Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America

by Jennifer Price and Jennifer Price

Book Overview

In five sharply drawn chapters, Flight Maps charts the ways in which Americans have historically made connections -- and missed connections -- with nature. Beginning with an extraordinary chapter on the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon and the accompanying belligerent early view of nature's inexhaustibility, Price then moves on to discuss the Audubon Society's founding campaign in the 1890s against the extravagant use of stuffed birds to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465024866
• ISBN13: 9780465024865
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

The Nature Company Conflict

Price's book (also her dissertation) starts strong, with a formidably researched essay on the extinction of the passenger pigeon that does none of the usual things: it doesn't dwell on man's brutality, it doesn't eulogize the pigeon. Instead, she very thoughtfully considers the ways in which people USE nature, and why, and explores the mystery (it remains a mystery) of exactly why the passenger pigeons disappeared. Human uses of (and, maybe more importantly, imitations of) nature are the focus of the book. The plastic pink flamingo becomes Price's symbol for our strangely consumerist attitude toward nature. WHY do we have plastic pink flamingos? To Price, they're the most obvious example of "artificial" nature, and they've gone through an amazing range of cultural significance -- from bourgeois lawn ornament to embarrassingly loud "low-income" decoration to hipster accessory. Price dwells on the symbolism of the flamingo more than is strictly necessary. The themes are a little worn by the time we get to her analysis of the the "nature store" phenomenon, all the Natural Wonders and Nature Companies that sprang up in the nineties. Very interesting, but again, her questions have been asked and answered so thoroughly by this time that I, for one, was TOO aware, by the time I finished, that this was a doctoral dissertation and not a book.

Explains our reactions to nature as a commodity

If you think The Nature Company is an oxymoron, Price articulates exactly why that is. If you feel a sense of discomfort in today's society, yet feel vaguely guilty about that discomfort, Price explains that as well. This truly is a fabulous book that will have you thinking (and perhaps even shopping) differently immediately.

Worth every bit!

I found this book on a closeout table at a local bookstore. When I went back to buy more copies for friends, they were all gone! It's really great...Look at some of the chapter headings:"When Women were Women, Men Were Men, and Birds Were Hats", "A Brief Natural History of the Pink Flamingo". "Roadrunners Can't Read". Scoff this up ASAP or you'll regret it! P.Smith, Texas.

it manages to be both thought-provoking and fun to read

It's not often that a book can challenge some ideas you hold near and dear while at the same time leaving you in stiches. A friend of mine insisted I read "Flight Maps"--I'm a confirmed environmentalist/tree-hugger etc., but Price has held up an ideological mirror to me and exposed some of my most treasured assumptions about "pristine nature" along with the contradiction of my consumerist lifestyle (yes, I own an SUV--to drive to the mountains!) coupled with my ecological sensibility. Maybe all that humor made it easier to swallow. In any event, I'm glad I read it. One of those books that really changes your perspective on life.