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BEAVERLAND reveals the natural wonder and largely unsung story of the beaver-its long-term impact on American history and landscapes, and its importance in restoring balance and biodiversity amidst the ongoing climate crisis.  In the rich naturalist tradition of H is for Hawk and The Soul of an Octopus, BEAVERLAND tells the tumultuous, eye-opening story of how beavers and the beaver fur trade shaped America's history, culture, and environment. Before the American empires of steel and coal and oil, before the railroads, there was the empire of fur. Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver's profound influence on our nation's early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires.



About the Author

Leila Philip

Leila Philip, creative nonfiction, is the author of A Family Place (SUNY, 2009) and The Road Through Miyama (Random House, 1989) , which won the PEN 1990 Martha Albrand Citation for Nonfiction. She has received awards for her writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. (from



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