Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie

by Dave Hage

ISBN: 9780593447406

Published: 2025-05-27

A vivid portrait of the American prairie, which rivals the rainforest in its biological diversity and, with little notice, is disappearing even faster “This book describes—in loving, living prose—one of the world’s greatest and most important landscapes. And it does so while there’s still time to save some serious part of it.”—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature The North American prairie is an ecological marvel, a lush carpet of grass that stretches to the horizon, and home to some of the nation’s most iconic creatures—bison, elk, wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, and bald eagles. Plants, microbes, and animals together made the grasslands one of the richest ecosystems on Earth and a massive carbon sink, but the constant expansion of agriculture threatens what remains. When European settlers encountered the prairie nearly two hundred years ago, rather than a natural wonder they saw an alien and forbidding place. But with the steel plow, artificial drainage, and fertilizers,...