Postmodern Wetlands

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Summary: Author's Reply
Review: I am at pains to distinguish two strands within the western tradition - that of the canon (only 2 n's in canon) such as Dante and Milton who theologise and demonise the wetland as a place of evil and that of the counter-tradition of Thoreau, indigenous Australians and contemporary writers like Graham Swift and Coraghessan Boyle who see the wetland as both life-giving and death-dealing.

The range and scope of the book is hardly narrow and stilted when it takes in medical, military and social history, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism, and literature and philosophy spanning 2000 years.

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Summary: Is this guy serious?
Review: I have never been so disappointed in a book. I bought this book hoping to read an intelligent review of the role of wetlands throughout history. Instead I got a load of psychological babble that had nothing to do with wetlands and had everything to do with the author's apparent need to use all the big words he learned in college. If you want to read about wetland culture, history, and ecology I suggest you find another book.

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Summary: postmodern wetlands: culture, history, ecology
Review: In this book, the author argues that the wetland has been poorly understood and little apreciated in traditional western culture. He follows this well sourced piont with a common argument of late for critics of western culture: we have projected our ignorant fears and prejudice onto a now degraded natural resource. As a result we have done great harm to our continued growth in understanding as well as the world around us. Whith the increasing importance of ecological thought this is an important time to culturaly rehabilitate our view of the wetland. However, Giblit appears to be using the same classical sources that previously vilified the wetland to somehow rehabilitate it in western thought. To make his argument that the wetland should be culturaly valued in the west stick, Giblit needs to expand his range outside the narrowly confined perspectives he investigates for this book. The presintation of wetland narrative in the western cannon the author undertakes is well studied, helpfull and timely. Yet the analisys of what this narative means for wetlands in the postmodern age seems stilted and slightly lame because of its narrow scope.

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Summary: Fascinating discussion of changing human value of wetlands
Review: This book describes changing attitudes about wetlands over the centuries based on their cultural values. It explains how the world's wetlands got to the sad shape they are in today - and why. Giblett explores the cultural and literary mythology that tagged swamps and marshes as hideouts for the boogey-man and the "Creature from the Black Lagoon." (Remember the "Creature" sprang from the mind of man, not from a swamp.) I believe that understanding where we came from is cruicial to understanding - and changing - where we are going. This book demonstrates how and why humans of different ages and cultures assigned values to wetlands, and why destroying them was seen as a mark of civilization - a civic duty. Without dicussing the evirnomental issues specifically, it teaches the reader that wetlands have a value apart from that which western man assigns - this is their timeless value. This is scholarly writing that requires concentration and thought, but is well worth the effort. Anyone interested in environmental issues and fascinated at how our perception of "nature" has changed and is changing will appreciate this book.