In A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold presents a series of portraits of nature and the natural landscape, coupled with related musings on life, the environment, and man's place in this world. The approach taken is not dissimilar to a tradition in American literature extending back through such writers as Emerson and Thoreau. both of whom also used observations of nature to glean philosophical and practical knowledge of themselves and their world. In the Preface to the Enlarged Edition, the author's children note that the book was originally published in 1949 after Leopold's death and that much of what he discusses in this book, offering his insight into the American landscape and to our need to preserve and enjoy it, has passed into common currency, though much distorted. In 1966 when this edition was published, roadside beautification had replaced "the harmony between man and land that Aldo Leopold knew and taught" (xiv). The younger Leopolds write:
The America that declares the preservation of natural beauty to be public policy is at the same time planning to build dams in two areas of great natural value. Bills are now before Congress to construct power dams in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado that would essentially kill the living river and flood a large part of this unique natural heritage (xiv).
Leopold places himself right from the start with those who cannot live without wild things, and these are the things that are disappearing in a world where progress means doing away with the wild. Leopold sees himself as a member of the minority that wants to maintain the wild things of this world. He finds a certain dichotomy in progress. Before we had progressed to the point where we could raise enough food and produce sufficient shelter and clothing for our protection, the wild things had little human value. Once we had progressed to a stage where we were fed, clothed, and housed and where we could have these things ...