In this book, Tim Dee tells the story of four green fields spread around the world: their grasses, their hedges, their birds, their skies, and both their natural and human histories. These four fields—walkable, mappable, man-made, mowable, knowable, but also secretive, mysterious, wild, contested, and changing—play central roles in the sweeping panorama of world history and in the lives of individuals.
In Dee’s telling, a field is never just a setting for great battles or natural disasters, though it is often this as well. A field is the oldest and simplest and truest measure of what a man needs in life, especially when looked at, contemplated, worked in, lived with, and written about.
by Tim Dee
Counterpoint, 2015
The Nature Pages
Nature Writing and Natural Histories
Book Notes Wild
