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WHERE WE BELONG: Beyond Abstraction in Perceiving Nature

by Paul Shepard Edited by Florence Rose Shepard

Foreword by Kenneth Helphand published by University of Georgia

Press 2003

Gathered here in book form for the first time, these fourteen essays

exemplify Paul Shepard's interdisciplinary approach to human interaction with

the natural world. Drawn from his entire career and presented chronologically,

these pieces vary in setting from the Hudson River to the American prairie

to New Zealand. Alluding to a range of sources from Star Trek to Marshall

McLuhan to the Bible, these writings discuss such topics as the geomorphology

of New England landscape painting, beautification and conservation projects,

the Oregon Trail and tourism.

Other News

The summer 2002 issue of Wild Earth magazine includes an essay adapted from Dave
Foreman's preface to the new edition of Man in the Landscape, an essay by Paul
Shepard ("Wilderness is Where My Genome Lives") and other essays partly inspired by
Paul Shepard's work. Wild Earth Vol. 12 #2 . pp. 33-37.

"To Hunt" in BUGLE Vol. 16, #4 July-August 1999 pp.45-6.

Scholars now have access to Paul Shepard's papers at the Sterling Library at Yale
University. For contents, access the Sterling Library at

Links

Paul Shepard returned repeatedly to
his guiding theme, the central tenet
of his thought: that our essential
human nature is a product of our
genetic heritage, formed through
thousands of years of evolution
during the Pleistocene epoch, and
that the current subversion of that
Pleistocene heritage lies at the heart
of today's ecological and social ills.

Coming Home to the Pleistocene
provides the fullest explanation of
that theme. Completed just before his
death in the summer of 1996, it
represents the culmination of Paul
Shepard's life work and constitutes
the clearest, most accessible
expression of his ideas.