The Bones of the Earth - Hardcover

Mansfield, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 159376040X ISBN 13: 9781593760403

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2004

Synopsis

The Bones of The Earth is a book about landmarks, but of the oldest kind—sticks and stones. For millennia this is all there was: sticks and stones, dirt and trees, animals and people, the sky by day and night. The Lord spoke through burning bushes, through lightning and oaks. Trees and rocks and water were holy. They are commodities today and that is part of our disquiet.

Howard Mansfield explores the loss of cultural memory, asking: What is the past? How do we construct that past? Is it possible to preserve the past as a vital force for the future? He writes eloquently on the land and time, on how to be a tourist of the near-at-hand, and on the forces that try to topple us. From the author of In the Memory House, which The New York Times Book Review called "wise and beautiful," and The Same Ax, Twice comes The Bones of The Earth, a stunning call for reinventing our view of the future.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Advance Praise:

"Howard Mansfield has never writtenan uninteresting or dull sentence. All of his books are emotionally andintellectually nourishing. He is something like a cultural psychologist alongwith being a first-class cultural historian. He is humane, witty,bright-minded, and rigorously intelligent. He and his wife rescued the doomedrunt of a litter of pigs and raised it to be the 175-pound Mr. Hogwood, aliving symbol of Howard Mansfield's care for the American, New England, historyhe writes so well about. His deep subject is Time: how we deal with it and howit deals with us. This beautiful book is about Time and Rocks."
--Guy Davenport, author of The Death of Picasso

"A profound curiosity and a rare humanity underlie the elegant work ofHoward Mansfield. He is a master sleuth, an invested listener, a credible andcompassionate guide to our future and our past. He is a writer I read becausethere is real wisdom in his words, because there's nobody else in thisgeneration who writes so meaningfully about what really matters in the Americanlandscape."
--Beth Kephart, author of A Slant of Sun

From the Inside Flap

In Part One of The Bones of the Earth, "Axis Mundi," Howard Mansfield writesabout how we choose the landmarks of our home place. He explores our allegianceto stone in the monuments of grief, and in unusual old bridges on back roads,which were built without mortar: "One part ancient engineering, one partfarmer's wall." He visits monuments minor (prized walking canes), unexpected(radio telescopes), and famous (the Washington Elm, whose story is wrong aboutthe facts, but right about the truth).

Part Two, "Flaneurs," teaches us to be tourists of the near-at-hand, lookingclose to home at changes in the land both man-made and natural. And in PartThree, "Rpm," Mansfield describes the forces that topple our original axismundi, unsettling us and the land as building booms and asphalt connect peoplein unexpected ways.

Howard Mansfield explores the loss of cultural memory, asking: What is thepast? How do we construct that past? Is it possible to preserve the past as avital force for the future? Eloquently written, The Bones of the Earth is astunning call for reinventing our view of the future.

Edition details

• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 159376040X
• ISBN 13: 9781593760403
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240