Analyzing Romantic conservative critiques of modernity found in literature, philosophy, natural history, and agricultural periodicals, this book finds a common theme in the 'intergenerational imagination.' This impels an environmental ethic in which obligations to past and future generations shape decisions about inherited culture and land.

Katey Castellano is Associate Professor of English at James Madison University in Virginia, USA. She is the author of articles published in SubStance, Partial Answers, Romanticism on the Net, and Papers on Language and Literature. Currently, she is working on a book about Romantic period commons.