In an age where so many elected and appointed office holders have, shall we say, less than a sufficient knowledge of the relevant subjects necessary for them to do their respective jobs well, it is difficult to imagine a time when not only were such positions held by people who were not merely competent, they were genuine polymaths, well-versed in matters spanning a range so as to make their modern counterparts seem veritable cartoon characters by comparison.
My review of Timothy Egan’s latest book, The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America, is now available at The Well-read Naturalist.
As long as humankind has walked the Earth, fire has been both its liberator and its nightmare. The same elemental force that enabled our earliest ancestors to put behind them their daylight-limited existence and begin to shape their world in ways beyond their own physical capabilities is also the central theme of our most profound […]