Futures Studies Economics Ecology

The Great Remembering

Further Thoughts on Land, Soul, and Society

by Peter Forbes Review by David Lorimer, August 2002

Published: 2002
Publisher: Green Books Ltd 2002 95 pp. $14.95
Format: Paperback
Pages: 95

Publisher’s description

The Great Rememberingis an activist's exploration of what land means to our culture. In three chapters, "The Extinction of Experience," "Dissent and Defiance," and "Building a New Commons," the author traces the roots of our disconnection from place and from meaningful stories about our lives. He discusses what he terms the "ethics of enough"--the growing trend to slow down and place the quality of our experiences over the quantity of our possessions. It is through preserving land and rebuilding the relationship between land and people, he argues, that our culture can not only restore natural habitats, but revitalize human communities as well. In his introduction to the book, the Trust for Public Land's president, Will Rogers, writes, "The time has come for some hard questions and new approaches to land conservation. . . the pace of development and the impact of often poorly conceived growth on the American landscape have accelerated. . . How can we rethink our work as conservationists to change how our society approaches not just land use, but also our relationship with each other, our sense of community, and our responsibilities of citizens of a rapidly shrinking world?" Whether we are conservationists or citizens concerned about the quality of our lives and landscapes,The Great Rememberinghelps us begin to answer these questions and to work toward restoring a vital, interdependent, whole-land community. Trust for Public Land's companion book,Our Land, Ourselves(1999), gathered together a diverse collection of readings on the many themes of people and place. Peter Forbes' introductions to those readings suggested a new way of viewing land conservation as the process of building values and shaping human lives. InThe Great Remembering, he goes a step further, arguing that land conservation has the power to transform the heart and soul of our communities and to restore a set of values to a society that is increasingly fragmented and individualistic.

Published by the Trust for Public Land in the US, this book is an activist's account of the meaning of land to our culture. As the author puts it: 'When we have little sense of where we are, we also have little sense of who we are. If both land and people lose what is most unique and irreplaceable about themselves, all of us risk becoming homeless'. Two of the key words of his approach are relationship and listening, leading to a combination of stewardship and forbearance. This is turn leads to specific criteria of success. The book is enhanced by an evocative series of black and white

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