Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226366098)

In 2010, Philip Marsden, whom Giles Foden has called "one of our most thoughtful travel writers," moved with his family to a rundown farmhouse in the countryside in Cornwall. From the moment he arrived, Marsden found himself fascinated by the landscape around him, and, in particular, by the traces of human history--and of the human relationship to the land--that could be seen all around him. Wanting to experience the idea more fully, he set out to walk across Cornwall, to the evocatively named Land's End.

Rising Ground is a record of that journey, but it is also so much more: a beautifully written meditation on place, nature, and human life that encompasses history, archaeology, geography, and the love of place that suffuses us when we finally find home. Firmly in a storied tradition of English nature writing that stretches from Gilbert White to Helen MacDonald, Rising Ground reveals the ways that places and peoples have interacted over time, from standing stones to footpaths, ancient habitations to modern highways. What does it mean to truly live in a place, and what does it take to understand, and honor, those who lived and died there long before we arrived?

Like the best travel and nature writing, Rising Ground is written with the pace of a contemplative walk, and is rich with insight and a powerful sense of the long skein of years that links us to our ancestors. Marsden's close, loving look at the small patch of earth around him is sure to help you see your own place--and your own home--anew.

Author: Philip Marsden
ISBN-10: 022636609X
ISBN-13: 9780226366098
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 03/25/2016
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 8.60h x 6.00w x 1.00d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2016
Library Journal 02/01/2016 pg. 93
Publishers Weekly 02/15/2016