"Set aside your Bella Tuscanys and Year in Provences for a different kind of travel book. Pilgrimage to Vallombrosa puts a walking stick in your hand and Marsh"s Man and Nature in your knapsack, exploring how Italians have managed their natural and cultural heritage in ways that sustain both. John Elder"s poetic meditations on land and life demonstrate that only by searching beyond our familiar boundaries can we discover better ways of living back at home." -- Marcus Hall, author of Earth Repair: A Transatlantic History of Environmental Restoration "This collaboration -- between George Perkins Marsh and John Elder, between Vermont and Italy, between maple and olive -- is one of the smartest, soundest, deepest books about the relationship between people and nature that I"ve ever read. It will be a...