Why read Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies?

Book cover of Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies: Providence Canyon and the Soils of the South

Book description

Providence Canyon State Park, also known as Georgia's "Little Grand Canyon," preserves a network of massive erosion gullies allegedly caused by poor farming practices during the nineteenth century. It is a park that protects the scenic results of an environmental disaster. While little known today, Providence Canyon enjoyed a modicum…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked Let Us Now Praise Famous Gullies as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Drew A. Swanson

Author

This history of Providence Canyon in southwestern Georgia explores a seemingly ironic state park: one dedicated to preserving a network of massive erosion gullies formed by poor cotton farming. But Providence Canyon is so much more than ironic, as this book beautifully illustrates. Yes, improvident farming harmed the land—as was the case across much of the South—but the spectacular gullies of Stewart County came from the intersection of human abuse and terrifyingly fragile soil structures. And they are somehow sublimely beautiful, despite their grim past. The park is perhaps the perfect place to witness the way in which human and natural actions are always…

From Drew's list on why American parks look the way they do.