These ``recollections'' of the geological formation of Britain comprise that rarity--a scientific account written with verve and personable elegance. Archaeologist Hawkes makes riveting as epic fiction the snail's-pace transformation of the island from seabed to tropic to glacial region, from towering mountains to farmland. Along the way, she muses: ``What could be more youthful than England in April? It has taken three thousand million years to create that youthfulness, those fierce young buds and frail eggs . . . .'' In discussing the critical development of life's awareness of itself, she underscores her view of the close links between prehistory and civilization: ``Nothing but some fifteen hundred million years separates the first pieces of life from Proust,'' whom she envisions as a ``naked nerve at the centre of a trembling web of remembered consciousness.'' In conclusion, she denounces the ravages wreaked by massive industrialization on both the land and the human spirit and mounts an eloquent plea for a return to a holistic philosophy. This welcome reissue of a work originally published in 1952 and long out of print includes a map of Britain, not seen by PW .

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0807085111
• ISBN 13: 9780807085110
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 268